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 The
music forum, convened by Dr Sundar, organised a workshop on
demystifying Carnatic classical music, recently, at Rani Seethai
Hall.
The aim was to unravel the mystique of music so that it is
easily comprehensible to all. Several eminent musicians like
Neyveli Santhanagopalan, Dr Sundar, Unni Krishnan, Pakala
Ramadas, R K Shriramkumar, Mannarkoil Balaji, S Karthik and
Mohan Ram participated.
 To make the musical morning lively and vibrant, they had an
interactive session and Power Point presentation which catered
mainly to the student community.
Namasankeerthana by school students kick-started the day’s
agenda. This was followed by an exhaustive raga alapana session
by Neyveli Santhanagopalan. In his raga delineation of
Karaharapriya to begin with, he invoked special sancharas to
reveal the swaroopa. He advised the learners to shed fear and
inhibitions regarding alapana.
Fertile imagination, coupled with authentic patanthra plays a
pivotal role in enhancing the bhava, declared Santhanagopalan.
Since it was a musical tete-a-tete he asked a student to sing
the arohana and avorahana of the raga Sankarabaranam and
corrected her then and there so that the mistakes will not be
repeated.
 “I chose Sankarabaranam because it is easy to understand,”
opined Santhanagopalan. He laid accent on gamakas which play an
important role in embellishing the compositions. He also
captured the quintessence of Ragam Tanam Pallavai (RTP) by
rendering a pallavi line and got the seal of approval from the
students.
Unnikrishnan and Dr Sundar regaled the audience with their
soulful renditions.
The hall was bursting at its seams with students vying with
one another to have a rendezvous with their favorite musician.
The immense power of music to bridge the gap and touch the
soul was evident in the jam-packed hall.
(With valuable inputs from Neyveli Santhanagopalan)
Mira
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