Propagating Indian Music Culture through Fusion
Understanding the nuances of fusion in the context of Indian Music
Culture is an integral part of any nation, organization or institution. Professor Edgar Schein, in the context of an organization, aptly remarks,
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast”
An organization’s culture is a crucial element that binds its employees to work towards what the company envisions. Any amount of strategy or planning will just not reap the best results unless the culture element is tended to. Culture is that one common string of belief that stitches everyone to a single fabric of ideology and identity. Pull that string and everything will simply fall out. Culture in the context of a country is very similar to that of an organization. It is something that truly identifies the people of one community and something towards which the people feel a sense of belonging.
Today, in India we are experiencing the wave of westernization which has diluted our true cultural identity and our ancient art. The western influence has touched upon every aspect of our lives and in order to even make an attempt to foster and revive what’s truly ours, we must be honest with ourselves. Western music, trends and practices garner a lot of attention from our people due to its sheer attractiveness and novelty. As humans, we inherently tend to crave something new. And in today’s fast-paced world, everything has a very short lifetime. Change is indeed the true constant. And in order to cater to this kind of a dynamic generation, our art and culture must evolve to adapt and take shape to remain relevant in today’s context. This is where the concept of fusion slips in.
Fusion is believed to have set foot in Indian Music with Ustad Ali Akbar Khan’s Sarod recital in 1955. But it was only in the 1960s-70s when Fusion Music manifested its true form in Indian Music. Since then our music has come a long way. Starting from a stronghold of classical music tradition in the Indian cinema, we have breezed through years of Retro Music, Pop Music, Contemporary Music, Lite Music, Rap Music and Electronic Music. Today, Bollywood Music has emerged as a new genre in itself! One has the pleasure of listening to the soothing voices of artists like Bombay Jayashree and Unnikrishnan in both the world of lite music as well as at the classical music front. With a platter of a musical variety that we hear today, what has really stayed with us is what adapted to the booming technology and culture shift.
Today, many artists question the effects of what fusion with the west has actually left behind on our art. Fusion with an ulterior motive of making Indian art contemporary and relevant amongst the youth of the nation while connecting them to the original art itself seems to have lost its true meaning today. While it was necessary to only hint the fusion elements within our art so as to make it new and attractive, today the art itself has become the remanent stray or hint element as an unfortunate overuse of western fusion.
Nowadays, we see an advent of a new kind of fusion that seems to be something completely ingenious. Who could’ve thought of something as brilliant as fusing a couple of Indian art forms with themselves to churn out something beautiful, aesthetic and unique! To list a few examples,
- We have the most famous Late Shri M. Balamuralikrishna (Carnatic vocalist and violinist) and Pt. Bhimsen Joshi’s (Hindustani vocalist) Jugalbandi Concert bringing out the melodies of sister ragas in both the music traditions
- Smt. Jayanthi Kumaresh (Saraswati Veena) & Ustad Zakir Hussain’s (Tabla) duet jugalbandi
- T.M. Krishna’s (Carnatic vocalist) musical conversation with the Jogappas (a transgender community from Maharashtra-Karnataka who have their very own devotional folk music tradition)
- Anoushka Shankar’s take on reciting the Sitar
- Smt. Aruna Sairam (Carnatic vocalist) along with Soumik Datta (Sarod) performing a beautiful musical medley bringing together Carnatic, Hindustani and Contemporary Jazz
- Ranjani-Gayatri (Carnatic vocalist cum violinist sisters duo) with Kaushiki Chakraborty (Hindustani vocalist) performing a Hindustani-Carnatic Jugalbandi
- Late Shri M. Balamuralikrishna and Ajay Chakraborty (Hindustani vocalist) in their classic Jugalbandi with their playful rendition of Hamsadhwani Raag along with a beautiful amalgamation of two compositions ‘Vathapi Ganapathim’ and ‘Laagi Lagan Pati Sakhi Sang’.
These are a few of the innumerous such fusions that attracted a huge audience from different communal spectrums!
Fusion under this new light isn’t just restricted to Jugalbandis but has also taken the form of different musical demonstrations, adoptive interpretations, lingual variations, and lyrical motivations & adaptive experimentations.
Different Musical Demonstrations
This kind of fusion is the one wherein the artist of one musical tradition borrows compositions from another tradition and demonstrates the same.
Thinking of examples of musical demonstrations, beautiful concerts would reminisce in one’s mind. Late Smt. M. S. Subbulakshmi’s soul-stirring performances of ‘thukda’ pieces in well over 30 Indian languages was something that took her listeners to a trans-state. Smt. Aruna Sairam’s album Rang Abhang which glorifies the divinity of Marathi devotional music, another Kaushiki Chakraborty performing a Carnatic Thillana in Kalyani Ragam, Ranjani-Gayatri’s soothing Abhang renditions and not to forget Late Shri M. S. Gopalakrishnan’s (violinist) seamless transitions between Hindustani and Carnatic violin display and his breathless bowing technique!
Adoptive Interpretations
This form of fusion involves transactions across cultures of art and music. The best example of the same would be the 39 Nottuswarams of Muthuswami Dikshithar which are majestic compositions which reflect upon the western classical music influence that was seen in early 1800s in southern India. The term Nottuswarams has actually been coined by joining the two words ‘note’ and ‘swarams’. These have been composed in the Major Scale of Western Music (Carnatic equivalent being Ragam Shankarabharanam (swarams sung plainly without ornamentations/gamakams) and Hindustani equivalent being Raag Bilaval). Shri Madurai Mani Iyer is also accredited for bringing Shri Muthaiah Bhagavathar’s Western Note compositions to fame with his spectacular renditions of these strings of notes which would just remind one of an Orchestral performance with a shy hint of Carnatic.
Other prominent adoptive interpretations would be the generous exchange of Ragas between the northern and southern Indian classical music practices. A few examples of Carnatic ragams adopted from Hindustani music would be Behag (Bihag), Bageshri (Bhageshri), Brindavana Saranga (Brindavan Sarang) and many more. The results of transactions that happened the other way round would be ragas such as Raag Hansdhvani (Hamsadhwani), Raag Bairagi (Revathi) and many more. Muthuswami Dikshithar has composed carnatic songs in certain ragas that bring a Hindustani touch such as Dwijawanthi (Chetashree Balakrishnam), Raamkali (Rama Rama Kalikalusha Virama) Hameer Kalyani (Parimala Ranganatham), Yamuna (Jambupathe) and many more. Another important person who had a huge influence in both Hindustani, as well as Carnatic Music was Swathi Thirunal. He adopted several musical frameworks such as ‘Tharanas’ from Hindustani and brought ‘Thillana’ music to Carnatic.
Lingual Variations
Starting from the age of Sangeetha Pitamaha Sri Purandharadaasar, we have documented proof of music to have always been inclusive about lingual diversity. Today, Carnatic music compositions are in various languages such as Sanskrit, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam. A wonderful example of art embracing lingual diversity would be the Carnatic composition ‘Venkatachalapathe’ in Manipravalam — Sanskrit, Tamil and Telugu. ‘Oh my lovely, Lalana’, a Javali by Karur Sivaramaiah, spans over three languages- Tamil, Telugu and English! The contemporary classical music today witnesses lyrics in colloquial language dialects as well. An example of this would be the ‘Poromboke Padal’, made famous by T.M. Krishna, which is sung in a colloquial Madras Tamil dialect. As mentioned above, artists such as M.S. Subbulakshmi have popularized a lot of ‘thukdas’ in various languages such as Bengali, Hindi, Maithili, Brij Bhasha, Gurmukhi, Gujarati, etc.
The language inclusivity has not been restricted to Carnatic tradition but can also be seen in the Hindustani Music tradition which not only embraces lingual diversity but also religious diversity. Hindustani compositions are of two types, one being the Hindu religious compositions that were prevalent before the Mughals and the other being the Islamic music tradition inherited from the Mughals. Hindustani music is performed in various languages such as Hindi, Urdu, Sanskrit, Maithili, Brij Bhasha, etc.
Lyrical Motivations and Adaptive Experimentations
As we see, fusion hasn’t recently slipped into the formal framework of Indian Music. It has been around since ages in several forms and types. Earliest examples of rethinking the lyrics of the music and the intent of the art would lead to the early Javali, Padams and Thillana composers in the Carnatic Music tradition. Their songs were about life, people, love, romance, their day-to-day stories and short anecdotes, rather than spiritual or religious. Over the last century, Bharatiyar’s songs in Carnatic have been largely popularised because of the beautiful perspective and sheer realism in his poetry which serve as lyrics to an aesthetically pleasing composition. His composition, ‘Chinnanchiru Kiliye’, would by far be one of the most popular song with various artists rendering it and most versions bringing tears and goosebumps to every listener. The composition is about a mother expressing her genuine unconditional pure love for her child whom she addresses as her little parrot. Mahakavi Bharathi’s poetry was of a reformer who played a huge role in the Indian independence movement. Although his works comprised of simple Tamil vocabulary, the imagery and power in his words leave our thirsty ears and hearts insatiable.
Moving on to recent years, we see a gradual shift in the intent of Classical Music itself. Slowly addressing social issues and singing about day-to-day life of the common man has become a part of the Carnatic repertoire. Tamil poems like that of Perumal Murugan, bring to light the reality of the society from the poet’s point of view and are being presented in concerts. The ‘Poromboke Padal’, mentioned above, is a classic example of using classical music as a tool to project the problems faced by people by the ones caused to the environment.
Speaking about adaptive experimentations, there are a vastitude of examples that can be stated. Adaptive Experimentations in the context of music, points at all the umpteen number of instruments being played and experimented within one music culture, those having been adapted from another school of practice. The best examples supporting this form of fusion element in our very music would be to speak of some stalwarts of the field.
- Mandolin Srinivas’s energetic concerts in collaboration with Shankar Mahadevan and John McLaughlin. U. Srinivas, a man whose name proudly bore the instrument he mastered, popularised the Mandolin in Carnatic Music
- Sri Kadri Gopalnath’s jazzy touch to Carnatic concerts with his Saxophone recitals
- R. Prasanna or Guitar Prassana’s stand out concerts rendering Carnatic on a western instrument like the guitar is truly mesmerizing
- Rajhesh Vaidhya’s gripping Veena recitals accompanied by the Keyboard, the Tabla, the Mridangam, the Ghatam, the Drums and other electronic music equipment that walks the listener down a memory lane of cine music
- Pt. Vishwamohan Bhatt’s very own Mohan Veena renditions that are pure nectar to the ear
Finally, there are various young professionals in the field, to list a few,
- Mahesh Raghavan and his take on Carnatic fusion through iPad music and his expertise with the GeoShred software
- Shravan Sridhar’s vibrant violin performances
- Keyboard Sathya’s mastery in incorporating Carnatic gamakams on the Synthesiser
- The contemporary Carnatic progressive rock band Agam’s electric performances lead by Carnatic vocalist Harish Sivaramakrishnan.
Today, few cultural organizations serve as platforms where our music culture can be groomed and promoted. Here, art forms are not only restricted to music but are a beautiful mix of music, dance, drama and much more. To name few such platforms that embrace novel art performances and collaborations, opening them to a communal spectrum and bringing them to the limelight are Aikya, Kochi Muziris Biennale, First Edition Arts, Urur Olcott Kuppam Festival, Indian Raga and SPIC MACAY.
At SPIC MACAY, we work to groom an audience for an existing artform rather than grooming the art to cater to an existing audience.
We believe, in context of music, as several structured ancient musical traditions are being rethought of, we must question where to draw the line that limits further interpretations of an art that might even lead to further misrepresentations of the same as a result of excessively exercising fusion elements in the music. This leaves us confronted with a crucial question,
Is fusion a scaffolding built to support the existing structure of an art, in a way glorifying it?
Or is it a framework crafted to dilute, and eventually dissolve an art that the posterity wouldn’t even know existed?
