TEDxMumbai - Dhanashree Pandit-Rai - 04/03/10

you know several years ago I used to see this ad for coffee on television and I'll explain the scenario to you they showed buzzing New York and there's a dance studio over there were some modern dancers are rehearsing and in the break they sit down for a hot cup of coffee so very Western scenario and here's the jingle that was playing along how is life with you do I read a welcome in your smile let's sit and talk awhile in the warm world of Nescafe so this was a jingle now I'm saying let's change the scenario now we get transported to India and mr. and mrs. Sharma have just finished their tour of Agra they've seen the Taj Mahal and the other monuments and they sit down in a small Baba to have a cup of coffee how then will this jingle change how is life with you do worry to welcome in your smile huh let's sit and talk awhile in the one word of Nescafe so there you saw it immediately got transformed into Indian but now I'm going to give you a contrary situation some French Baroque musicians had come to India I think it was in the 80s and they were supposed to do a concert with Kishore iam Anka and at the end of the concert they had to do a kind of a cross-cultural exchange so they were to sing a pageant together okay I'm going to sing for you just a clip it of the budgin they were supposed to interpret together it was like this Mauro prana Mauro Rana ba give me a DG Mauro [Music] now after days of rehearsal the Baroque musicians had to sing this so this is the way the Western interpretation came Mauro pranam but give me her EG model so it just makes you wonder that if the seven notes are common all over the world the eighth note is just yet to be discovered where they disarray gamma bada Nizza or doremi for sola Dido it's all the same then why is it that something sounds Japanese something sounds Indian something sounds Chinese good question to ponder about is actually just the treatment given to these notes that make it sound Indian Augustana let me give you a nice example and I'm taking a Western example because against the backdrop of Western you will see or Indian very starkly so I am taking a composition of Tchaikovsky the Russian composer it's called the moths love and I felt like singing it rather than putting it on on the audio so I'm going to sing it for you just a bit of the melody it goes like this I know nothing [Music] no no no no no no Anna Anna this is much loved by Tchaikovsky so what is the repetitive line in this symphony it is translated into Western notes so far Mira doe translated into Indian notes per my GERD is her now this poem uh Garissa try passing it through the vocal chords of a Hindustani musician or through the hands of an Indian musician and this is how the Pomo Garissa will come out first the Western now the Indian mother Margaret and it immediately transforms for us into Rock mother one D so this is what I wanted to show you the Indian essence or the Indian touch what happened to those notes they got sort of pulled and stretched and played around with some ornamentations were added I want to decode decode these ornamentations for you what do we have in eye intentions and many of you probably sitting back there thing I know nothing about Indian music wrong if you laughed at anything of what I did you recognize the Indian element right there it sounded funny because it was in a western context all of you who are surrounded by Indian music know it from the core we just don't know that you know it so some of these nice ornamentations one is I mean probably comparable to the Western glider glissando we call it the meand very pronounced in Indian music to use a whole hindi film song it has sequel Emma hi you see that you see the mean racy copolymer very typically Indian that's called the mean and then we have what is called the cut car cut cause our you know tiny little jerks added on two nodes to decorate them ah-ah-ah so every time I do my hand I'm showing you a cut car so let's take a song like to Milly Kotka dilky D or Rajini Cucaracha hey that's a Gurkha Jaeho J you see then that's a cutter or another song rod her case in a jelly Agata Newman my leg a rudder case in a Jenny rudder case a Imogen Ketki what is the other ornamentation we have murky murky is really like you know a very coquettish woman who suddenly looks and then looks back in a except fleeting glance at a lover and looks back the Marquise really shaped like that it's a little cluster of notes comparable probably to a western trill but more pronounced I'll say okay more key for you ah ah [Music] Sonny doesn't eeny mother baba mama see this tiny frill in fact in classical music we are told not to take too many more keys because it gives a frivolous frivolousness so you find it more in light music chumki get ready porky and then cluster emerges Hey yeah and that's called a Sam Sam I you know when there's this cluster de marquise hey yo no no I'm not supposed to laugh on these are Indian ornamentation okay but you see did you see the naka that came in due to the murky junk Aguirre it's meant for that it's meant for giving this coquettishness and so that's the mole key for you and then we have what we call Andolan oscillating anode Oh Jonah gasps a many Randy [Music] that's : Dolan oscillating an order and finally one of the vocal techniques we have when I was a kid and when you're a child very few children might readily go for Hindustani classical music they are just too enamored by Bollywood and other lighter forms of music me likewise as a child you know I knew I had to study it but the point when I used to shut the radio off was when I heard this ah I said oh my god is this what I have to learn and so this this part of in the sauna classical music this effect is called the gamma it's like a shadowy three-dimensional effect if you notice but as I got to understand the beauty of it in which I want to show you suppose we were to take sorry gammopathy nice and sunny de palma Garissa in a straight flat manner sorry gamma baden is asani de palma Garissa ah [Music] ah that's flat isn't it but ah you saw the difference immediately it got on a dimension and how does this happen once I did a workshop for some foreign jazz musicians and they heard Gama can listen you're shaking your vocal cords I said no there is no shake of any vocal cord these are basically shadow notes added on to create this fantastic effect we have called gamma and then as I understood from where it came and the kind of dimension it gave it grew on to me and today classical music is incomplete without it so these are all the ornamentations and have you heard some of these youngsters who come out of a music school in one year the ornamentations haven't set in yet so that's how you spot the beginner of Indian music it is alipio bina Sachi kallana pirate Amoy xxx polichinelle okay good keep learning no I don't want to but this is what happens when the aesthetics haven't set in Italy Pia Venus that's where the ornamentations have come in and really we can't once you learn Indian music and you're trying to sing a Western song just can't help yourself the ears are alive with the sound of music with songs they have some because we are not used to seeing a little gap go like that you know fill it in fill it no but let me tell you let me tell you why why do we fill it in because you see compare it to Western classical music they have harmony they have layers they have different voices and Indian music is solely based on melody one note at one time and therefore to make it rich and deep you have to have a highly developed melodic system and highly developed ornamentation system it's a must if a melodic system has to you know be exciting and therefore you have to use it and at this Jazz Institute which as I mentioned any music in the world which wants improvisation which wants to borrow from other cultures like jazz jazz I think subsists on borrowing and making itself richer by borrowing or pop even pop music can borrow Indian techniques India is the land to come because our music is most times improvisatory you heard all up you know what all up is a slow languorous development ah I love ah done Sonny rosanna rosanna Domino there is a salsa or using circum the nananananana or what we call as gnome tome okay all these techniques can be borrowed and used in pop music and jazz music and therefore I love to give my students of jazz this example okay the famous song summertime how could they enhance it using our Indian techniques now you'll find this nice you may not love summertime I'm not a western singer summertime [Music] and I love and the living is easy ah fish are jumpin and the cotton is high sagar more than years are on asunder go mad honey in it summertime they can use all this to enhance their music so i'm glad you like them and then probably we come to one of the most awe-inspiring part of Indian music one word come on you can give it to me what makes Indian music the most sought out sought-after in the world and that is raagh not raga please okay because we are too often you know you stirring it as a raga but it's wrong I like to call it Rob so if you look up a dictionary of Hindustani music I'm telling you that definition is little scary a melodic scheme characterized by a fixed set of noise order of sequence of these nodes man forget it raagh and all of you can recognize rugs and the moment somebody can recognize a rug we think he's a demigod you know he understeer igneous rocks and you know envious all envious not difficult at all let me show you how just think of it as a recognizable tune I would say rag is a recognizable tune with a fixed set of notes and that is universally appealing so listen to these three Tunes ah su hurry a hit me love niku tuning something same rug and I say quiet everybody you know keep a little notebook with songs left hand side column right hand side column which rug is it and over the years just expanded so tomorrow if you go to a Hindustani music concert and you hear the artist ring you say hey that sounds like raag Yaman so you look at your neighbor and say yeah yeah munch RI you know in most cases most cases you'll be right believe me if somebody tells you Madhubani me Radhika Nagi just remember this little to cryin write it in your book raagh hamid you go to a concert ah sounds like Madhuban melodica rock amir this is the way this is the way to learn about rods keep that notebook and pencil ready and all over you go all over right from your childhood you're hearing rugs when you go to marriage that there is a dollar Dannan and how many times have you heard that but did you write in your book rock mall cause and why only that what about the patriotic tunes we have when the martyrdom vandemataram not this so we are surrounded by it and so you know some people have asked me what is the younger generation do envy probably in you know in my generation we had that whole wealth of hindi film song to fall back upon what is the younger generation do you'll be surprised listen to this phrase so perma Pergamon is Ravi Ravi doe machala do much illegal it is completely and totally wrong by Ravi son is upon a cigar Aneesa pani Pisani god Aneesa Rock pimp Allah's delicate ecological bara Georgia Georgia yeah but all these songs can be extremely useful you because you have to use the language of the youth you cannot expect them to relate to anything else other other tunes you could use you know Oh oh you've been hearing that Kumu okay gamma Buddha Nina Nina Bowden is an ISA danny-boy de sonido Baraka much lalala lalala Lydia Papa Papa tapas agar-agar ISA Boop so all these I know spoil the romance of the tuna bit by calling it on but yes there's hope for the younger generation you just have to get them use their language and rope them into the magic of rawl that's not all Western music beatles saga madden is an Adama gamma Garissa I once had a girl or should I say she once said me Sarah's an Eden is a gamma Danny Savannah Samoa rosannadanna gamma gamma Garissa Rock Baca Sri so it's all over you just have to tap combination of notes find the rags and pass on the magic to the younger generation and they will start recognizing rags now in our arcs as you know the rishi Moniz who really meditated on these rags found that certain drugs are for the morning certain about the evening certain logs are for the monsoon certain logs are for midnight and so what are all these seasonal time connections are they random but I suppose as I said again the Rishi munis have dwelt on this they have meditated on this and found at a certain point of time in the day you have certain body vibes and these notes gel with it so whether it is you know pair of in the morning [Music] is the mood you have the silent mode you have in the morning and about emotions in hindustani ROG's I did a workshop where I once tried to give a mood like this and I asked the students to guess the mood mistake of mine but I tried Sarika ponies a gardenia burger with a smile on my face I said what movie do you think the pain was so I said then [Music] what is this but made me realize one thing that of course you need a little bit of cultural you know training and you have to show the light it will not happen automatically you have to show the connection before and talking about a Hindu philosophy most of our classical music does sound rather somber meditative it's for attaining a higher level so it may not be out-and-out happy sad melancholy it's a very complex and abstract emotion and look at a Hindu philosophy struggle sacrifice suffer so that next life is good so all that comes into our music it is a Samba music it is a meditative music you know to get you to a higher higher plane of thinking so yeah why don't I end this with a nice tune for you or better then show you how an emotion is expressed for monsoon we are ending us someone how we need the rain soon so a musicologist has said for did for depicting monsoon don't expect like chopin does in his raindrop sonata he draws a picture of the monsoon for you not in Hindustani music it's the feeling the heart gets when after a scorching summer the rain comes down so my Ripper burst of joy what is that is the way the complex Indian modes are depicted and remember when this younger generation goes to a music concert in the future what is the giving what is what tells us that they've understood Hindustani music since wow yeah but here because in a Hindustani concert when a whole crowd at one point goes wah that means the Indian essence has been understood thank you very much [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 105,471

Keywords: tedx, ted, tedx talk, ted talk, tedx talks, TEDx, TEDxMumbai, ted talks, ted x

Id: ZXnV5HzS7nA

Length: 23min 56sec (1436 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 11 2010