It's been my long cherished dream to share the nuances of mridangam playing and techniques that I had learnt from the great masters to the future generation.
I have always felt the audio medium( normal music CDs) is necessarily not the best suited for this, for the simple reason that unlike vocal music, the students of mridangam have to see and understand fingering techniques which is a very key aspect of perfecting the art of mridangam playing. I strongly felt they have to see and learn, rather than just hear or read from books. It is with this objective and intent, I have been waiting for the right opportunity to create learning DVDs. Very recently, the opportunity presented itself and I agreed to do a project with Swathi Soft Solutions.
It's been a mega project as I wanted to cover all aspects of mridangam techniques and playing. We started with putting down in paper every aspect that everybody needed to know - right from basic lessons to accompaniment to concerts. The effort required was huge. We almost recorded for over 120 hours, day and night, with technicians, my disciples and the director S.B. Khanthan. The editing in the studio of all the relevant portions that subsequently we did, was indeed a brilliant team work.The rain in Chennai over the last 15 days did not stop us from working 24x7 in getting this project right in time for the 2008 music season.
This project called Mridanga Cintamanih( A treasure trove of Rhythmic Lessons) is over 22 Hrs long! It has been captured in 7 DVDs. I have broken it into 4 levels - Level1 - Beginner's guide, Level 2 - Advanced exercises and techniques for proficiency, Level 3 - Gaining expertise for solo renditions, Level 4 - Road to success in concerts( Vocal & instrumental music).
I believe I have included in these DVDs almost everything that I have learnt from my great masters who I have seen, learnt and experienced all through my career over the last 60 years.
The launch of the DVD is being held at the Music Academy on Dec 8th 2008 and it's one of the most fulfilling moments of my career. You are most welcome to attend this event if you are in Chennai for the season. I have also agreed to present an unique concert during the launch where I present the art of mridangam playing for Namasankeerthanam, Harikatha, Carnatic music, Bharatanatyam, use of mridangam techniques in western drums and finally am playing with Roland Rhythm box, which is a road to perfect the art of playing the mridangam with a machine.
I would like to thank the Swathi team K.S. Sudhakar, my disciples who have worked on this project diligently, musicians who participated in the project - Sri. Saketaraman and Sri. M.A. Sundereswaran, Director S.B. Khanthan and many other well wishers who helped me in getting this vision of mine off-the-ground.
This I believe is my humble contribution to the World of Carnatic music, the music fraternity at large and World of Rhythm.
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12 comments:
Respected sir, congratulations on the successful culmination of such a mammoth project with the release of the DVD series. My son recently started learning to play the Mridangam from a teacher in India (we live abroad) over the internet, and these DVDs will be an invaluable resource for us to extend his learning further. Looking forward to regularly hearing from you through this blog.
Warm regards
Krishna
Thanks Mr. Krish. It is great to hear such encouraging words from music lovers like you - that such a project will be useful to students of music like your son. I bless him and wish him the very best.
Dear Sir,
I am Praveen(srinivasan's son) from Singapore,and i would like to congratulate you on the DVD release.It is a boon for people to further their learning and having the vicarious pleasure of being tutored by you through the DVD.I wish you and your family a very happy new year.Pls convey my regards to Sivakumar.
Praveen
PS:I will be buying this DVD and hoping to see you in a concert in Singapore.
Thanks Praveen. All the best. Look forward to meeting you in Singapore soon.
When i was a kid i learnt from one of your students Sri Bhavani Shankar in the UK. One of the boys in my class (Ravi Ramdass eventually came to India to learn from you directly). Sadly i gave up mridangam after Bhavaniji stopped the lessons.
But now after nearly a decade i have started learning mridangam again under Mr J.Padmanabhan. The sound of the mridangam is always flowing inside me and your playing is simply brilliant in terms of the clarity and balance of sound. You are truly one of the greatest percussionists on earth.
I know how hard it is to learn mridangam outside India. Therefore your DVD has come at a critical time.
I would love to meet you personally one of these days
Namaskaram Sir,
What a delight! I salute you for this invaluable vidya daanam you have made to the student community and the world of music. It's a blessing to be your student and have the pleasure of watching and listening to you at first hand. Thanks a million!
Namaskaram
Ram Lakshmanan.
St. Louis, Missouri, USA.
Lakshmanan@Prodigy.Net
Excellent blog that offers lot of information on the carnatic music maestro and south indian music. the blog is truly one among the best of its kind for carnatic music. keep on blogging.
Respected Sir,
I am a student of Mridangam for the past 8-9 years, very happy to see the release of the DVDs, however my concern is there maybe many people interested in Mridangam but are not able to get the DVDs or any access to materials due to financial reasons. I would like to make a humble suggestion with your permission. It would be better if some of the lessons (atleast the basic ones if not the advanced lessons) in an Open Web such as Wikipedia, or mayb we can create a Wiki page for Mridangam and maintain a well documented history and various perspectives of this "rAja vAdhyam". Thanks :)
Dear Umayapuram sir,
I am someone looking to get your DVD, and I think it will be a great illuminating resource for someone based in North America. It seems that there was quite a bit of demand here and the DVD packs are sold out on amazon actually! It would be great if you can ask your producers, distributors to send some more over to our shores!
Thanks
Rajeev
Dear Guru Pranam
Please add the percussive notes with all the taalas in the PDF as I am unable to identify the notes for certain phrases like Dhi Tham kitathakatharikitathaka thaka thom. and All the gurus I know in Hyderabad use different percussive phrases -- Request you(one of your many desciples to) update the pdfs and send it through mail -- ram.c.krishnamraju@gmail.com
for ever your desciple
Thanks
Ramchander Rao K
Respected Guruji,
Myself Guruprasad, working in Ahmedabad bought the complete DVD from swatisoft. You are my manasiga guru and I am learning through the DVD. I have no words to express my thanks to you as this covers the entire syllabus. Also I wonder how much pain you must have taken to complete this whole exercise.
Excellent informative DVD. Highly valuable one. I request every parent to buy this DVD for their children who learns mridangam.
Thanks sir and warm regards
Hello Sir,
I am not able to find the DVD set in giri.in and saptashwara musicals. Is there any other shop that I can buy locally in chennai.
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