Music Music Everywhere!

Its that time of the year again, when it might not rain snow or rain at all in the Chennai MaaNagaram, but we do get perennial musical showers throughout the city for a whole month. I have a gut feeling that this is a delayed post, as we are mid-way through the grand festival, Better Late than Never nonetheless. For those who are wondering, what I’m talking about and for the uninitiated, this rant is about the Grand Music and Dance Festival that is held in Chennai during the month of  December and January.

The history of this Music Season dates back to the 1920′s. It all started when Chennai, the then Madras started to emerge as the center of trade and commerce. People started migrating to Chennai from the smallest of villages for their living.The Music Academy was started in 1927 during the month of December and the first music season was held to commemorate the establishment of the Music Academy.Following the establishment of a body to propagate Carnatic Music culture in Madras, musicians started migrating to Chennai and thus Madras became the base for the  Carnatic Music fraternity.To add, the then lawyers and advocates in Chennai patronised the art and contributed generously to its growth.

The next question, Why was December chosen? December in general is the only month when the otherwise dry-sultry Chennai is slightly cool and pleasant. Also, its the holiday time, heralding the new year.Thus December became the most ideal month for the Chennai vaasi’s to travel around the city, and the NRI’s from around the world to  come down to Chennai to listen to the top notch musicians and dancers perform live. I am not kidding, a lot of them do come indeed! I still remember, one of our family get – togethers’ when my Uncle’s friend who stays in the US was talking passionately about the Music Festival and how he makes it a point to never miss the festival Live.

I generally attend concerts throughout the year, but the music season is still special. Though, I am open about music in general, I have been sticking to attending only Unnikrishnan’s concerts until this year.In addition to my all time favorite Unni, I have fallen in love with Abhishek’s bani and style of rendition. As of today, I have attended about 5 to 6 concerts of both Unnikrishnan and Abhishek Raghuram. Each concert was a treat and for a professional, each concert is a learning. I’m just a little more than a layman when it comes to Carnatic Music; but its sheer joy to keep guessing the ragas as the artist sings. In fact, its a competition between myself, my mom and sis to see who interprets the raga first.Its like using grep and egrep, each prayogam playing the role of a pattern. I quickly execute a grep on my head,with a number of prayogams and we try guessing the raga.

Each artist has their distinct style and this part of the year is like their end semester examination.Criticisms do definitely play a part in shaping the career of these artists and I strongly believe that criticism is very important to anybody if at all they are looking to improve. However, sometimes the critics become unwelcome guests and one bad review can change the climate and spoil the artist’s image for the season. Specially, criticisms these days are becoming biased, thereby making it pointless. Not all critics or review writers are prejudiced, but I did notice a lot of criticisms on the internet are indeed not just prejudiced, but disrespectful. Mockery shouldn’t feature as part of criticisms.The influence of the internet is extremely strong and laymen tend to go by what the internet says. So, here goes my kind request to those of you who review music, please put yourself in the artist’s shoes before pointing a finger at them. Lets all make this season a memorable one for all the rasikas worldwide without any bias,prejudice and malevolent elements.