Sad Day for the music lovers

The Great Violin Maestro Lalgudi G.Jayaraman is no more.The music world has lost one of its pioneer.This year has seen the loss of two great violinists Shri.M.S.Gopalakrishnan and Shri Lalgudi.G.Jayaraman.I would like to share some of my thoughts on Lalgudi mama's violin.I still remember leaning the Ramanee samanamevaru(Karaharapriya ragam) piece from his recordings.The sangathis were mindblowing.I played the very same song in a thyagaraja concert.Though I could not do full justice to the song ,I was proud that I had the previlage of playing the same sangathis what the great maestro himself has recorded.

Lalgudi mama will always be with us through his compositions.I still remember playing the Mohanakalyani Thillana  when I was just 12 years.Till today I try to attain the perfection of the sangatis in the same thillana!

May his soul rest in peace and he will still continue to be part of our life through the music.....

Essence or ragam vasantha

      Ragam vasantha has many beautiful compositons to its credit.I was recently listening to seethamma mayamma by Thyagaraja swamigal and Ramchandram Bhavayami by dikshitar .Both the compositons are in the same raaga and I could find a distinct similarity in the way both the kritis were handled.It was soulful without much complicated sangatis.Even a first time performer can render these kritis with aplomb.The raagam doesn't have the panjamam that is the swaram PA.Most notable film songs include minsara khanna from the movie padayappa.
       The way Rahman handled the raagam was fantastic.Someone without the knowledge of karnatic music can relate the swarams handled in the later part of the song.

Unnai kanadhu naan in raagam dwijavanthi

I loved the recent Sankar Mahadevan's composition of unnai kanadhu naan from the movie Vishwaroopam.The song was tuned in one of the most beautiful raaga's dwijavanthi.Very happy to hear such a soulful composition after a long time.
Dwijavanthi raaga has several compositons both in carnatic and Hindustani classical.The most famous krithi is "Akhilandeshwari Rakshamam"by Muthuswami dikshitar.MS amma has given the song more soul through her wonderful renditions.

Scale and the raaga equivalent of the titanic song "My heart will go on"

    I was recently doing some comparisons between the Indian classical and western classical for a school program.The song I took was My heart will go on from titanic.I found the scale of the song was F major.But when I was looking into the raaga aspect I could see that it had most of it part in the raaga sankarabharanam except for the note B flat which is of course B natural for sankarabharanam. Going by the scale pattern of F major its raaga equivalent is Harikamboji which is of course the janyam of sankarabharanam.

    The equivalent of sankarabharanam in western scale is the C major scale.Almost all the notes are similar for F and C major scales except for the note B which is Flat in case of F major and  natural in case of C major.

    After doing various analysis I found the melody was sankarabharanam in most part with a touch of Harikamboji.
   

Keep going Rajasthan Royals!

Rajasthan Royals have scored a remarkable victory over Kolkata Knight Riders.The bowlers have really complemented well.Once again it was Kevon Cooper who was among wickets for the RR.What a performer Cooper is turning out to be for the Royals!His last year IPL stint was cut short by injury.We hope to see more of him in this season...Well done team.

My first post

I am a first time blogger.I am an Engineer and a musician.