By Dr. Padmavathi Narasimhan
The morning of December 4 brought three interesting papers at the JSS Music Conference. The first paper was on the great poet P.T. Narasimhachar, who has created history in the world of Kannada literature and music. The paper focused on the rare ragas created by Narasimhachar, which is an immense and great contribution to Karnatak music. The rare ragas created by the poet with his music were sung by Dr. Padmavathi Narasimhan and P. Surabhi. How his compositions can be used in classical concerts for detail rendition and how the ragas are rightly chosen and the poems rightly composed for the lyrics was explained with demonstration. The second was a lecture-demonstration about ‘Specialities in Veena Playing’ by Dr. S. Vijayaraghavan, the President of the Conference. He first spoke about the construction of veena and its chief parts. Why it is important to align gandhara and panchama perfectly to shruti was explained. He demonstrated fingering techniques used while playing ragas like Kamas, Todi, Varali, Begade and Amrutavarshini. The usage of pure notes in Charukeshi was illustrated on the veena. He also stressed on the fact that all sthayis can be incorporated using the four strings of the instrument. Intonation can be implemented using various methods in plucking. Tana is blissful on the instrument as all the strings are used in combination. The doctor played tana in Hindola to illustrate speedy tana.
