Re: sur

Date: Wed, 05 Feb 2003 20:13:33 GMT
Newsgroups: rec.music.indian.misc
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Hi Arun-
Some thoughts on your post.
"Arun Iyengar" <email-address-deleted> wrote in message
news:2Pk%9.47366$email-address-deleted...
>
> With those things out of the way, let's dive in, shall we? Every
composition
> has a pitch (some have more than one but it's not necessary to get into
that
> for the current discussion) and every letter in every word in the song has
> its intended place(s) in the sur ladder (more exceptions here when a
singer
> intentionally breaches it for variety of reasons). Setting aside all other
> aspects of singing for a while, solely from the sur point of view, a
singer
> distinguishes himself/herself with the level of accuracy he/she can match
> the sur all the way in the song. To be more precise, it is how closely you
> hammer it at its exact places. All other things being equal, my
observation
> has been that female singers in HFM and south indian films (mainly post
50s
> kannada and and post 60s tamil, not enough data with me for telugu and
> hardly any data for malayalam) have fared better than their male
> counterparts. This definitely doesn't imply that top notch male singers
have
> been besur.
Instead of a point, you might define this as a "region". I agree that
females have done better than males on this count.
> Now, one of the easy places to test this is at the trailing note in a
mukdha
> or antara. It gets easier if the trailing note holds on at the same note
(no
> meend) for a while (no short notes). It gets even easier if the trailing
> note is on a sam. You see all of these in "duur jaanaa naa " in Lata's
> baa.Ndh priiti phuul Dor. If you were to plot frequency vs time for the
> duration of "naa" you would get a straight line and a pretty good one at
> that.
Though I am not so familiar with this song, I disagree slightly with the
straight line analogy as the defining model. Much as Indian musicians talk
about how notes should not waver, etc., singing a note with an even, regular
vibrato does not have to mean it is less in tune. This is a device that both
sounds good in the right proportion AND has been used repeatedly by our top
singers. In the vibrato case, you might model this as some tightly periodic
function, maybe a sinusoid. It is hard to set up absolute limits, but
amplitude and periodicity of the "sinusoid" must should be within certain
tolerances to not sound "besur" or absolutely unpleasant.
> Now you can also test sur with longer trailing notes other than sam as
well
> as shorter trailing notes both of which are not difficult either. But
> shorter notes in between words could sometimes be tricky as are notes in
> between murkis. Other places to test are mandara and taara notes where
some
> singers just don't get there well enough or they just about barely manage
to
> brush it or don't hold it for long.
True, but the "holding it for long" can be either by default or by
intention.
> Let's take an example to illustrate some of this. Take the CR composition
> mere jiivan me.n kiraN ban ke bikharanewaale by Asha and Manna de. Notice
> how Manna says bolo tum kaun ho. Note the "ho" in both its variations. Is
he
> besur? No. Does he hold onto the note well enough? Does he land on the
note
> well? He can do better. How you ask? You don't have to go far to get an
> answer. Now listen to Asha saying "ho". Notice how she lands on it with
near
> perfection and notice how she holds onto it so well. Let's move on to the
> antara. Notice the little murki at "varadaan" that Asha delivers and
compare
> it with Manna's "pahachaan". Notice the difference? Nitpicking you say?
> Sure. We are talking about perfection in sur here aren't we? The bar is
set
> high here, very high. We are not talking about amateurs or even some of
the
> current day professionals. You are holding them up against the likes of
Lata
> and Asha. These little things are what separates them from the rest of the
> field in sur.
>
> Now regarding male singers, I haven't found this level of sur pakad by any
> of the ones I have mentioned. Whether you blame it on his quivering voice
or
> something else, Talat can't hold a note, period.
Um, what means "hold" a note? If you mean sing it hard and flat (vocal tone,
not pitch), a la Mukesh, yes you are right, but this does *not* IMO say
anything about Talat's "sur" abilities. When the vibrato carries him "out of
sur bounds" (as in later renditions), yes I agree that does not speak well
of the rendition, and it becomes disturbing. Anil Biswas, among his other
endorsements of Talat, feels that while his voice quivers, it never became
"separate" from the "sur".
>
> Yesudas excels every now and then but he is still a tad below the level of
> Lata/Asha/Janaki.
No debate here, but...
> Listen to his kaa karoon sajani and you see both the good
> and bad elements of his singing from the sur standpoint.
I'd say his Malayalam/Tamil old stuff gives a better picture..."Koondalile
Megham Vandu" for one.
> He starts off
> really well but screws up repeatedly at "aae na baalam" at "aae" and "khoj
> rahii hai.n piyaa" at "piyaa".
What would you have him do differently? IIRC, his note is not a straight
line, but I don't recall him "screwing up" - maybe an inflection. I'll try
to listen to that again.
>
> SPB can be really good but spoils the sur intentionally many times.
Not better than Yesudas though (maybe that's not what you meant).
> nilave vaa
>
> http://www.musicindiaonline.com/music/l/WW000C0N
Here I'm puzzled...I know this song, and find it to be a very nice song
overall, but I don't find it at all exceptional on the "sur" count. I think
he has done other songs better (e.g. "Aval Oru Navarasa")
> Now to throw some confusion into the mix, K.Bhasyam an eminent carnatic
> vocalist from Coimbatore who happens to be related to me has this to say
> about sur. "You have learnt half of music, when you realize that none of
the
> swaras are in their proper places". Case in point. In raga mohana (bhoop
in
> hindustani) take the swara sangathi "dha sa dha pa ga ri sa ri". If you
> religiously follow swara sthaanas you would want to put them in their
proper
> places mechanically. But when you add "bhava" to a composition, you do the
> opposite. You drag the swara from its natural place and yet maintain the
> raga. So you would start sa from dha's place and take it to sa, just
gently
> caress it and bring it back to dha. Veena players would instantly
recognize
> this variation as you could literally see this happen in front of your
eyes.
> So hitting the notes is important but adding bhava to the composition is
> probably more important.
The above definition of "sur" as the "shruti-shuddhata"/"mechanical" part
breaks down some here. I think it's an overall behavioral thing that covers
(usually) more. In some cases, hitting the note in its "mechanical" place is
considered just wrong (e.g. the Ga of Carnatic Todi - if you sing it as the
"flat" Komal Ga as Balamurali has done on occasion, you get flack for not
oscillating widely between Ma and Re while saying "Ga"). In that case,
you're not lacking in sur, but actually closer to desired "sur" behavior
when intoning this (oscillating) way.
Even in film songs, "mechanically correct" placement of notes does not
always mean "sur". I think "'sur" also refers to a general grace and
understanding of context in which notes occur, resulting in a intoning a
particular way in relation to notes above and below.
Wow, that's pretty messy now.
Sanjeev