After the disappearance of royal patronage, there were only a few gentle souls to patronize the fine arts,. They were scattered around, here and there throughout South India, particularly in remote villages but with little financial backing. Hence their contribution was insignificant to the promotion of art. Hence musicians had to fend for themselves from the meager income. Music is a vast ocean. Musician should be free of all worries to delve deep into this ocean of ambrosia of music. Who will then finance the real talent to do this? In North India big industrial houses and erstwhile kings like Raja Scindia, who are still very rich in spite of the abolition of their privy purse, promoted many musicians. Particular meniontion has to be made of two gentlemen, V.N. Bhakthkande and V.D. Paluskar, who totally revolutionized the find arts in North India. Who in South India could do? If any maestro, like Ariyakkudi, Semmangudi and the later musicians have done service to music, we should be grateful to them because they could do this in the absence of any worthwhile patron. They had to devise their own methods to balance the content of music they presented and at the same time protecting their popularity in keeping with the audience choice and upholding their petty sentiments! Merely following the foot steps of their gurus without enriching the art by induction of new ideas and research has led to the stagnation of the fine arts. The very fact that out of several crores of Chennais population only a few hundreds are attending the concerts in music season speaks volumes for this defect. Why common man does not turn to our music concerts? Is it because musicians have not kept up the their standard to his choice and liking. In the same strain of argument, why ladies do not purchase Madisaru pudavai, but go in for latest western dresses! Cine music is liked by all because it is sweet, very pleasing to listen and there no harsh voice. Why carnatic musicians who sing for cine music draw house full audience, and every sabha are eager to book them to amass their gate collection, than the other singers? SAMPRADAYAM is perhaps a stupid word to measure the progress of fine arts. How many of us follow the Vedic Sampradayam? When we do not follow the teachings of Sampradayam laid down by great rishis and sages, what right we have to talk of Sampradayam? Sampradayam is a relative word. It keeps on changing according to the progress of the society. If somebody sings a varnam in the midst of a concert, probably he thinks that it is an innovation. Earlier days when varnams were sung first to warm up the throat! When no varnam was composed, what they sang as the first item in their concerts! If younger generation is not encouraged to be research oriented, this music will also go into oblivion like the way of Pan music!
Posted on: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 23:22:11 +0000
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