tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951570112842053779.post5452721027397595959..comments2024-03-22T11:05:14.272+01:00Comments on Oriental Traditional Music from LPs & Cassettes: Krishnarao Shankar Pandit (1893-1989) - A great singer of the Gwalior Gharana - Ragas Multani, Bhupali & MalgunjiTawfiqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00332824027946814674noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951570112842053779.post-9341041834752914652017-10-06T22:21:29.793+02:002017-10-06T22:21:29.793+02:00Dear Guillermo, thank you very much for your very ...Dear Guillermo, thank you very much for your very interesting observations, though quite analytical. I tend not to analyse music very much. Often I can't put things correctly into words, especially not after just having listened to it very recently. For me it takes many years or even decades to taste and really appreciate a music. Sometimes it is also a process due to unexpected sudden openings which completely change my perception of a given artist.<br />My impression is that you struggle with Krishnarao Shankar Pandit. It is music difficult to digest, for sure. But have patience and relisten the same music after a couple of weeks or months or even years and if you don't give up one day you will have real understanding of an artist or a piece of music. But of course there are also certain singers or musicians which don't fit into one's spiritual and emotional world view. Quite a number of famous and revered Indian musicians and especially singers even after decades I still don't like really. There way of making music is foreign to me. I don't feel the way they feel.<br />Again thank you very much for sharing your views. Very much appreciated indeed.Tawfiqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00332824027946814674noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951570112842053779.post-70025602609805329302017-10-06T21:11:48.086+02:002017-10-06T21:11:48.086+02:003) In some sense, Mansur's, Paluskar's, Kr...3) In some sense, Mansur's, Paluskar's, Krishnarao's voices are concerned with infinity. But different kinds of infinity. The formers form an infiniteness of sameness, while the latter produces "manyness" of infiniteness of differences.<br /><br />I was just trying to get into these ideas, so I attributed this peculiarity of Krishnarao's voice to the dumb spontaneous thinking that it should be due to age reasons, declining of powers and so on. Too much empirical considerations, and narrow-minded ones. Definitely, I would not know how to explain the causes of his so peculiar way of singing, better to say: of voicing. I hold it has nothing to do with his tradition, school, discipline, ways, style... Nor I think it may be attained by "long, ardous deliberation", because it seems to me it overcomes conscient choices.<br /><br />I have been too long. Just wanted to make clear my reasons for you, who gently asked me for them, and for me, who needed to meditate on the aesthetical experience this music has granted me.<br /><br />Thank you, Tawfiq, may you be blissful.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951570112842053779.post-24106260025778803782017-10-06T21:11:10.586+02:002017-10-06T21:11:10.586+02:002) A harsh surface unpolished... that is Krishnara...2) A harsh surface unpolished... that is Krishnarao for me. When I listen at him -and I am in the must of recalling I have not a trained ear-, I hear an "old" voice. By an old voice I mean the voice of an aged person and by no way an outdated nor démodé voice. On the surface of Krishnarao's voice something rests which is not conveyed by the most skillful rendition of musical phrases. This "something" I call clumsily an "old" voice. Because it lies out of music, it lies in his voice, in what in his voice is not devoted at the service of a musical rendition. Let me try to explain it. Music is an arrangement of sounds. Since sounds do not come from nowhere, they have to be produced, they must be "sounded". Which requires a physical device we call "instrument", which can be humans throat and mouth. If you sound your voice, it will ring or peal or jingle perhaps in the way a sound sounds, I mean you'll play "mouthly" ut, re, mi... But those sounds happen in the self of your voice. A such self of their voices I find in Mansur and Paluskar, while in Krishnarao I hear a voice gone out of a voice gone out of a voice gone out of a voice... So, in some sense, I hear in his voice it carries on a music rich and full of nuances and perfectness of virtuosity; nevertheles a voice who also carries on an-Other of itself, a darker one, then an-Other more, this one as coarsened skin, then even an-Other, labored this one by long living I cannot imagine, and so on. It is a voice of a voice of a voice folded and unfolded at every note, at each fragment of the rendition. Which I tried to say by saying "micro-textures".<br /><br />Let me try to explain it one more time. "Micro-texture" makes me think immediately of fractals. Fractal voices are those or seem to me be those of Mansur and Paluskar, in this sense: I take a piece of their voices and "stare" at it and contemplate it easy and in a detailed way, as if I had a microscope in my ears: I see or listen a steady constant form in the micro-vision which coincides perfectly with what I could see or listen in their voices' surfaces: just like fractals. But lo! I turn to Krishnarao and I do proceed in an equal way to contemplate his voice from the "macro" level to the "micro" level, and, behold!, I do not see the same thing, the same shape, the same "meaning" repeated in a tiny way. Which I try to say by talking about the "harshness" of Krishnarao.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951570112842053779.post-17416933559275912452017-10-06T21:10:16.216+02:002017-10-06T21:10:16.216+02:00Hmmm.... I will give you my reasons, but please no...Hmmm.... I will give you my reasons, but please note I am unlearned in music, I am unable to read a partition, to recognize the structure of a raga -I am just starting to listen oriental music, mostly thanks to your blog-, or to shape in my mind a definite form of, let us say, a Mozart's sonata -a very mechanical and predictable music-.<br /><br />1) I have listened many times three albums by Mallikarjun Mansur you have posted here: the very first post of this blog "Mallikarjun Mansur" (1968), "Sings rare and complex ragas" (1978) and "A Doyen of the Gwalior..." (1988), which succeed one to another curiously in sequences of ten years. It makes thirty years. And... I could not say Mansur's voice is absolutely equally "preserved" from an album to another, I notice it "grows old". It is nevertheless astonishing how it is constant in its texture. I could not tell the age of such a singer for the 1978 album, obviously he has the voice of a mature person; but when I come to the 1988 album... I am still not able to tell his age. It is like his voice had some golden steady resonance, a solid one, a kind of a constant aura out of time, a beaming one but not of a young one. <br /><br />Before Mansur, I downloaded the two albums by D. V. Paluskar -wich I simply adored-. I noticed he trespassed at 33 or 34, so it was evident for me he should have been quite young when he recorded these ragas. And so he had a voice of his age, a baby's voice if I could say so, a pretty smooth one, like if it had been polished, a polished piece of precious metal crafted, something like a mirror mirroring "le soleil bas taché d'horreurs mystiques" (Rimbaud). Not horrors in truth, but wonders...!<br /><br />In fact, Paluskar's voice could not have been "polished". If you do polish something, you are meaning it had a harsh surface that you make soft.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951570112842053779.post-922625876191927182017-10-06T14:26:17.185+02:002017-10-06T14:26:17.185+02:00He passed away in 1989. I guess that these recordi...He passed away in 1989. I guess that these recordings are from the1960s or 1970s. His only studio LP was released in 1970.<br />But just curious why you ask? What are the reasons behind?Tawfiqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00332824027946814674noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951570112842053779.post-68718137413593416372017-10-06T14:08:10.385+02:002017-10-06T14:08:10.385+02:00Anybody has any idea concerning these recordings d...Anybody has any idea concerning these recordings date? It seems to my un-educated ear a somewhat old voice, a rich one in micro-textures anyhow...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951570112842053779.post-34074992291675499212017-10-06T04:50:24.469+02:002017-10-06T04:50:24.469+02:00True: virtuosity and conservatism -not in a bad se...True: virtuosity and conservatism -not in a bad sense-. The texts introducing the download help to understand it better. It is worth a try.<br /><br />Thanks, Tawfiq<br /><br />: )Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951570112842053779.post-61929883789120552732017-10-04T05:38:08.764+02:002017-10-04T05:38:08.764+02:00Tawfiq Saheb - The blog has hit a new milestone wi...Tawfiq Saheb - The blog has hit a new milestone with this absolutely wonderful share! I think most major artists from every Great Gharana now has a presence on this most amazing blog.<br />BTW, love the additional context provided by the Gwalior Gharana Tree.<br /><br />Keep up the great work!!<br /><br />Kirannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951570112842053779.post-51554510059597783762017-10-03T20:02:53.984+02:002017-10-03T20:02:53.984+02:00I am really shocked , what a wonderful collection ...I am really shocked , what a wonderful collection you have.<br />Your love and service for indian classical music is amazing.<br />Thanks for sharing your treasure with all the lovers across the world.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com