Kanne en Kanmaniye

This is a thalaatu set in Ragam Kurinji. Kurinji is a rare ragam and is most suited for lullabies and laali paatu (Those sung during the oonjal ceremony in tambram weddings). "Seetha Kalyana Vaibogame" is a popular song in this raaga
Kurinji is a janya of 29th melakartha Shankarabaranam

This piece sung by Bombay Jayashree has two parts - 1 Viruttam from Periyazhwar Thirumozhi (from NAlAyira Divya Prabandham) and 2 - a beautiful song by Papanasam sivan


Lyrics

Viruttam
mANikkam katti vairam idai katti
Studded with rubies, interspersed with diamonds

Ani ponnAl seidha (vanna) siru thottil
a small (beautiful) cradle made with purest gold 

pENi unakku piramman thandhAn
Lord Brahma gave it to you with utmost care

mANikuRaLanE thAlElO
thAlElO is an form of endearment that can probably be translated as "sleep baby" or "hush baby". 
Oh short-form-ed one (may refer to vamana based on following line but could also refer to him being so small as a baby)

vaiyam aLandAn thalElO
Oh the one who measured the universe

devaki bAlane thalElO
Oh the baby of Devaki

ulagam uNdavane thalElO
Oh the one who ate earth (referring to how Krishna ate mud as a kid)

Pallavi
kaNNE en kaNmaNiyE
Oh my eye, the pupil of my eye (Not to be taken in literal sense but as an endearment)

kaNNanE kaN vaLarAi
Oh Kanna, may you grow up well

maNNulagil en vAzhvai vaLam peRa vanduditta
You came to this world to make my life more prosperous



Anupallavi
kuyiliSai kuzhalOSai un konju mozhik kiNaiyAmO
Can the cooing of the cuckoo bird or the music from the flute, even be equal to your sweet words

koNDa mana sancalaNgaL panjAi paRandiDumE
All the worries that clouded my mind just blows away like mere cotton fibre in the wind (referring to the sweet words from above)
tAlElO! tAlElO!

CharaNam
tEDAda en nidhiyE tigaTTAda teLLamudE
The wealth that I couldn't have found anywhere, the pure ambrosia that I can never grow tired of 
vADAda menmalarE manattuL inikkum tanittEnE

the flower that never withers, my own sweet honey that sweetens my heart
tAlElO! tAlElO!

Govindan Kuzhalosai

This is a beautiful padam in ragamalika composed by Kalamamani Dr Saraswathi
It praises Lord Krishna and how his flute music enchants everyone around that they forget their normal routines. 

It is set to raga Desh predominantly. This is popular hindustani raga but there has been a lot of tamil/carnatic songs tuned to this. One popular song that comes to mind is of "Vande Mataram" the national song... set in desh (meaning country... you get it?)
The other is "Thunbam nergayil" from an old Tamil movie.

The Pallavi and anupallavi are set to this raga. 
the Charanam forays into Atana (janya of 29th melakartha Shankarabharanam).  

There is then a burst of chittaswarams in various raga - Atana, ranjani, simmendra madhyamam, mohanam, hindolam, finishing up back in desh

Lyrics

Pallavi

Raga:Desh

gOvindan kuzhalOsai kEtu 

Hearing the music from Govindan's flute
angu mEvidum Avinam mEIdhal marandhana

The cattle and livestock grazing over there, forgot to graze

Anupallavi

KUvidum paravaigal kUdugal thurandhana

The chirping/singing birds forgot their nests
PUvidai thEn arundha vandinam marandhana

The honey bees forgot to drink nectar from the flowers

Charanam

Raga: atana

KatiLa mangaiyar kaNNan kuzhal kEtu

The young damsels heard Kannan's flute (and)
Mattila Ananda kadalil mUzhgi

drowned in the sea of boundless joy
KaNNanai kandu kAdhal kondu

Saw Kannan and fell in love with Him
KaNNa endrE thEdi alaindhanar [kaNNa nin kuzhalosai ketu]

Called out "Kanna" and started searching for him

Anandha Natamaduvar thillai

This is the first of the many padams that we would learn eventually.


This is a song in praise of Lord Shiva - the cosmic dancer. The composer is Neelakanta Sivan. He is little known but has given some wonderful compositions. His disciple, Papanasam Sivan, on the other hand is quite popular as we all know.

This song is set to raga Purvikalyani. Purvikalyani is a janya of (no, not Kalyani but) Gamanashrama.
Will probably post on my music blog regarding this raga.

Lyrics

Pallavi

Ananda naTam ADuvAr tillai ambalam tannil aDi
paNIbavark-kapajayam illai
(Ananda)

Ananda (happy) natam (dance) aduvar (he's dancing) tillai (Chidambaram) Ambalam (temple) tannil (in)

adi panibavar(devotees) apajayam illai (no troubles). 

He who dances  happily in the Chidambaram temple, if we pray to him we won't have any troubles. 

Anupallavi

tAnandam illAda rUpan 

tajjam takajham takajhaNu 

taLAngu taka tatingiNatOm 

taLAngu taka tatingiNatOm 

taka dhimi taka tatingiNatOmena

(Ananda)

He is the one with no start/end (tanandam). Referring to how he wanted to show Vishnu and Brahma that he is endless. Vishnu goes for Shiva's feet and when he couldn't find it he surrenders. Brahma goes to find his head and meets a thazhampoo (Kewra phool) that falls from Shiva's head. He asks the thazhampoo to back him up and say that yes brahma saw his head. Accordingly Brahma and the flower lie to Shiva but he finds out and curses brahma that there would no temple to worship him because he lied. 

CaraNam 

pAdi madi jyOti phaLir phaLIr enna 

pAda shilamboli ghalIr ghalIr enna
Adi karai uNDa nIlakNTham minna 

arapura hara shiva sundara 

aruL gurupara shiva shankara
ANdamum piNDamum AdiDa 

eNdishaiyum pugazh pAda
(Ananda)

Padhi (half) madhi(moon) jothi(light). The light from the crescent moon on his head is glowing brightly. 

Pada (feet) silamboli (sound of the bells). The sound of the bells from his feet are so sonorous and loud. 

Aadi (in early days) karaiunda (drink poison from the ocean) neelakantam (blue throat) is shining

arapura hara shiva sundara - the one who has conquered all worlds

Arul gurvara shiva shankara - The shiva who bless gurus 

Andamum pindamum aadida (The entire world with all its living/non living beings are dancing with you)

Endisaiyum pugazh paadida (the eight directions are singing your praise). 

Thillana - Ratipatipriya

This is the first thillana we learnt. Thillanas are a form of song where the rhythm is given a lot of importance. In fact the whole piece is centered around the rhythmic syllables set to a tala pattern. Unlike the solkattu that we encountered earlier in varnam or shabdam, the solkattu in thillana is the "actual" song and is sung as such. Each thillana is also set to a raga (or scale or tune) and sometimes it might even be a ragamalike (remember shabdam?).

The beauty of the thillana is in the fast verses and the intrinsic and complex patterns that still adhere to the tala patterns. A few months (well, maybe a year) ago I wrote a post on Korvais (joins) and Karvais (splits). Thillana is just full of them. I want to highlight some using the current thillana as an example.

This thillana is set to Ratipatipriya (a little known ragam except for the masterpiece Jagajanani). The ragam is the janya of 22nd Melakartha Karaharapriya. It's a audava-audava raga, very simplistic in its structure. Not a whole lot of neraval swaras. As with a lot of KHpriya janya, it is a very melodious raga. KHpriya is quite the prolific mother but I digress.

As I mentioned the emphasis of thillanas is on the rhythm. This is beautifully explored in the current Thillana. It is set to adi talam which is the regular 4+2+2 however, it is set to cycle of 2 avarthanams or 16 beats (That is it takes 16 beats to complete one cycle).
(Nadir theemtha deem deem deem) -4
(nadirtha deem deem) -2
 (deem deem thana) -2
 (dhirana thana dheem) - 4
 (janu dheem) - 2
(dheemtha dheemtha dheem) -2
What this does is that it gives the percussionist and hence the choreographer a little more freedom to work with which makes for some very beautiful combinations.

A typical structure of the thillana is Pallavi and anupallavi of solkattu followed by a lyrical charanam. In this version, the charanam goes as follows

Ponnezhil mEni vaNNanE
The one whose body has the charm of gold
kANa eNNinEn mEga varNanE
I wanted to see you, the one who's colored like the clouds (dark skinned - as Krishna is said to be dark skinned)
viNNavar pAdum mannanE
The king whose praise the celestial gods sing
maNi vaNNanE kamala kaNNanE
O Beautiful one, O lotus eyed one.

The forgotten verses

What makes a varnam beautiful is not just the lyrics but also the intricate nattuvangam (or sorkattu) that is interspersed. In tamil, sol = word and kattu means to tie or tied, therefore sol+kattu = sorkattu which is essentially the words tied together. these are identified as the Theermanams in the previous post. Jegatha had asked me to provide the sorkattu for the varnam and here you go. I am including all the theermanams as well as the swarams (mukthayi and chitta) in the same order as they appear in the varnam.

Each transition from song to solkattu is preceded by 
thalaangu thakathiku thaka thathinginathom

Theermanam 1: This is a trikala jathi meaning the same solkattu is repeated in 1st speed 2nd speed and 3 speed. the speed or tempo controls how many aksharas (or swaras) per beat. and the tempo increases exponentially  that is 2nd speed is twice 1st speed and 3rd speed is twice second speed (or 4 times 1st speed). 

The sol goes as follows

Tha ritha ritha kina | naka thaka | jam jam || 
Tha jam , , , |  thaka jam|, , , || thakun dari kita thaka| 

(Note that this is 2.5 avarthanams(cycles) and therefore repeated 2 times to make 5 avarthanams)

The same is repeated in 2nd speed as follows repeated 4 times
tharitha rithakina nakathaka jamjam| tha jam thaka jam | thakundari kitathaka||

3rd speed repeats the above 4 times.

a special "theermanam" is appended to completed the cycle as follows
tharitha rithajam thatharitha rithajam| tharithaka ritha tha thakathiku kitathaka tharikitathom||
tharikitathom thaka tharikitathom thakathiku kitathaka tharikitathom||

This is repeated thrice to finish the cycle.

Theermanam 2: (One speed only)
tha thadingu thaka thaka thadingu thaka tha nom thadingu thadingu thadingu tharikita ,dingu dingu tharikita
tha thadingu thaka thaka thadingu thaka tha jam thadingu thadingu thadingu tharikita ,dingu dingu tharikita

tha thadingu thaka thaka thadingu thaka tha jam thaka thadingu thaka naka thadingu thaka tha jam

tha thadingu tha thadingu thai thaka thadingu tha thadingu thai
tha thadingu tha  thaka thadingu thai thalaanguthom thakathiku kitathaka tharikitathom
tha thadingu tha  thaka thadingu thai thalaanguthom thakathiku kitathaka tharikitathom
tha thadingu tha  thaka thadingu thai thalaanguthom thakathiku kitathaka tharikitathom


to be continued.

Anatomy of a Varnam

Varnams are milestones in the world of music/dance. Since this is a dance-based blog I will concentrate on dance based varnams. Varnams are of different types and have different purposes. The two popular types of varnam are Taana Varnam and Pada varnam. The Tana varnams are usually used in music training/concerts and consists more of the akaaram based singing/playing. "Pada" means verse, so true to its name pada varnam have a lot of verses (even for places where, in Tana varnams, you only have swaras). Almost all varnam pieces in dance training are pada varnams because tana varnams are mostly to prove the prowess of one's singing rather than on nritta or abhinaya.  Therefore for the rest of this post, whenever I say Varnam, I mean pada varnam.

The structure of a varnam with the nattuvangam is as follows. The blue color shows verses and green color shows swaras or simply musical notes (as in sa ri ga ma  or some such combo :) ) The nattuvangam is in red.
For illustrative purposes I have shown the corresponding parts of nee indha mayam (in purple italics). Please refer to the previous blogpost for actual lyrics.


-------------- Begin Purvangam (usually in 1st speed or sometimes in chowkam) -------------------

 First Line Intro

Theermanam I

Arudi (Walk back)

Pallavi - Nee indha maayam seidhal nyayam dhana dhayanidhiye

Arudi (Hit back)

Theermanam II

Arudi (Walk back)

Anupallavi - paayum maaran ambinale....

Arudi (Hit back)

Theermanam III

Arudi (Hit back)*

Mukthayiswaram (only musical notes) Ni Dha pa Ma ga ri..

Arudi (Walk back)

Mukthayiswara sahityam (verse for the same tune as #3) (Nee allal thuNai illai...)

Arudi (Walk back) and Pose¨ 

------------- End Purvangam (Purvangam == first half)   -----------------------------

============ Begin Uttarangam =====================

 Charanam (usually sung in 2nd speed) (Ayar kula deepame...) Intro
Theermanam IV

Arudi (Walk back)

Charanam Sanchari

Arudi (Hit back)

Chittaswaram #1 (Sa pa ni ma)

Arudi (Walk back)

Chittaswara sahityam #1 (svAmi ni kan pAr...)

Arudi (Hit back)

Chittaswaram #2 (Sa ri sa ni ri sa dha)

Arudi (Walk back)

Chittaswara sahityam #2 (Sarasadala ...)

Arudi (Hit back)

Chittaswaram #3 (Sa ri sa ni sa...)

Arudi (Walk back)

Chittaswara sahityam #3 (tarunamidu...)

Arudi (Hit back)

 Chittaswaram #4 (Sa sa ga ri sa ni ri sa...)

Arudi (Walk back)

Chittaswara sahityam #4 (Paaraai...)

Arudi (Walk back)¨

.... some varnams have more than 4 chittaswarams and some have lesser than 4.

============= End Uttarangam (Uttarangam == latter part) ================

* - You hit back because the next line is Mukthayiswaram which is also foot work. So you prefix the footwork with the hitting back

¨ - You walk back because the next line is Charanam and therefor abhinaya. You prefix the abhinaya with the more graceful walk (rather than hit).

While this is taking a specific varnam for illustrative purposes, the structure for varnams remain more or less the same.
Couple of things to note
1. Both nattuvangam (such as theermanams) and swaras (such as chittaswara or mukthayiswara) comprise of purely footwork.
2. All verses with actual lyrics comprise of abhinaya. For the main verses (Pallavi, Anupallavi and Charanam) they are often repeated multiple times. The dancer usually uses these repititions to either a. show variations in abhinaya or b. use abhinaya to show drama/story. For ex, eventhough the lines themselves may not directly refer to it, the dancer may show stories of krishna or rama during the lines. Such elaborations are called "sanchari"s. Sanchari literally means to roam around. These are called sanchari because they go in a roundabout way to express the meaning by enacting stories rather than do the abhinaya of the actual words.
Remember that these sancharis are creative outlets for the dancer to depict their facial expressions of emotions just as the intricate theermanams are their outlets for footwork.

I may do a followup post on just Dhanyasi varnam to explain a little more about the raga/tala structure of the same. 

Beginning Varnam 5/11/2013

My last post has been from October 2012 where I spoke about Korvais and Karvais.  Fast forward 7 months and we are already beginning our Varnam.
The post prior to that is from Sept 2011 where I introduced Kavuthuvum. So here's a list of what we learnt in the intervening year and half.
1. Ganesh Kavithuvum
2. Subramanya Kavithuvam
3. Natesha Kavithuvam
4. Alarippu
5. Kalyani Jathiswaram
6. Govardhanagiri (Krishna Shabdam) - Raga malika
7. Thodaya mangalam - Raga/Tala malika
(did I miss any)

You can see that as a child learns first the alphabet, forming into words learning the pronunciation and then eventually forming sentences, we have now reached a stage where we can put together these various elements of footwork, hand gestures and abhinaya to create a full length piece.

The varnam we are learning is Nee Indha Mayam by Papanasam Sivan in Raga Dhanyasi and Aadi Thalam.
Don't worry yet if the structure is a little vague. I will be explaining this in a subsequent post. Just pay attention to the bolded terms,  I will be referring theses names in the following post.
Here's the lyrics of this varnam . Meanings follow (in blue).

nI inda mAyam (padavarNam).  rAgA: dhanAysi.  tALA: Adi

Pallavi:

nI inda mAyam seidAl nyAyam tAnO dayAnidhiyE 

Is it fair/right if you do this mystical action, oh sympathetic one. (the "mAyam" here could refer to magic or testing behavior).

Anupallavi:

A:  pAyum mAran ambinAlE puNpaDu pAvaiyaik-kaNNAl pArAmal innum 

The girl has been hit by the arrow of the leaping Manmadhan (the love god), you are not even looking at her with your eyes yet (you're ignoring the lovestruck woman)

Muktayiswaram:(sAhityam)
nIyallAl tuNaiyillai bhuvi tanilE dayai purivaiyE nijamidu vanaja nayana

Without you, there is no support in this world, take pity on me, this is true oh lotus-eyed.

ninadubhaya caraNam kanavilum maravA enadu tApamara vandaruL iraivA

I pray to your helping feet. Oh God, please help remove the yearning that I don't even forget in my dreams.

muraLi gAna kuLir niraimati vadananE murahara munivar tozhum kamala caraNanE

the flute player, the cool moon faced one, the slayer of demons, the lotus feeted that sages pray to.

rAdhai maNavALA tuyaram ini tALEn mukhil nigar dayALA yadu patiyE  

Husband of Radha, I cannot bear this sorrow now, oh compassionate one like the rain bearing cloud, oh leader of yadavas.

Charanam:

Ayarkula dIpamE aruL tArAi

Oh shining light of ayar lineage bless me.

Chittaswaram (Sahityam):1:  svAmi nI kaN pAr satyabhAmA lOlA gOpAlA 

Oh God, please see me the lover of Sathyabhama, Gopala.

2:  sArasadaLa vilOcana parama pAvana sAmajavarada madurai vaLar 

Oh lotus eyed, the supreme holy being. The boon-giver to gajendra, the one who grew up in Mathura.

3:  taruNamidu ninaindu ninainduLLam varundinEn  

karuNai nidhiyE manadu kanindaruL viraindu 

this is the right time. I despaired thinking over and over again. Oh compassionate one, please soften your heart and come fast.

4:  pArAi punnakaiyoDennarugil vArAi nI manam irangi enai
parivuDanE enaduyirudan onrena anru kaland(u)En enai inru marandAi
pani nilAvil tavazh iniya tenralilum enadu mEniyazhal mezhugu pOl uruga
pagalirA tuyilurA tiru vizhigaLum pArAmukhamum tagumO manamum silaiyO

Please see me (pArAi), come near me with a smile, take pity on me. With lots of affection, that day you become one with my life, why did you forget me today. Even in the cool breeze that floats in the dewy moon, my body melts like an inflamed wax. There is no day with sleepless eyes, Is it right to show indifference (to me), is your heart a statue (as in made of stone?)