Noises off

Here’s a slightly edited version of a piece I recently wrote for Sruti magazine.

A recent concert of T M Krishna—through no fault of his—had the audience running for cover from the explosive decibellage of voice, strings and drums. The volume levels were unprecedented even for a city inured to unwholesome assaults on the listener’s eardrums in the name of amplification considered de rigueur in the urban milieu of large halls with non-existent sound engineering. Sadly the concert was taking place at the Music Academy auditorium, once famed for its perfect acoustics designed to accommodate mikeless concerts—before alterations to its structure changed that somewhat—but generally accepted as one of the better halls in the city for listening pleasure.

This was one of the first issues Sruti decided to address on the eve of the greatest spectacle of Carnatic music on the planet—the Chennai music season, which used to be called the December season before it expanded forwards and backwards some years ago to straddle the calendar in a fusillade of concerts. We decided to pose a number of questions and invite responses from all parties concerned, with the hope that we can start a process leading to a whole new aesthetic experience: Why are audiences subjected to murder by sound by people who should know better—practitioners of nadopasana one and all, from musicians to mikemen to sabhanayakas, to steal a couple of phrases from Sruti’s founder? Why do musicians regularly agree to perform under acoustically unsatisfactory conditions, musicians who are used to the state of the art in sound systems on their travels abroad? Why do listeners put up with tympanum threatening noise instead of the divine music everyone promises Carnatic music really is? Why are organizers of concerts impervious to criticism and apparently reluctant to invest in equipment and personnel that can ensure such an experience? Why is a sound test at the start of a concert such a rare occurrence, if ever attempted in Carnatic music?

Not long ago, The Hindu commented editorially: “There is little doubt that the standard of acoustics at most venues falls short of a minimum assured quality. Improvements in this technical area will go some way in sustaining interest in live performances as a socially worthwhile experience in the age of mass-produced compact discs. Moreover, acoustic quality is a real concern to artistes, since the overall impact of a performance depends on the symmetry between appropriate amplification and feedback on the stage. Debate on some of these wide-ranging issues will shape the future of Carnatic music in the 21st century. At the same time, it is vital for the mega event — the extraordinary Chennai music season — to retain the character of a self-regulating enterprise, something it has managed to do over many decades.”

Back in the 1990s, Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer told Sruti: “...it is neither necessary nor desirable to have separate mikes provided to the accompanists. A single mike should do, preferably the sensitive kind that is hung from the ceiling. Where is the need for a forest of mikes planted on the platform in front of the artists taking part in a concert?"

“The number of loudspeakers used and their placement also contribute to the quality of sound. ..It is better to use several smaller speakers and place them judiciously around so that each part of the hall gets to hear the musicians as if there were no amplification."

“Ideally, of course, I would like the kutcheri to take place in a small air-conditioned hall without any sound amplification.”

“Violinist Yehudi Menuhin, on a concert tour of India, laid down a few conditions at the Swati Tirunal Sangita Sabha, Trivandrum. There should be no amplification; all doors should be closed once he started performing; all fans should be switched off; no member of the audience should be permitted to move about during the performance; so on and so forth.” Menuhin was heard clearly at every part of the hall throughout the concert, Semmangudi continued.

Vocalist Vijay Siva spoke up for the right use of technology (Sruti December 2001). State of the art microphones could help to get the purest sound reproduction in recordings and also in the auditorium.

When we asked vocalist Sanjay Subramanyam for his views on the standard of acoustics in Carnatic music cutcheris, he wondered aloud if instead of writing about the unsatisfactory situation, someone would take the initiative in organizing a workshop by an international acoustics expert on proper sound management at concerts. He said that he never let poor acoustics or other inconveniences affect his performance on the concert platform. “I focus on my job—that of singing—regardless of the conditions. The only thing that can bother me is the recalcitrance of my voice if and when I run into such problems.”

Speaking in a similar vein, Aruna Sairam had not long ago informed a small private audience that she would be willing to participate in any effort to educate sound engineers on the best contemporary practices in acoustics for music concerts. She was replying to a query from a Hindustani music aficionado about the high noise levels in Carnatic music concerts.

Audiences, sometimes even music critics, believe that the musicians are accessories after the fact, often the instigators of the excesses perpetrated by the soundmen. P Orr wrote in Sruti, February 2001: “Poor acoustics is characteristic of a majority of the sabhas. Many don’t have really top class sound amplification systems and arrangements either. ..The musicians performing on the stage are the ones who usually tell the sound technician what to do. They always ask the volume to be jacked up.”

Young vocalist Savita Narasimhan clarifies that the musician on the stage rarely asks for the volume to be turned up for the listeners. He or she is actually asking for help with the feedback (or fallback) so essential for the performer on stage. “Often the vocalist cannot hear the percussionist or violinist and vice versa. The musician’s request to increase the volume of the monitor is misunderstood and the technician increases the volume for the audience.” In the West, mikes are provided for the vocalist as well as the accompanying instrumentalists and the amplification is perfectly balanced. The result is aesthetically pleasing. For instance, even in concerts where two microphones are provided for the two sides of the mridangam, the overall balance is maintained perfectly, and the percussion does not drown the voice. It is this balancing, giving due weightage to different types of voices and instruments, that is vital for correct sound amplification.

That brings us to the need for sound checks before the start of a concert. How often do we see artists reach the venue in time to carry them out? Is it their fault that they don’t?

We’ll soon be witness to the frenetic programming of the “season” in which each sabha will pack three to four concerts into each day of the festival. The artists of one programme will ascend the stage barely minutes after the previous performers have left it. What kind of sound check can be done in the time available? And, increasingly, sabhas seem to despatch their sound engineer—if such an animal exists—to some unknown destination minutes before the concert begins, not to surface until the end of the programme.

Is it time then to organise workshops on aesthetically acceptable acoustics in Carnatic music to be conducted by experts in the field of sound management? For every self-respecting sabha to hire a full time acoustics engineer available round the year or at least during concerts to ensure listening pleasure? For auditoria specifically designed for music concerts to be built or for existing halls to be redesigned to suit the purpose? For audiences to behave themselves as they are forced to everytime a Yehudi Menuhin or Zubin Mehta descends on us?

Kalanidhi

Madurai T N Seshagopalan is this year’s Sangita Kalanidhi, to be crowned by the Music Academy, Chennai in December 2006. This is what I wrote about him 23 years ago. T N Seshagopalan: Mirror to his audience (Excerpts from a profile by V Ramnarayan, Sruti, December 1983 (Issue no. 3) Madurai T N Seshagopalan is confidence personified; he possesses the quality in abundance. He exudes it in every word he utters in conversation just as he does in every syllable he renders in concert. He is thirty-five, a man of conventional good looks, sharp intelligent eyes that can assume a certain dreaminess on occasion, cherubic countenance, long hair, often rather unkempt, medium height and an apparent propensity to put on weight, an ease of manner and friendliness, and an active mind which seems to tick all the time. His Tamil betrays his background, which is non-metropolitan; it is therefore a chaster brand of the language than most Madrasis can achieve. A ready humour, sometimes mischievous but without malice, a quick sense of repartee and a degree of articulation proclaim straightaway that here is an unusually cerebral young musician, who knows where he is heading and will do everything in his power to make sure he will reach there. Seshagopalan might well have been lost to the world of classical music but for some chance encounters with men of foresight and forethought at a crucial period of his life. He appears to have been singularly fortunate in his schoolteachers. Many of them were musically inclined and saw in Seshagopalan an unusual talent, which needed care and nourishment. Seshagopalan was born on 15 September 1948 at Nagapattinam. His father Nambi Iyengar was then employed as a drillmaster in a school there. His father and mother both hailed from Tirunelveli district. While mother Tiruvenkatavalli belonged to a village called Anantakrishnapuram, Nambi Iyengar was from the village Tirukkarunkudi, the home of the famous business house of T V Sundram Iyengar and Sons, whose headquarters were located in Madurai. TVS & Sons helped Seshagopalan’s father to set up a business at Madurai to which place the family moved in 1952, when TNS was four years old. Around this time it was that Seshagopalan first showed musical promise. There was no doubting Seshagopalan’s talent even as a child; he gave it expression through singing semi-classical bhakti verse, but not until his sixteenth year did he have his first lesson in classical music. The boy Seshagopalan was quite famous in Madurai and other district centres as an accomplished lead performer in devotional music concerts in which he sang verses from Tiruppugazh, Tiruppavai and Tiruvempavai, the devarnama of Purandaradasa and so on. Even before he was ten years old, he was a supplementary breadwinner of his father’s household. In Seshagopalan’s own words from that profile: The person whose deeds and words had the most far-reaching effect on my life was Kodoor Rajagopala Sastri whom my father had befriended when I was about eleven. This gentleman from Rameswaram was not only a music lover but counted among his personal friends such giants as Ramnad Krishnan (vocal), Lalgudi Jayaraman (violin) and C S Murugabhoopathy (mridangam)—the trio who performed at his wedding. Rajagopala Sarma was mainly responsible from my changeover from devotional to classical music. The man had foresight; he was a deerghadarsi. He was the first man to suggest I be given formal training to become a concert vidwan of Carnatic music. He predicted a bright future for me. Another person who had some inkling of the future was Sri V Pushpavanam, headmaster of the Sethupati High School where I studied from Form I to Form VI. He was a source of encouragement, offering me every chance to go on stage and parade my talent while at High School. He would sometimes wonder aloud if I would become famous one day as Madurai Seshagopalan just as Madurai Mani did. In fact Sri Pushpavanam who belonged to the Koteeswara Iyer parampara was distantly related to Madurai Mani. Our drillmaster Paramasivam also took a great deal of interest in my music. He and my schoolmates always had a good word for me and were proud of my singing ability. Quite often I wrote songs myself on national figures and the freedom movement of the past, set the songs to some familiar tunes from films as bhajans, and sang them on the stage. There was a song on Nehruji which I sang to the tune of a very popular song from the Hindi film ‘Madhumati.’ My guru (C S Sankarasivam) knew how to bring out the best in you. No doctrinaire approach governed his teaching. His was a voice that was not amenable to brikas. It was best suited to slow elaborations, a solid rock-like voice. But this didn’t prevent him from helping me exploit and develop my natural capabilities. He was quick to assess your plus and minus points and work on their improvement or diminution as the case may be. He never curbed your originality. I owe all my proficiency in chowka kala to him. Seshagopalan’s early apprenticeship in music, in the time-honoured gurukula tradition, is amusing to recollect. Here was this vidwan who was a friend of his father’s, their fondness for betel-chewing bringing them together. During one of these sessions of mastication, the vidwan suggested Gopu (Seshagopalan) be put in his care to be groomed as a musician. Soon the boy was packed off during the summer vacation to the Vadyar’s house. There, his duties consisted mainly in running errands, washing clothes and pressing his poor, tired master’s feet as he reclined on his favourite easychair. Seshagopalan wasn’t quite insightful enough to understand the significance of these aspects of the gurukula system—not quite unique by any means—and so he decided to find his way out diplomatically. He told his father that his throat hurt a great deal from constant singing, something with which he had very little to do at the guru’s house. This ruse worked like magic, for Gopu’s father felt the boy’s health was paramount and terminated the arrangement, although the chewing sessions continued. There is in this youthful veteran the kind of narcissism one often associates with the artists, but attenuating this is his informed appreciation of the several giants who preceded him in this field as well as his own peers and seniors, and ready to acknowledgement of help and encouragement received from various persons at different stages of his career. He goes to any length of trouble to mention every one of them by name, however far removed from the limelight they may be. There is no mistaking his guru bhakti and the depth of his gratitude to his master. Again, there is no deliberate show of becoming modesty, no pious self-deprecation, no pretence of running down his own achievements; nor is there any obvious lack of humility. His assessment of his own ability and successes seems realistic without giving rise to serious suspicion of an excessive self-love.