Carnatic Music: An Overview

Carnatic Music: An Overview This paper is on the essence of carnatic music. The topic of carnatic music is indeed an ocean and just a glimpse of the same is presented in a very concise format. The paper explores the difference between Hindustani style and the formers norms. The role of carnatic music in Indias branding is focused upon. The paper also deals with how this ancient form of art has helped to seed various forms of music delivery to soothe as well as energize to jump in joy and tap our feet, with vitamins. The use of music in treatments is also touched upon. The paper also explores on why the music is tapering off in the current day and its counterpart still appraised. The strategies and innovations which still helps the ocean of music to reach and help quench the thirst of the music lovers, is explained. The major lesson stressed in the paper is, Carnatic music still prevails like a diamond and to acquire the jewel is in our hands. Kausalya Suppraja is the first rendition echoed in the air in the temple capital of India when the Sun unhides itself to glow and brighten the sky. Every south Indian would certainly affirm that this is the popular rendition worldwide by our famous Carnatic musician, Bharath Ratna winner Ms.Subbalakshmi. The hymn is a classical portrayal of mantra, requesting the Divine to wake up and enlighten the world with His gracious eyes for blessings. India well known worldwide for its rich cultural and traditional values, is rich with immense treasure of music in all forms and this goes unsaid. The main unique differentiation factor is the Classical form of music and this surely helps in branding India worldwide. . Carnatic music, a branch of Classical music form, a sibling for its counterpart the Hindustani style of music form, is in itself a deep ocean to dive in and feel. The classification and differentiation can be detailed in a very lame format as follows: Carnatic music stresses on the semantic compositions decorated with various beautification factors of music like the swaras, aalapanas, etc while its counterpart aims at routing to the meditative mood of the listener. But ultimately the ambiences of music whether carnatic or Hindustani is simply amazing and breezes off all the negatives and drives the listener to the ocean of peace at least till the tenure of the rendition. Classical Music: Music is a wonderland as iterated many times, is skeleton by the main elements namely shruti(musical pitch),swaras(musical sound for single notes),raga (melodic path) and last being the tala(rhythm).Swaras are basically the alphabets in the form of mighty drops to form the sea of music. Be it carnatic or Hindustani, the skeleton remains the same but the rendition differs, the mood changes, the ambience is altogether different for both. The alphabets are only 7.But these sapthaswaras SA, RI, Ga, Ma, Pa, Da, Ni make the music finally. The tonic difference in singing each swara thus helps in creating 1000s of different ragas and spreads the aroma of emotions. There are 72 main ragas known as the melakarta ragas, which have given birth to several other wonderful ragas. A raga is branched out with the above mentioned 7 swaras(each swara in different tonal way).But to notify the fact that the tone of first and fifth swara i.e. SA and Pa remain the same and no modification can be done. The swara Ma can have two styles of rendering while the rest are flexible to be modified in 3 forms. The exact combination of different tones of each swara is weaved to make the beautiful fabric of a melakarta raga. And each Melakarta raga then seeds out various other ragas wherein certain swaras are subtracted. Shruti can be metaphored to a railway track. The pitch is designed to be on a particular track. A slip outside this track causes a mishap and flops the beauty of the music. Finally the tala to clock the rhythm. This factor is to produce a systematic flow. Distinguishing features: The aroma of Hindustani music lies in innovating or exploring the raga with hardly any lyrics. A simple tone of Aa can run for hours. A concert of Hindustani style extends for almost 3 hours wherein the singer explores and experiences the beauty of each node and each tone of every swara. The ragas are classified as evening ragas and morning ones. The classification can be concluded because each raga spurs our either of the moods specified. The experimentation with the raga and exploring the same with the innovated rendition makes the Hindustani form. The nectar of carnatic lies in melting the hearts with beautifully composed lyrics blended with emotions, due to the raga and the feel donated by the singer. It concentrates on the meaning and thus the created emotion. Carnatic style of rendition mainly pertains to the emotional art. Various rasas or emotions are poured by carnatic music. Its termed as Navarasas, i.e 9 different emotions namely anger, beauty, love, fear, wonder, compassion, valor, peace and amusement. Every raga conveys one of the mentioned emotions. The emotion to ultimately melt a heart or trigger the energy levels is totally confined to the performers ability, knowledge of the raga and also his emotional level. Ancients quote that the carnatic music is the pathway to the divine, if divinely performed, the best illustration being M.S.Subbalakshmi who is often termed as the Bhakti Idol for our nation. A demonstration of a simple raga in the pitch of the adroit triggers a divine vibration and thats the reason why her Venkatesha Suprabatham album still peaks in the market. She demonstrates the bhakti rasa. Style: Filled with rasas and the porridge of divine stories with rich values, every song is beautiful in its own way. With diverse permutations and combinations each raga thus formed and apt lyrics blended, sprouts out meanings. Vedas and scriptures essay that carnatic music is a pathway to the divine. Gone are the days when people used to spend hours reciting mantras and performing rituals. Indeed the global development and personal development factors prune us to abide with work for belly concept. India once known for traditional yagnas and rituals, accepts the phrase Work is worship. Any work devotedly done is worship. Music if considered is also an art of worship. You vent your anger in tune or you melt a heart with melody but in a style. The style or uniqueness differentiates and brands the singer. For instance, in bollywood industry there are so many singers who aped the stalwart Lata Mangeshkar, but hardly attained fame. But the queen of music Lata Mangeshkars sound and songs still r esonates throughout. Reason being she ventured into her own style and stuck to the same. Featuring more on carnatic, every musician triggers an ambience with his/her voice and creates a rasa as mentioned earlier. But the notification and identification matters only with an adherence to a unique style. Bombay Jayasri, carnatic musician from South is famous for her soothing and sober style of rendering. While the famous Hariharan is known for his experimental and innovative style of performance, hardly can anyone ape his singing. And this quality is mandatory to exist in the market. A marketing requirement to sustain in the competitive market is ultimately the unique feature and quality that a product possesses. Innovations and uniqueness always rocks and the same formula is utilized in the form of ragam tanam pallavi. This artistic piece in a carnatic musical concert grants the autonomy of experimenting and portraying the art of creativity with ragas, for the artists. The rhythmic sounds used in dances called tanam are followed and finally a small line in praise of divine is rendered in innumerable ways and styles. Artists enjoy this independence and audiences also enjoy the extent of creativeness in the artists by expressing their happiness with their body language. The pallavi has a rain of swaras followed which forms the spectacular moments during the concerts. Carnatic music therapy: Therapy with music as medicine sounds stunning but its true. Each raga emits a particular emotion which in turn helps in curing certain ailments. An ancient story states that once a disciple, who had resided at his teachers place one night, woke up suddenly in the midst of the dark night as he was disturbed by the hisses of venomous snakes. He was scared to see the queue of wild animals enjoying the songs rendered by his teacher. With this story as a base, research states, if wild animals can be controlled then human minds can be controlled and tamed easily. With yoga, meditation and reiki getting popular and serving as free medicines even the use of music should be optimally used. A study in Japan states that the herbs, bushes and plants grow better with music around. Music increases the metabolism rate even in humans. Carnatic music with various ragas proves to be medicines to cure various ailments without any side effects. Raga Thodi is recommended for high blood pressure patients. Thodi has a medical effect to help bring the pressure to a normal scale. It melts down all your rage and cools and brings the pressure to a balanced level. The 72 ragas as quoted previously have major effect to all the 72 nerves in human body according to various studies. The control on these nerves can be easily gained with the strong effect of these medically built ragas.Neelambari and Bageshri ragas can help insomnia. Anger and inner control can be attained by Sahana and punnagavarali. Laziness can be erased by a tune in Kapi raga. T.V.Sriram, commissioner of central excise Mumbai had penned on music therapy and his popular works are endorsed in France to help regain the clarity of speech in patients with music. Medicine in the form of music to soothe and sue the ailments and gift a life full of energy is thus amazing. Bitter facts and the truth: This is rather disheartening to quote but is the fact and has to be accepted that by and large south Indians hear the tunes of carnatic music. To rather emphasize, the westernization has tamed us to tap our feet with jazzes and hip-hops, forgetting our rich tunes. Indeed the beats and drums boost the energy in us and make us dance and rock the party, a feeling of attaining the ninth cloud is amazing. Thus energy in the western music pales off the strengths of carnatic music and hence has less attendance in carnatic concerts. The young budding generation can hardly pace with slow intensity sound cum rhythm and thats the conclusion for low attendance. Second factor can be the language problem, as most of these compositions are restricted to 4 major south Indian languages (tamil,telugu, malayalam and kannada) the other chunk of population i.e. our north Indian friends can hardly enjoy the same. Other existing problem is that, the interest in learning the same is fading off as its gettin g commercialized. After all, business rules the globe. A senior carnatic musician gets paid 3 or 4 times lesser compared to a Hindustani musician. A strange fact to be asserted here is that, carnatic concerts possess the usual flow of a varnam, keertanas(compositions),small thukadas(small pieces of songs),followed by main piece of the concert which runs for 1 hour minimum, and then small songs,thillanas and mangalam(concluding songs) plus a Hindustani piece(either in the form of bhajan or abhang).On the other hand, a Hindustani concert strict by principle is chalked to have just 3-4 songs maximum, all in hindustani style. Carnatic promotions: Marketing theories have helped the south Indians to devise or strategize innovative ways to attract audience and to an extent has gained victory also. View the south channels coming up with music reality shows. Asianet channel (Malayalam) with show called Idea Star singer has helped many tiny tots to young youths to learn music. The well learned judges like S.Chitra, M.G.Sreekumar, Music Director Sharath (disciple of famous Dr.Balamuralikrishna) and pop idol Usha Uthup always vouch on the positives of learning the carnatic music and have shaped the contestants to wonderful singers with comments and trainings.Jaya TV had come up with Carnatic Idol contest, another reality show which aimed at providing a platform for proving the talent in Carnatic music for children. Again learned artists like Soumya(carnatic musician),Kumerasan and Ganeshan(famous violin brothers) and Neyyvellai Santhanagopalan(noted carnatic singer in south).The show aimed at giving the comments for improvement to th e young budding singers by judges and helping them groom for better renditions. These shows though commercial are still promoting the rich carnatic music. The brand of Carnatism still shines in low intensity because of these strategies. Every December Jaya TV airs Margazhi Maha Utsavam with renowned artists like Dr.Balamuralikrishna,Sudha Raghunathan,Nityashree Mahadevan,Aruna Sairam and many others. Even if its 1 hour show tamilians still stick to their seats and enjoy the tunes. But Jaya TV could target the 50+ audience only, to the maximum. Movies, surely are promoting to preserve our treasure by making films like Marghazhi Ragam by P.C Sreeram starred by T.M.Krishna and Bombay Jayasri. The stars in the film do not narrate any dialogues but just render lovely tunes with different shades of lights generating different moods. It was a new concept of airing the concert in the form of movie and Chennai theatres flocked with ladies in kancheevaram sarees and white or bald headed mamas. The movie played by Shabana Azmi named Morning Raga essayed on the fusion world and popularized the concept. The world of fusion surely gives a stratum for carnatic jewel which still shines brightly in its own spectrum. The famous old Balachander movie which won national award for Suhasini(Kamal Hasans niece) also revolves on the carnatic subject. The entire content mentioned above is beautifully directed into a play by Balachander. Various movies in Malayalam also devote on carnatic subjects and give the carnatic lovers a smile with a message that Carnatic music still stays and shines brightly in its own reach. To add on, sabhas or associations like Keraleeya Samaj, Tamil Sangam, Shanmukhananda fine arts, etc. aim at granting knowledge to the interested students and develop them. They also help the students to gain additional knowledge by conducting competitions and arranging a platform to perform before the stalwarts. Shanmukhananda fine arts in Mumbai conducts a particular competition and the winner is awarded the Thambura (instrument used to generate the shruti is recognized as a boon). Bombay Jayasri (singing fame of Zara Zara), a Thambura award winner herself had quoted that she still possesses that treasure and is grateful to be gifted with the same. All the above mentioned encouragements would surely give impetus to many carnatic gems which would certainly glow the beauty of the same. Conclusion The classical music which has granted immensely to Indians has to be graciously acquired to gain the optimal happiness from the same nectar. Great pioneers of carnatic music have devised and helped the younger generations learn this art of music in varied formats and with the technological developments online trainings on carnatic music has really granted us audio gurus. Lets not forget the culture and tradition of Indian land of Lords and sages and their works and learn or help learn the art of carnatic music along with the western beats. International Financial Reporting Standards: Pros and Cons International Financial Reporting Standards: Pros and Cons The joint project between the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) in developing a common accounting language for the world has gained much attention after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in United States (U.S.) announced its plans to adopt the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). As investments by U.S. investors in foreign public corporations have grown drastically, it is timely for the U.S. to adopt a uniform set of accounting standards to facilitate comparative analyses of foreign and U.S. corporate financial statements. Pros and Cons of U.S.-GAAP and IFRS The broad conceptual difference between GAAP and IFRS is that GAAP is rules-based and IFRS is principles-based. As such, the IFRS is considered more thoughtful, transparent and reflective of the true nature of each transaction. Pros IFRS is less detailed than U.S. GAAP  [i]  , thus reducing complexity that masks economic reality IFRS is easier to use (principles-based) and will result in better reporting (substance over legal form) IFRS is a global approach;comparability to financial statements from other countries that have already adopted IFRS  [ii]   Reduce costs for companies and smooth cross-border investing for investors Cons Management is given more discretion in the interpretation of economic events due to the lack of specific rules Enforcement and cultural interpretations vary (risk of comparability) when individual countries added their own exceptions to the rules, defeating the purpose of a global standard Accounting under IFRS tends to lead to higher earnings  [iii]  , thus inflating earnings of U.S. companies and misleading investors More extensive audit procedures are required to test the reasonableness of financial reporting determinations made by management IFRS on relevance, reliability and decision usefulness IFRS places more emphasis on relevance than reliability. Reliability is associated with accuracy but faithful representation simply means to capture the economic substance, thus giving management the opportunity to reflect the true economic phenomena that the transaction purports to represent rather than be constrained by its accuracy of information. The adoption of fair value accounting in IFRS will incorporate more timely information about economic gains and losses. Incorporating more information in the financial statements will typically make them more informative and improve decision usefulness for users. However, for fair value accounting to be relevant, there must be an active market with observable market prices where managers cannot materially influence. When an active market is not available, fair value accounting becomes mark to model  [iv]  accounting and firms report estimates of market prices, which may not be a faithful representation  [v]  of the underlying asset or liability. In my view, reliability is a necessary precondition that must be met for information to be relevant. Fair value measures can be considered reliable only if the variability in the range of reasonable fair value estimates is not significant. Therefore, there is the risk that speculative future income may be used to justify reporting the asset at a higher carrying amount, which, in turn, would result in reporting a speculative gain. It also means that a significant proportion of a companys reported income could well be represented by calculated net present value growth, not the results of real transactions. In addition, powerful local economic and political forces will lead to an uneven implementation of the IFRS, thereby leading to increased information processing costs, by burying accounting inconsistencies at a deeper and less transparent level than more readily observable differences in standards. Hence, investors may be misled into believing that there is more uniformity in practice than it actually is. Therefore, only when there is balance between relevance and reliability, decision usefulness of financial statements to report on stewardship and provide useful information to present and potential investors can be achieved. Improvement in accounting quality and valuation of firms Although the adoption of the IFRS in the U.S. will inevitably impose hefty transition costs  [vi]  , the move will presumably improve accounting quality and the valuation of firms as it: reflects economic gains and losses in a more timely fashion than U.S. GAAP, makes earnings more informative and provides more useful balance sheets (with fair value accounting) With improved financial statement information, this should lead to more-informed valuation in the equity markets and consequently, lower risk to investors. Small investors are less likely than institutional investors to be able to anticipate financial statement information from other sources so improved financial reporting quality allows them to compete better with professionals and reduces the risk of adverse selection  [vii]  . Reducing the cost of processing financial information will also increase the efficiency in which the stock market incorporates it in prices and thus, with better firm valuation, investors can be expected to gain from increased market efficiency. Corporations might also benefit from a reduction of its cost of capital with increased market depth  [viii]  and lower bid-ask spread  [ix]  . With fair value accounting, reported earnings are less noisy and hence, accounting information are more accurate and more value relevant. However, investors in the U.S. will need to be more discerning in distinguishing between objective andsubjective figures, between realised gains and losses, and gains and losses based on hypothetical calculations. With the adoption of IFRS, the balance sheet becomes the primary vehicle for conveying financial information to investors. As all assets and liabilities are recorded at fair value on balance sheet date, the Price/Book ratio will be equal to 1.0. Consequently, accounting quality is improved as the balance sheet satisfies the valuation objective while the income statement provides information about the risk exposure  [x]  and managements performance.