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Is all Music only "Inspired" - be it Tamil or other ?

Topic started by cosmician (@ 194.170.1.66) on Tue Apr 24 04:26:39 EDT 2001.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

This occured to me in the midst of a debate with "Eden" in the IR's Latest thread...is all music only inspired from already existing raagas, structures and melodies ? Or are there really original composers, giving us something new or is everything "old wine in a new bottle" ? I thought it'd be better to start a separate thread to discuss this instead of digressing in the other threads :-)

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Responses:

• From: Kupps (@ 156.153.255.134) on: Tue Apr 24 09:41:19 EDT 2001
  
  cosmician, im back again :-)
  
  in all music only "inspired" , i assume "all music" mean the cine songs. based on that i putforth my points.
  
  Raagas are like Grammar of a language. For a song we need a tune. A tune is selected based on a raaga(in general), be it a classical composition of trinity or a cine song. Cine song take liberty in violating this grammar whereas this is not the case of classical compositions(krithis).
  
  So, having a cine song based on a raaga in which already a cine song has come does not necessarily make this new song to be an "inspired work".
  
  Inspiration could be termed as when a tune being developed in a raaga, say X, has resemblance in its development, in conceiving, with an earlier tune in the same raaga.
  
  i quote an example from Part 3 of Classical Illayaraaja by Srirangam Lakshminarayanan Ramakrishnan:
  One of his Mayamalavagowlai closely resembles one of MSV's song. It is 'enge naan kanbaen' in A.S.Prakasam's Sadhanai. It is just like 'kallellam maanika kallaguma' (alayamani). He should have definitely got the idea for that song from MSV's above said song.
  
  and from part 15:
  To me, it seems like Rahman got the idea to tune his sugam sugam vaendum(of vandicholai chinna rasu) from meendum meendum vaa(of vikram).
  
  Take for example of raaga kanakaangi, again i quote from the part 7 of the same article:
  There are not many keerthanais in kanakangi. There is a Thyagaraja keerthanai on lord Ganesha (who seems to have decided to rock the whole hindu community by resurrecting from his idolhood to drink vitamin D fortified milk!) in kanakangi. Thats all. I know of no other kanakangi keerthanais. There are few short pieces like the one in M.Subulakshmi's cassette in all the melakartha ragas. If you want to listen to pure kanakangi in cinema go to KB's sindhu bhairavi movie. Illayaraja scored a marvellous kanakangi in that movie. ..... he sings a song 'mogam ennum theeyil en manam vendhu vendhu urugum'. It is this song that gave the first and last kanakangi to Thamizh cinema music.
  
  I'm sure if we search for such "originalities" we shall get carts-load of songs from MSVs, IR and many of their predecessors. Same thing can happen in the recent MDs like ARR. But it all depends on how dedicated our MDs were/are and how knowledged they are.
  
  But, Again from the same article, part 15:
  
  This is an ever changing world. People are born constantly and people are dead similarly. We all have come into the world not like Mr. Jesus Christ without a father. We have our roots strongly based on our immediate previous generation, and less significantly on the innumerable generations in-between from the ages of origin of man to now. ... We are all a small part of the continuously self-propagating enormous force that originated in the big bang. Nobody can molt the profound ancestral influence to become a "new" creator (in absolute terms).
  
  Enough of boring :-)
  
  
• From: cosmician (@ 194.170.168.237) on: Tue Apr 24 16:02:20 EDT 2001
  
  Hi Kupps..:-)...cool....i really admire your sportive spirit and in-depth analysis....are you a music student or something like from a family of musicians ? :-)
  
  
• From: bm (@ 172.141.250.29) on: Tue Apr 24 17:30:23 EDT 2001
  
  guys i have a few comments to be sent to srirangam on his wonderful effort.but the mail bounces everytime ..do u know where i can send them to?
  
  
• From: Kupps (@ 156.153.255.243) on: Wed Apr 25 00:21:59 EDT 2001
  
  Hi cosmician,
  
  its the joke of the year to say mine is in-depth analysis. still i accept your appreciation *very humbly* :-))
  
  no i'm neither a music student nor from a family of music. yenakkum music-kirkum snaana praapthi kooda kidayaadhu. im just a lover of music thats all.
  
  bm,
  few days back in one of our threads a person has gave links to the same set of articles there the address of Mr.Srirangam :-) was different from the one i use to read from IR web pages. i don't remember whether it had his mail-id. please do agazhvaaraaichi in the Archives section...
  
  
• From: eden (@ 210.214.5.192) on: Wed Apr 25 01:08:33 EDT 2001
  
  Cosmician,
  Say tomorrow someone barges into your home & takes away your belongings leaving a message `We have brought nothing into this world, neither we are going to carry anything when we die. Everything had been here -given by God. So be happy', how will you feel? At the minimum, you'll be upset for a day, isn't it? Why? The answer to your question can be derived from this `Why':-))
  
  
• From: cosmician (@ 194.170.1.68) on: Wed Apr 25 03:45:05 EDT 2001
  
  Eden....could u pls explain...if my brain could work at such complexities...I wouldn't started this thread :)
  
  
• From: eden (@ 61.1.250.132) on: Wed Apr 25 05:41:35 EDT 2001
  
  I thought a very materialistic illustration could nail home the point easily, I'm sorry if it's confusing (after all I'm still in 70's & 80's:-))...
  
  Okay, to make things a little simpler, please consider `human languages' as an equivalent to music. Unlike non-living things , why, unlike even all other living things, humans have this unique gift. We do not bother as to who invented English, Thamizh etc. Do we? Neither we worry about who devised the grammar, who organized the poetry structures etc. when we pay tributes to some literary work. Is it not?
  
  Now my question is, since ThiruvaLLuvar didn't invent Thamizh neither he devised it's grammar / veNbA structure etc., will you say he got `inspired' from existing structures in creating ThirukkuRaL? OTOH, if I deliberately take a few lines of kuraL and make it part of my `new' 10-line poem and claim credit for that, how will you feel?:-)))
  
  
• From: Karthik S (@ 164.164.82.20) on: Wed Apr 25 06:19:08 EDT 2001
  
  bm: I had posted a link of the articles of Srirangam Lakshminarayanan in TFM DF recently. It could be found here and also has a mail ID...not sure if it works or not, now!
  
  http://www.lolluexpress.com/music1.htm
  
  The mail ID given here is:
  meeralakshmi@hotmail.com
  
  
• From: cosmician (@ 194.170.1.130) on: Wed Apr 25 06:42:41 EDT 2001
  
  Well Eden...you have a point there...I'd definitely feel hurt if somebody had used my creations and not given me credit for it...but what if Tirukkural had influenced me to have a similar line of thought and create something similar though I've not lifted directly ?
  
  
• From: bm (@ 172.130.189.246) on: Wed Apr 25 12:36:25 EDT 2001
  
  thanks for the info on the email ids..people .i have to try them yet.!
  
  
• From: eden (@ 210.214.5.217) on: Thu Apr 26 04:54:18 EDT 2001
  
  cosmician, I feel then it can't be claimed as an absolute creative work of `thought'. Still, doses of creativity can be shown which will be appreciated in terms of `padha prayogam', structural differences (say, AsiriyappA), enhancement of ideas, addition of new illustrations etc:-)
  
  
• From: prakash (@ 172.142.77.224) on: Thu Apr 26 13:35:50 EDT 2001
  
  i quote an example from Part 3 of Classical Illayaraaja by Srirangam Lakshminarayanan Ramakrishnan:
  One of his Mayamalavagowlai closely resembles one of MSV's song. It is 'enge naan kanbaen' in A.S.Prakasam's Sadhanai. It is just like 'kallellam maanika kallaguma' (alayamani). He should have definitely got the idea for that song from MSV's above said song.
  funny-only the other day i thought that sunta hai meri from a hindi song by arr resembled this song by IR-and someone had accused arr of copying this song including the humming!
  
  
  
• From: cosmician (@ 194.170.1.132) on: Thu Apr 26 16:42:11 EDT 2001
  
  Well Eden...if the Tirukkural can inspire me to create something for today that inspires others...then I think it's the application of my creativity...
  
  
• From: Bharath (@ 192.25.158.12) on: Thu Apr 26 17:36:03 EDT 2001
  
  lakshminarayanan, srirangam lives in houston. I may be able to get his email-id/ph # if u want
  
  
• From: m.h sitii (@ ) on: Wed Nov 24 07:27:33 EST 2004
  
  i need to know about kalyani ragam and i want to listen the example song
  tq
  
  
• From: m.h sitii (@ 219.92.99.6) on: Wed Nov 24 07:29:09 EST 2004
  
  meaning of melakartha ragas
  
  

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