Gamaka, the ancient form of music in the classical genre indigenous to Karnataka, is set to get a new lease of life with the conscientious efforts of Sukanya Vijaykumar, a practitioner of this rare art. Sukanya has just brought out her fifth audio CD on gamaka, which she is distributing free of cost to Carnatic classical music aspirants. The simultaneous launch o f her website www.72melakartha.ind.cc, comprising a detailed chart of the 72 Melakartha ragas, translated to western notations, will also go a long way in the learning of music theory.
The CD is both an intellectual exercise and a musical journey, the outcome being a new listening experience to a Carnatic music fan, and lending also an insight into the rare and dwindling art of gamaka, which can still be used by musicians as part of their learning as well as for concert music. Devaranama, keerthane, ragale, and sangatya, have been set to 27 rare melakarthas.
Because, as pointed out by Sukanya, a Post-Graduate in Music and Kannada, and a research-oriented “Gamaki”, hardly 20 melakartha ragas are in use today.
Gamaka is a form of story-telling, where music and literature blend to communicate at different levels to the listener. This difficult art has one person sing the stanza of a poem, where he creatively applies a raga suitable to the sentiments of the lines, and which will also be melodious to the ear. Then the vyakhyana, or explaining of the meaning of the verse, is done by a scholar well-versed in this literarymusical idiom. While there is no rhythmic aspect to the singing here, the beauty lies in the evoking of the underlying sentiments of the poetry through the apt use and rendering of the ragas.
Sukanya’s next project-setting the compositions of poets such as Kabir, Surdas, Meera Bai, and Tulsidas, to rare Hindustani ragas, is already on the anvil. “Hindustani musicians now use only about 10 dhats, and I want to make forays into this genre, using very rare ragas,” she says.
jyothi@epmltd.com