Part time or Pastime

Part-time or Pastime

ANIL SRINIVASAN



I had emails from several readers requesting me to keep my columns simpler and less serious, and so I decided to start this week's piece on a different subject. And so I focus on myself, and why I have come to love music more than anything else in the world. This is an easy topic for me to be humorous about, but extremely difficult to write nonetheless. So hopefully, some of those confessions might make you all think of the role music has had to play in your own lives. So here goes.



I am 31 years old. I am reasonably bright, and I like well-ordered things, drinking tea at odd hours and reading a lot. I went abroad and had the benefit of a great education. Unlike many of my peers, I decided to come back as soon as I finished my education. The energy Chennai has managed to create is irresistible, as only those who have come rushing back will know. I make music, teach and consult, and am considered fairly competent on all of those things. More importantly, I love every one of these activities and engage in them whole-heartedly. So far, so good.



At a conference last year, I was among many musicians registering dissent when a prominent classical musician announced to the gallery that those involved in anything less than a 24 hour pursuit of classical music ought not to call themselves musicians. Those who straddled music alongside careers in the corporate world were "hobby musicians" or "pastimers", she argued. Perhaps this is true to some extent, considering the economic sacrifices many of the greatest musical names through history have made in favour of a full-time dedication to the one thing they adored. But "pastimers" as a descriptor refused to sit well with me, and this leads me to the crux of today's essay.



The pursuit of music, regardless of the time one devotes to it, requires seriousness on the part of the executor. It commands absolute surrender. Music is seldom an "outcome", and this becomes evident the moment my fingers start moving on the keys. It becomes a journey with several routes to traverse, unexpected surprises assaulting one's consciousness at every turn. To the listener, this particular set of notes may resemble a composition but to me, it is always an exploration into the unknown. I am barely conscious of what I am playing. As in meditation, I can only focus on the breathing. In this case, it becomes the unguided automaticity of skin on enamel, finger on key, heart on string. An outcome happens to get crafted at the end of the exercise. I often surprise myself when I listen to recordings of my playing as I rarely remember specific phrases or patterns I have played.



On the flip side, I actually find that my life in the "outside world" often helps in this process of musical discovery. To me, my parallel pursuits offer a different perspective on structures, emotionality and form. For instance, at a concert in Bangalore with Chitravina Ravikiran, I found myself harmonizing a certain phrase in contrary progressions – a system of chords in which the intervals between any two concurrently played notes of a single chord increase progressively ( so, the main melodic note is accompanied first by a note on the third place from it, then the fourth from it and so on in the right hand (i.e. 1-3, 1-4, 1-5…) while the left hand starts with the seventh note from the initial note and comes progressively closer(7-1, 6-1, 5-1 etc.). When I thought about this later, it struck me that this idea for harmonics came from studying a bar chart at work, when two histograms of opposing rates of growth had been juxtaposed against each other. This was not a premeditated idea, merely an unconscious application of my wandering mind.



Every time I approach my instrument, I set off reflexes that have become conditioned with time and age. I feel nervousness, excitement and a rush of adrenalin without having to control these processes. These reflexes are unmarred by anything that I do while not actively engaging with music. On the contrary, the human interactivity and enforced adaptability of other domains provides me immense relief, a balanced perspective and increasingly, some interesting ideas.



I do not say this to exhort those engaged in music full-time to apply for corporate jobs. With due respect, all I submit for consideration is the possibility that a life that constantly travels between domains absorbs many good things from each of these domains. Osmosis is integral to my performance in the non-musical realm as well. I often find that my approach to decision making in business has benefited greatly from my daily musical routine.



Ellington once said that there are two kinds of music in this world, the good kind and what he humorously termed "the other" kind. Whether music is part-time or pastime, I think the only hope for every musician (and only a musician knows himself to be who he is!) is to avoid making the latter!

Copyright The New Sunday Express

Another article from The Hindu, Trichy

A funny but interesting read.

http://www.thehindu.com/2008/06/05/stories/2008060557640200.htm

Raagtime from Mint

Samanth, a good friend and old New York hand ( dare I call him that!) wrote this article. I am deeply honoured by comparisons to some of the greatest Carnatic musicians of our time.

http://www.livemint.com/2008/05/17000008/Change-and-Continuity.html?d=1

Rock Pianists and World Change

Rock pianists and world change
Saturday May 31 2008 19:19 IST

Anil Srinivasan

We will need to believe in our music, enjoy and engage in its splendours before we are well equipped to have our way with humanity’s ears

As a student of social psychology, I have had the privilege of attending lectures by the famous Tory Higgins. In his first lecture, he taught us how a theory can be attacked. At the outset, he said, one has to believe the theory and hold it close to one’s heart. Only when the theory sounds utterly convincing and absolutely impossible to defeat, he added, does the situation prove conducive to rip it apart completely. He finished that particular argument by adding that disemboweling a theory requires utter faith and belief in it in the first place. He illustrated his point by discussing a friend of his who studied in a seminary school for years before declaring himself an atheist.

This is a powerful thought and it helps in my approach to composition and pedagogy within classical music. To understand classicism, and more importantly, to work ‘around’ the classical idiom requires the greatest belief in its principles and a profound reverence for its tenets. Once drenched, it becomes easier to collaborate with artists from other idioms and figure out excursions outside established norms.

Recently, I heard a transformative piece of work on a friend’s stereo. The artist was Maksim, an internationally renowned ‘rock’ pianist. While this may sound like a contrary juxtaposition of words, the music of this Croatian sensation seems to traverse genres as smoothly as my friend’s car along a traffic-free expressway. The composition is the well-known Flight of the Bumblebee by Rimsky Korsakov, except that this particular rendition does not seem like the original. Here is a pianist trained at the best conservatories in Europe, winner of several classical piano competitions and perhaps one of the fastest movers on a keyboard (yes, he is faster than Adnan Sami!). And unlike the many classical pianists I have encountered in New York cafes and music circuits, I see absolutely no listlessness or stuffy resignation in either Maksim’s personality or his style of playing. This is a pianist who dresses and looks like a rock star, takes classical compositions out of their original shells and sculpts them into power-packed, faster-paced bubbles of locomotive energy. Suddenly, a Brahms intermezzo is making me want to hit the dance floor, an idea that is not really as absurd as it sounds!

World over, the tastes of the youth are described as mercurial and rebellious. Maksim has hit that particular vibration with calculated precision. The same lips that spouted Jay Z, Bjork or DMX are suddenly discussing Brahms and Chopin. It has taken Maksim years of ‘believing’ in the classical idiom to turn rebel, uproot the classical repertory from its foundations and turn it on its head. The result is music that is irresistible.

This article is certainly not meant as a campaign for free experimentation. On the contrary, I wonder if musicians and audiences, especially those who favour ‘fusion’ have taken the time to believe in the original idiom of their choice completely, be it classical or otherwise. Has there been an attempt to penetrate to the very soul of their respective tradition before the experimentation has begun? If they did so, I believe that entirely new genres can emerge, captivate audiences and even draw them towards music that are otherwise difficult to relate to (like in Maksim’s case). “Rock Piano” can be as exhilarating as “Jazz Violin” or even “Classical Bebop”, provided that their respective proponents have been arduous students who managed to get their homework right. True musicians have been endowed with a gift truly beyond the ordinary. This gift, however, comes with a serious responsibility of taking the existing musical lexicon and enlarging it meaningfully.

I often hear friends and music lovers complain of a dearth of ‘really good new music’ or even of the low quality of the current ‘fusion’ artists. If this is really true, I suppose we are facing a sad situation. I choose to believe in the contrary, simply because I believe that our generation has the capacity for immense creativity. And by that, I mean that we have the capacity to ‘create’ new genres, and not merely experiment with the old ones. We can produce output that is truly new, adding to the world's output of music and taking the boundaries forward, just as we continue to achieve all this in medicine or science.

However, we must first ‘believe’ in the existing repository of music and regale in its splendours. Thus equipped, I do not think there is anything stopping us from changing what the world is listening to!

Anil Srinivasan
Copyright New Indian Express

Growing up with TMK

There are two of us. It is a warm morning, and all I remember is dust floating in the air as I see the rays of the sun, refracted by the glass in the car window, as it makes its way into the back seat. I am sitting with my cousin. As always, I am sulking wistfully while my cousin is characteristically upbeat and jumping more than I would like. I am about to start voicing my irritation to our respective parents in the front seat when, all of a sudden, without warning, my cousin starts to sing. And, suddenly, the sunshine takes an altogether different meaning and I understand, for the first time in my life, what it means to be transfixed. The composition is Gajavadana in Hamsadhwani. Of course, at the time, I do not know either the name of the piece or the raga. All I know is that my cousin has just won himself an undyingly loyal fan. What I do not realise at the time, and continue to marvel at, is that this talented cousin of mine would grow up to become TM Krishna, one of the most celebrated Carnatic musicians today.

Through the years, I have seen Krishna grow from strength to strength, gaining both in stature and vidwat. Starting with the Spirit of Unity concert at the age of 12, Krishna has gone on to perform in numerous concert venues across the world. The awards he has amassed are many, keeping pace with the rapid strides in the development of his musical expression. And my own musical journey as a classical pianist seems to have followed Krishna’s, slowing down a pace due to my other responsibilities as an academic and as a consultant, as though adding a staggered harmonic layer to a vibrant, sonorous melodic line. Through heartbreak, celebration and mayhem, we have tried to be true to a happy resonance we both discovered in the music of our childhood.

Another freeze-frame. My cousin is sitting on a tiny stool near my piano, barely reaching the height of the keys when seated. There is a party in progress and unmindful of anyone in the vicinity, he starts to sing the opening lines to Sujana Jeevana in Kamas. I start to play along with him, but stop soon enough. I am so fascinated by this composition, and I start to cry. Unknowingly, but keeping pace with the steady 3/4 rhythm.

We are now in the present. I am walking through a freezing blizzard in New York, engulfed by a hooded parka. The sidewalk is bare, framed by a winterscape that I can hardly see, inhibited as I am by both the north wind and the cumbersome attire. I naturally have my iPod to keep me company. I am listening to a raga alapana in Kamas sung by my cousin when I feel the warmth of my tears as they well up and caress my cheek. The delicacy of that Madras evening nearly two decades ago comes flooding back, and I weep at the legacy my cousin’s music has created.

Music is the earliest sensation I can remember. More than touch, sense or smell, the seductive drone of the tanpura and the magical movement of keys on the piano in the nursery have informed my processing of all things that have come to pass since then. And ever since I can remember, my life has been punctuated by music of different kinds. Snatches of a phrase from Sivan’s Srinivasa in Hamsanandi are among the first ‘improvisations’ I have attempted along with my grounding in early Mozart minuets. And no memory of childhood is complete without the music made by this very special member of the family. The awe continues. As do the pirouettes the mind makes when listening to particular phrases rendered with a tremendous amount of verve in his kutcheris wherever they may be. Indeed, growing up with Krishna has been one of the most significant influences in the development of my own sound.

Someone once told me that the word “Krishna” comes from the Sanskrit term for “that which draws everything in”, just like the colour black. With his swashbuckling style, grandeur of mannerism and vocal expression, Krishna manages to be the point of reference in any conversation he chooses to be part of. I have often heard him be described in similar terms with respect to his stage behaviour. His unbeatable levels of energy, zest for living on the edge and ability to provoke increase by the year, and I watch with quiet amusement at his ability to command centrestage in each endeavour he undertakes. To me, none of this is new. It began with a delectable rendition in Kamas many lifetimes ago, and I only see my cousin being himself. Brash, even arrogant, but overwhelmingly sincere.

Rather than view this article as a biased dedication to a cousin I admire, I think of it as a challenge to distinguish the good from the bad, and view Krishna’s legacy from a balanced perspective, however hard it may be to achieve. As a classical musician, I am able to observe Krishna’s clarity of thought. His concerts are examples of elegant classicism, with a balanced repertoire consisting of complex musical patterns framed by emotive power. Each note is well-rounded, rendered by a voice that is wholesome and sculpted to near-perfection. His exaggerated stage mannerisms notwithstanding, there is an electricity in the air when he is performing, palpable and overwhelmingly alive.

There are lessons in this to me, I believe, as I prepare to foray deeper into unknown territory. And these are lessons that I find applicable to anyone consumed with the desire to create. Like the need to take a risk with oneself. Boldly and sometimes in the absence of reasoned logic. And of course, the ability to surrender oneself almost single-mindedly to the process, trusting in it enough to take care of one’s raison d’etre. Or to stand by one’s beliefs in the face of daunting criticism.

Krishna has become the language with which I interpret many musical structures in my ongoing journey towards finding my own sound. Every so often I stop and pause, aware that my sound is transforming who I am, and absorbing varied influences that the conscious mind does not recognise. These are my moments of truth, ‘points of inflection’ in my musical trajectory. And each of these moments is a return to Krishna’s music.

As I write this, my feet automatically lead me to a concert by Krishna. And the experience of childhood and a return to musical innocence begins all over again. At the end of the concert, I find my identity returned to me. Emboldened, I step out into the cheery sunshine outside, aware that my music will be transformed forever.

Copyright New Indian Express

A Dedication

This article is a dedication to Morris Holbrook. He was a professor at Columbia Business School and taught me to appreciate music holistically. I will always hold him as a prime example of someone who learnt to juggle music with academics, and did both with so much grace. And thought nothing of the sacrifices one makes in the spheres without in order to pursue one's passion whole-heartedly.



Professor Holbrook did a series of studies on music, mostly to understand the role music plays in shaping the way most of us think and feel about things non-musical. He once told me that the found that most adults form their "preferences" for musical styles and formats in their early to mid twenties. Knowing fully well of scores of relatives who took to appreciating classical music well into their forties, I questioned that observation until he gently guided me through the reasoning of the human mind in its quest to categorize musical stimuli early. I do not remember how that particular conversation went, but we discussed one possibility. We reasoned that the groove perhaps gets set much earlier than we realize. The understanding of "concepts" and "spiritual connect" happens much later. In effect, our minds quickly become comfortable with the structural characteristics of a preferred music form much earlier than the 'emotional' meanings associated with it, which in turn are affected by life situations and experiences as the years roll on. A fascinating idea.



As I think back to the musical styles, songs, artists and records that I treasure the most, I realize that the music I heard while taking the commuter train to work in Mumbai shares pride of place with the concerts I had attended at the time, all of which happened in my early twenties! I had started listening to Carnatic music at the time, a preference that has now burgeoned into a dangerous obsession. I had also started listening to Miles Davis and for some inexplicable reason, to Cat Stevens. And I hoarded my Ilaiyaraja "mixed tapes" like a smuggler with new-found gold. Musical favourites that continue to dictate my life, evaluations of other artists and styles.



And this brings me to the next observation, which is perhaps an important one. I see the young India emerge with a swagger, confident and unfettered by constraints. They march to a rhythm that is unquestionably rooted in our cultural identity, and yet keep themselves porous enough to admit influences from other worlds. Musically, this is an exciting phase of life to be in. I am yet to see someone under the age of thirty who does not compulsively listen to music of some form. Be it classical, pop, jazz, reggae, and of course the ubiquitous "film" music, the young Indian is far more exposed to every style and format, aided by the combined might of the recording industry and the information highway .



In this milieu, it is important for musicians from all genres to realize that the new collective is forming "grooves" that they will perhaps stick to listening to even in their older years. As a musician, I can see that this is perhaps a responsibility, and also a position of tremendous privilege. It is a call to communicate to younger audiences more meaningfully, developing a dialogue that will deepen their interest in, and their craving for, music that is both contemporary and representative of a cultural identity that they are proud to espouse.



It is also a call for more "composers" and creators of original sound. As ever, I maintain that the younger India is endowed with tremendous creativity, and are capable of pushing forward the repository of musical content we currently enjoy. New sounds that reflect individual compositional style should be judiciously interwoven with themes that reflect today's mood and preferences. And this does not mean resorting to the sort of risqué lyricism that predominates popular music. Traditions can be retold with grace, stories that embody our cultural heritage can be vocalized through younger and new perspectives equally well.



When I think of Professor Holbrook sitting in his office at the business school, playing jazz on his makeshift keyboard suite, I think of the word "bliss". There is a secret to all this, he used to say - to be able to understand the vagaries of the corporate world, make sense of academic politics and maintain one's passion for a language that goes beyond the corporeal requires the perfect balance. It requires being able to understand ancient stories but tell them in a way that is entirely new, infusing old themes with entirely new music and push forward the envelope boldly. And keeping one's focus on the young people, for they will decide what will become of the world we know. It is this focus that will keep the music we make from going out of style!
ANIL SRINIVASAN

Copyright New Indian Express

Piano, Writing and Just About Going Nuts

Its late at night. Its rumination time, and I am the lead singer here. And I am accompanied on raindrops by a lazy Madras downpour.

I have always been a reader and snoop. And decided to put thought to spot, idea to blog, and begin typing away.

So here I am. Occasionally, my mutterings find their way into a regular column for the Express, and I unleash that on anyone who cares to read them here as well.

Happy to be a part of this world.