By S Sivaramakrishnan
Recently, I came across a few senior artists reminiscing about their student days when their gurus would chide them for noting down the notation, not to say the sahitya! This set me thinking.
The celebrated Brinda-Mukta school considered the tendency for classroom notation a serious handicap on the part of the disciple. Many gurus were even unpredictable for their flow of sangatis because subsequent sessions would render the available notation rather 'outdated'! Thus it was actually a way of noting down the 'varnamettu' after the classes were over without the knowledge of the teacher! This could be a reason why many kritis acquired multiple sangatis (or pathantara) as teaching sessions progressed.
At the same time, we had gurus who insisted on notations and meticulously checked and corrected the notes of their students. They constitute the 'lenient majority' of gurus. Nowadays, notation has become supplementary to classroom recordings in state-of-the-art gadgets--to the extent that some artists today keep notations in front of them even in concerts!
Music was part of our family routine; my mother would sing along with the veena in the evenings with my sisters joining in. (For this, she had to tune the veena to a high pitch of not less than 4.5 kattai that lent an oriental charm to the recitals). My brother used to accompany them on the mridangam. No notations were available, but the lyrics were noted down in a book. 'Kelvignanam' (learning by listening) was the only asset we had.
My mother also used to give some interesting tests by asking me to sit a distance away from her and to identify the notes or kriti passages which she would play on the veena with rather 'muted pluckings'! I had to keenly watch the placements and movement of her left-hand fingers to ascertain the swarasthanas and give the answer! It was indeed challenging yet exciting! I feel notations are a must to preserve sangatis.
