MUSIC

Music is the essence of human being’s cultural evolution. There is a scene in Mel Brook’s film A Brief History of World where he portrays how music was born – A cave dweller accidentally drops a stone on another’s leg and he gives a yelp. Flash! The music conductor in the caveman takes over and the next scene we see a line of people one holding a rock and other showing the leg. The conductor wields a bone ( baton!) and the moment he downs it, the rock holder drops the rock on the leg of the other the other yells or shouts or screams. Thus according to Mel Brooks music was born.

The film was supposed to be a comedy – not to be taken seriously – however I found that the idea of music fascinating. Ancient man must have been wondering what to do with his voice which he must have thought only for shouts and grunts and screams. When he found out that he could modulate his voice he must have been shell shocked. My own pet theory of how music formed part of mankind is that earlier human beings must have started imitating the voices animals and birds – birds especially because that is where the noise is different.

Our country India is famous for two forms of music viz. Hindustani and Carnatic. The word Hindustani may mean to an outsider that the whole country is adopting that style but this is restricted to northern Indian states. And Carnatic music is restricted to four southern states of Karnataka, Andhrapradesh, Kerala and Tamilnadu.

There is a place called Thanjavur in Tamilnadu where this music was given full patronage. Gradually it spread out to many other places. Now Chennai the capital of Tamilnadu is also considered the Capital of Carnatic music of India. No other city in India boasts of concerts in Carnatic music throughout the year. The December season in Chennai attracts fans from across the worlds.

Carnatic music in present form has been given shape by Purandara Dasa of Karnataka and the three greatest contemporaries whom the entire Carnatic wolrd adores are Saint Thyagaraja, Muthuswamy Dikshidhar and Shyama Shastry.

An interesting development nowadays is that Carnatic Music is getting famous in the US where in many parts of the country lots of concerts are organized. Annual Thyagaraja Aradhana in Cleveland is one of them. In fact we had our own man from the west who learnt and performed concerts in Carnatic Music. His name was (Late) John Higgins and he captured our music so well we affectionately called him Higgins Bhagavathar.

A detailed information on Carnatic music can be obtained in Wikipedia.