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Transient Thoughts

Saturday, September 23, 2017

God bless the Indian musical tradition

Got a pleasant surprise this morning. Was looking for Meenakshi Memudam on youtube - and found a rendition by T. M Krishna. Wonderfully fresh, precise, innovative and high quality. I though he was an old master, listening to him, but then found some videos on YouTube - it turns out they are a bunch of young musicians - dark hair on every head, shiny silk clothes - the singer, on the mridangam, the violin, and even the Ghatam!  A bit of the jamming element to it...The singer seems to be playing a football game with the mridangam and ghatam players, and romancing the violin playeress, and in another video the tanpura playeress seems quite smitten.  But... like I said, they perform like old masters. The Indian musical tradition continues... so heartening.

I am not putting in any links here. If you are interested just do a quick search for T. M. Krishna. Highly recommended: Meenakshi Memudam, Endharo Mahanubhavulu, Baro Krishnayya...

The Meenakshi Memudam rendition itself.... quite gripping... Speaks of Genius, the composer Dikshiktar's I mean...a compelling, all consuming talent, that devours the person so graced, to do nothing but that, at the cost of everything else. A super-tuned high-Q system, again I mean the composer. Is it just probability, or is it occasional divine intervention? How closely Indian music is tied to divinity - so much so that the practice of it is considered devotion to God.... a scared calling, well worth the sacrifice of materialistic pursuits,  maybe more than that...

Music maybe the best of human creations - with the exception of antibiotics perhaps.

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