Music for the Soul

It looks that everyone I know has liked TZP, may be that’s why it is said that birds of same feather flock together. But may be even these birds have some specific tastes which define individuals, hence this the blog for something for which I have developed taste this weekend only, Carnatic Music.
It was because of one of my good friend that I was able to attend the music program, and I’m very grateful to him & his friend for providing this opportunity. I have attended so many rock/pop concerts, and the experience for this program and all those concerts are totally different…I have attended the pop/rock concerts fully drenched in rain, totally exhausted and sometime that noise is so toll taking that u feel like puking everything out after a duration; it simply exhausts u ; I’m not saying that I never enjoyed, I always do and may be I’ll end up for Parikrma & Saif ali’s concert also. But this program, may be because of the ambience or may be simply because of the soft breeze flowing, did not exhaust me but relaxed.
I have read somewhere, “Mathematics is Music and Music is Mathematics”; I understood the part of Math being music, as it makes lots of people dance on its tune; but music as math? Well after seeing the intricacies involved in the Carnatic music, I was simply amazed. Does any one of u actually know about the mutual exclusion of the instruments like ghata, kanjira and morsing? Or that unlike western counterpart, Carnatic music is like a full 5-6 course menu, with Varnam or an invocatory be the appetizer, then the kritis or ragamalika, which is built over particular ragas, as side drinks, then the kalpanaswaram of the raga with the beat specific to the octave of the pitch or Shruti. And then the main course of raga alapana which will explore the raga then will build itself slowly giving way for tani avartanam, percussion for the solo performance by each artist. Based on the concert and the performers, it also includes tillanas or thukkadas. And at last the sweet desert of mangalam or the thankful prayer.
Please don’t kill me for all this Greek and Latin; but somehow this program took me back to the days when I used to do bharatnatyam and kathak and I was totally enchanted by so many intricacies & calculations that I bothered everyone around me and have come up these details... Me & my friend were totally out of place, place full of musicians & families where music would have been religion, and we both, in fact we three, totally aliens, who are not able to even grasp the notes. But as Elvis Presley has said

I don't know anything about music. In my knowledge you don't have to.

There was a girl sitting beside me, she was so good in this, believe me, that she used to start singing the raga and the song before the performers started to do, just by listening to the notes of the violin.
The vibrations caused by the notes, the zephyr caressing body, soothing music caressing & healing the soul, the spiritual atmosphere of the place as if it is cleansing all the sorrows and sadness…all was too great. And now I understand that when they say Music for the soul, it is this music which satisfies the senses, which help in attaining the freedom by losing ur self in the universe, when u feel that u and universe is one. I’ll quote Mr. Copland here

“The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, "Is there a meaning to
music?" My answer would be, "Yes." And "Can you state in so many words what the
meaning is?" My answer to that would be, "No."

As now I have become a part of the Carnatic Music group and somehow will be able to access lots of MP3 regarding the same, I guess u can soon see me as a trained vocal singer…just kidding… but believe me listening all this once in a while do make things better. And as a friendly advice, do sometime play music for the soul. Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and you will find that it is to the soul what the water bath is to the body.

If music be the food of love, play on;Give me excess of it that, surfeiting,The
appetite may sicken and so die.

At last, After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible
is music.