ARTIST OF THE MONTH

VIVEICK RAJAGOPALAN Artist of the Month:

How did Ta Dhom project come about? So, Ta Dhom Project was a personal journey of a different kind for me. I think, classical music for years has been restricted within a certain boundary if I may say so. I started teaching rhythm, konnakol to young rappers who rap in their native languages. They had never heard carnatic music before and it was quite a journey of sharing this traditional knowledge of rhythm with them. There are more kids who are keen to learn and its the love with which they learn that makes it all worth it. I have always believed that to be original you just need to be "you" and don't have to copy the west or the east or anyone else for that matter. If the rappers learnt the Indian system of rhythm, they can use it to write in different flows and also explore time signatures and that was the motivation for them too. I also envisioned the possibilities of using the sound of the mridangam, but approaching it like a drummer to create grooves and that’s how this project manifested. and not "names or surnames" . We also got covered by BBC World Service on Arts hour, BBC 3 and BBC asian network ,which I am so grateful for. It feels great when the music that you create gets appreciated on its merit.

Tell us about your experience at Womex & Womad WOMEX is an exhibition where artists, booking agents, publishers etc come and it is one of the biggest music exhibitions that happen. I found out about it in 2008 when I released by first album ‘Moving Images’ and wanted to go, but it’s very expensive. The first joy happened when we were selected amongst the top 18, out of approx.3000 applications. I am grateful that I found sponsors to get us there. The audience is from the industry and you actually get briefed about how tough it is to please that audience. It was through our WOMEX performance that we got invited to Womad, Shambala and a few other festivals

Can you tell us about SUNOH Almost 4 years ago, my partner Aishwarya Natarajan and I started SUNOH. It’s basically a brand audio consulting firm.

How was your experience touring Europe and taking your music worldwide? I got a chance to take Ta Dhom project to Europe. It was on my bucket list to perform at Womad and another big festival, Shambala. When the invitation happened, I was in seventh heaven. It was in many ways a dream come true. Whenever I think about it even now, it feels surreal and seeing the mridangam take centre stage was another hidden dream that i saw come alive. Taking the rappers and presenting them on big stages was something that I desired from the bottom of my heart, and that happened too. Thankfully, in these festivals, it’s the music that matters For me personally its an extension of my passion towards music and sound. I have done about 300 Advertisements in my career. One of the reasons that this felt like a need in the industry, came from the fact that the brief would be very vague and you could say that there was no audio strategy as such. But when it came to colors they were particular about their logo, fonts and so on. So we started working on how a brand can actually have an Audio DNA ,and a scalable audio strategy. We now also have Tyuns™, a proprietary tool which can show you options of musical notes to build your scale/ raga ,by just using the R G B of the color of the brand.

Styles and Types of Music in India Part 1 ADITI SARAWAGI

India is a country full of diversity and as diverse is the culture in every corner of the country, so is its music. Each state speaks a different language and has a distinctive form of music indigenous to it. Every style of music has a unique sound and Indian Music is acknowledged worldwide for this. Starting this month, in a two-part series, the focus will be on the different styles and types of music in India.

Hindustani Music and Carnatic Music Indian classical music has been broadly divided into Hindustani and Carnatic music. Hindustani music is essentially the music of northern India which has been influenced by music from Persia and Central Asia. Carnatic Music is the classical music of southern India. The overall structure of Carnatic music is similar to that of Hindustani Music in the sense that both have ragas but the rhythms and musical instruments are different. Carnatic Music lays emphasis on vocal music which is more open to improvisation. Purandara Dasa is considered to be the Father of Carnatic Music. Annamayya is the first known composer of Carnatic music. The Trinity of Carnatic music, also known as The Three Jewels of Carnatic music, refer to the exceptional trio of composermusicians of Carnatic music in the 18th century, being Tyagaraja, Muthuswami Dikshitar and Syama Sastri. Music from the north or Hindustani Music can be divided into classical music which includes dhamar, tarana, sadra and semi-classical music which includes vocal styles like dadra, ghazal, qawwali and thumri. Dhrupad is an austere form of classical singing and playing which is widely associated with the famous Mughal singer Tansen. Instruments used are tanpura and pakhawaj barrel drum. Khayal is a form of classical singing not as rigid as Dhrupad-the singer mainly concentrates on the

notes of the raga and improvises the structure. Khayals are considered as Hindustani semi-classical pieces. Thumri is another fixture of Hindustani semi-classical music. It evolved in the 19th century by Nawab Wajid Ali Shah and is an emotional style known for its lyrical strains. It is more accessible than dhrupad or khayal and is associated with the kathak dance form. Thumri is sung in a literary dialect of Hindi called Braj Bhasha. Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan and Begum Akhtar are well known connoisseurs of this form of music. Dadri, Hori, Chaiti, Kajri and Jhool are all sub-genres of Thumri. Qawwali is a kind of Sufi devotional music which has a fast-paced style of singing. Developed in the thirteenth century, it is basically performing Sufi poetry to music. Qawwali songs are based on spiritual Sufi poems usually depicting the relationship between a higher being and man or between humans. Qawwali has a very distinct sound, is easily recognizable and is quite popular too. The origin of qawwali is attributed to Amir Khusrau, a Sufi poet and composer who is also known to have invented the sitar and the tabla. His poems form the centre point of Qawwali. A ghazal is originally more poetic in form than musical and is based on both folk melodies and ragas with rhyming couplets. It is an ancient music form with its origin in Arabic poetry. Essential elements found in ghazals are shayari or love poems often taken from Urdu poetry and transformed into ghazals with slow paced music. Classical music is part of the rich heritage of India and apart from the above mentioned broad based categories, there are other varied types of Indian music as well. In the second part of this series we will look into those other forms which are part of the huge Indian music repertoire.