7/1/2023 0 Comments Register tunesmith![]() When he reviewed it a little later, he felt it was missing something. He then re-tuned it to the Kambhoji it is currently set in which, he thinks, does better justice to the ‘ veera rasa’ (courage/bravery) it portrays. Until he set each to its final form, Arun Prakash was continually making changes and refining all the tunes he came up with.Īrun Prakash believes that a composition should, on the one hand, evoke recognition and familiarity of the ragam it has been set to whilst, on the other, have some unique tuning aspects that bring forth some unexpected colour that sets it apart. In the transference of the words themselves to the tune, it was critical for Arun Prakash to ensure fidelity to their enunciation and the maintenance of normal spoken intonation. The sanctity of the lyric as authored is crucial, he says, and believes that a tunesmith’s obligation includes NOT using the artistic license excuse to stretch or split words even slightly outside of common parlance. “Even without music, each word has a sound independently.” This added another layer of thought, and complexity, in actually setting each word, in fact, each syllable, to tune within its selected ragam. Sundaravalli Ammal with her grandson, Dr. He brings out an interesting point referencing Sundaravalli Ammal’s piece ‘ ennEramum Sayanam dhAno‘ which means “Is it sleep for you all the time?” referring to God’s seeming procrastination in matters that deserve more immediate attention. This, he says, is a very different feel from the popular Devagandhari song ‘ ennEramum undan sannidiyile naan irukka vEnDum aiyaa’ where Gopalakrishna Bharati says he wishes to always be in the Lord’s presence. Even though the first word of both pieces is the same, it was very important, says Arun Prakash, for him to forget the latter well-known and familiar song and convey Sundaravalli Ammal’s different thoughts in the tune that he set. ![]() Sure enough, this composition, set to Sahana, crystallises, and reinforces, the sentiment that she seems to be conveying. He tuned the ten pieces in just about ten days, working whenever he got some spare time. Akin to how sommeliers and chocolatiers give patrons palate cleansers before tasting the next variant, Arun Prakash consciously avoided working on multiple pieces on the same day to avoid the internalised flavour of one corrupting the other even unwittingly. ![]()
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