Stage Matters
Stage Matters is the podcast that pulls back the curtain on the art of live performance. Hosted by Aravind Murali, this show delves into the profound transformation artists undergo when they step onto the stage. It's more than just a presentation of talent; it's about the vulnerable, exhilarating, and often unpredictable interplay between countless hours of dedication and the raw energy of a live audience.
Join Aravind as he chats with a diverse range of artists, from established icons to emerging talents, to uncover the secrets behind their transcendent moments. "Stage Matters" explores the highs, the lows, the practical techniques, and the critical mindset that define a performer's approach to their craft. If you've ever wondered what it truly takes to command an audience, connect deeply, and consistently deliver breathtaking artistic experiences, this podcast is your backstage pass to understanding the true essence of performance.
Stage Matters
ep. 8 Ragavan Manian - Performance is a distillate
In this insightful episode, join us as we delve into the world of Carnatic music with the incredibly versatile musician, Raghavan Manian. Raghavan shares his captivating journey from a child prodigy performing at age seven to a prolific composer and performer who effortlessly blends various musical genres.
Discover the early influences that shaped his unique artistic voice, including the transformative impact of witnessing legends like Dr. Balamurali Krishna and Madurai Somu. Raghavan reflects on how his understanding of performance evolved from a quest for perfection to a path of self-discovery, fueled by unexpected inspirations like heavy metal music.
Gain an exclusive look into his unconventional preparation process, where mental clarity and emotional internalization of lyrics take precedence over rigid rituals. He candidly discusses the "positive gap" between practice and performance, the profound spiritual dimension he finds on stage, and his refreshing perspective on embracing mistakes as an integral part of artistic expression.
Raghavan also sheds light on the intricacies of Carnatic soundchecks and the evolving role of rehearsal in a tradition deeply rooted in improvisation. He offers a compelling view on the dynamic relationship between a performer and their audience, emphasizing connection, empathy, and the beautiful interconnectedness of global musical traditions. Whether you're a seasoned music lover or new to the world of Carnatic music, Raghavan Manian's reflections offer a unique and inspiring perspective on the art of performance.
My guest today is a Carnatic musician who has performed extensively in India as well as across the USA. Apart from his captivating performances, he is also a prolific composer and enjoys straddling various genres of music and also loves experimenting with various instruments including the flute, the violin, the guitar and the saxophone. Here is Raghavan Manian.
Hi Raghavan, thank you for coming here and talking to me. Hey Aravind. So how did you first become a performer? What drew you to performance? I think I was too young to know.
They were perfect. They tricked me. It was a great start.
It was a trick I was had. So I was probably just seven or eight. Okay.
Culturally, back in the day, Tamram was a boondoggles. It was way out there, you know, with along with Chengalpet. And that's how people thought of the suburb back then in Tamram.
Adyar was the outskirts of the city. You know, after you cross IIT, you're out there in the village. So the spirit was the spirit of the village, which means that people are culturally engaged.
That means music, you know, the whole nine yards music, there's religion, there is ritual, there is observance, months are celebrated through musical events. And also there are all these great local or hyperlocal music teachers, whose street, a street will have about six, seven, eight, 10 musical kids, and one music teacher who serves everybody in that neighbourhood within one or two streets. So it was a very immersive environment.
And here I'm talking mostly about Carnatic music. And that was the sort of the lingua franca of Chennai. Even today, you would say, you know, Chennai speaks a language that is somewhat related to Carnatic music, even in the hallowed halls of jazz and classical music, there is an element lurking somewhere.
Yeah. So it was that and so, you know, getting on the stage at the time and being a performer was just a matter of your guru telling you to go there and say, here you are, saying 20 minutes or 30 minutes or whatever. So I was seven or eight when that happened.
From then on, I think a lot of part of your life. Yeah, a lot of it was simply circumstance combined with, I suppose, what others saw in me as talent, what I saw as a way to avoid very difficult tasks such as studying for exams, being too pushed into the academic end of things. Okay.
Yeah. So was there a pivotal performance that you witnessed, which made you think, okay, this is what I should be doing? I must have been that around that age, under 10. And I witnessed Dr. Balamurali Krishna sing.
And he was like, wow, he blew my mind. And I knew that. And then that I had to sing in that sort of engaged and effortless way.
And I mean, the key words was singing because that was that is what first hit me. Oh, that's that's the voice. That's the voice I'm looking for.
And there were several other performers like him. Madurai Somu comes to mind, another mind blowing performer, completely like Chokanthi, those two guys, Balamurali Krishna with his finesse and, and glamour, and just deft touch. And Madurai Somu, who was all in like heavy metal, you know, he gets in and people are dragged into this sort of whirlpool of energy.
And he stands up in the concert. Can you imagine a Carnatic concert supposed to be a very tame affair? In the middle of the concert, he'll just rise, like he has been possessed. So there are these two contrasting energies.
Those two energies kind of, you would say, in a magical moment sort of entered me. Right. So I think that those two guys, my guru, Dr. Balamurali Krishna and Madurai Somu, continue to influence me.
They continue to have a part to play in my musical journey, even though I may not consume them like I used to. They have consumed me. So I would say those two performances were pivotal.
And from then on, you know, you start engaging with the retinue of performances. With Balamurali, there was a Mridangam player named Thanjavur Upendra. Again, very deft touch.
His silence was golden. Unlike other Mridangam players, he would just stop playing and remain silent for the longest time. And that somehow just lifted the concert, you know, he was playing with the silence.
And similarly, there was, of course, Lalgudi Jayaraman. If he played, people went there to hear his violin, never mind who sang or who played, anything else. So these were kind of the names that were affecting my musical psyche.
Little did I know that they were the gods of music. I just knew them as someone I had to go listen to regularly and just feel blown by. Umayalpuram Shivaraman.
These legends definitely, you know, kind of impacted me in more ways than one. Wonderful. So how has your understanding of performance evolved from when you started to now? What is it? It's something completely different now, Arvind.
Now, when I started out, and for the longest time, till my mid-teens even, performance was about the closest thing you can think about was perfection. The idea was to render something as lucidly and as faithfully to the golden rendition. The golden was defined by what you mean like before.
Yeah. So this was in my formative years, you know, so fidelity was everything. And of course, the idiom itself lends itself to improvisation.
So improv was always part of it. But even the improvisation had to be studied at a degree of extreme precision, right, whether it's time or note or phrasing, gamma come as we call it, when to soften, when to, all those had templates. Right.
So it was a very, I would say, pedagogical approach to learning. That was my journey till I was in my mid-teens. And then something happened.
What happened was heavy metal happened. So my influences musically started to come from other parts of the world. Yeah.
From other parts of the musical soundscape. Right. And this kind of radically changed my mind.
Because I think teenagers also when you're dying to change, right, you're really trying to come out. Rebelling. Rebelling, it's metamorphosis.
Yeah, I would say, you know, that was it, I was becoming butterfly from being caterpillar. And the cocoon was happening around the time of my teenage. Can you take me through your preparation process? Say you have a show tomorrow.
What do you do like physically, mentally? Do you have something, any kind of specific rituals, diet? Whatever. Diet. Yeah.
What started off as a quest for perfection, morphs into something called self-discovery. And your performance, in either case, carries a lot of who you are. An artist is basically naked on stage.
He or she exposes all their wares, some of which are just pristine, beautiful, consumable. Some of them are half baked. Some of them are just simply dough.
And some of them are just vapourware. You know, we think it's there, but nobody else is seeing it. Right.
So with such mystery, we enter the stage. And to process this sort of spectrum of everything from real to imagined to reflective, we need to have something to steady our heads to not get too carried away by the moment during the performance to not get too psyched. I think, you know, I try and do nothing before the performance so that nothing includes trying not to speak much, not to engage much, not to teach the day before or at least the morning before a concert.
I basically try and keep as blank of a mind as possible. But the only thing that is going to be in my mind is perhaps if it's a very lyrically intensive performance, then I do have a way by which I run the lyrics through my head. So that, you know, it is not a disaster in terms of recall.
Because for a vocalist, the biggest problem is lyrical recall. As you grow older, it gets harder. Yeah.
And so probably, you know, the only thing I really do actively before a performance is to just try and make sure that the lyrics flow in my head. And even that process has changed a lot. Earlier, it used to be what we call as mugging.
Now, where you are basically just using mnemonics. Yeah. And putting it all together.
Yeah. And kind of using music as a way to remember these things. With time, it has changed into something that I try and internalise as emotional, right? Emotionally, what is the lyricist trying to do? Or is there a history and a story behind these lyrics? How is that connected? Whether it's an epic connection or a day to day connection? Example, you know, the famous Carnatic song, Sri Rangapura Vihara.
It goes as Rangapura Vihara followed by Sri Rangapura Vihara. This is a very easy thing to remember. Not saying it's complicated.
It gets complicated as we go. But right at the beginning, there is an intent that the composer has, which is when you think of it as Ranga, you're thinking about Ranga, Rangadhema or Rangadhebasanti. The Ranga which means colour.
Yeah. When you say Sri Ranga, you're now having a divine elevation to that. Okay.
So Sri Ranga and Ranga are two different emotions. Can you do that when you sing? Phrase Ranga as one way. Sri Ranga as one way.
The notes don't change. The melody doesn't change. The arrangement doesn't change.
Only thing that changes is your perception. How can you do this? Unless you are one with in bed with the composer, one with the lyric, able to jump across even probably the composer's intent to make it your intent. Right.
So you're internalising and you're intentionalizing the composition. And that way you own it. Right.
Once you own something, man, you want to take it home. Yeah. Right.
That's when you really think if you're going to sell other people's wares in a performance, people will see you through. Yeah. You know, a good salesperson, and I think a performance is a sales job in a way, is a person who completely believes in his product.
Right. And total belief. It's not just a matter of, oh, I'm a committed, you know, I have worship, I do upasana, I do namaz.
It's none of that stuff. Just believe in your heart. Right.
And that belief takes a lot of effort. Lyrically, you have to be on the money with every word you say, every utterance, every phrase. And then comes the rest of it.
So I lead with the So I'm assuming that you don't like to have sheets of lyric on stage and stuff. That's out of the question. Yeah, it is.
No, it is out of the question, you know, but it happens quite often. And I'll tell you why, you know, you start off by knowing maybe a dozen or so few songs, you know, it's all in your head and it's all internalised. The dozen soon becomes 120 and then 1200.
Yep. The zeros get like very quickly added. Yeah.
After a while, you know, your RAM and ROM are completely gone. You know, you have no longer short term, middle term or long term memory to deal with it. On top of it, ageing doesn't really help the picture.
Also, the fact that you are constantly bombarded by things that you're supposed to remember. Everything from household chores, dropping the kid, picking up the dog, cleaning after, you know, everything is a cue on your mind. Yeah.
Ideally, a musician should only do music. Ideally, you know, in a platonic society where people are basically straightjacketed. No, I don't think I'll enjoy that.
Frankly, I enjoy walking my dog. Yeah. Yeah.
I'm not going to give it up. Yeah. But that takes away some cognitive power.
So at the end of the day, there's only so much my mind can deal with. And I do not want to let down the lyricist. Mostly the lyrics I don't remember are my own songs.
Okay. That's the irony of it. Okay.
Because I tend to write songs for the programme. Right. So when it comes to, yeah, you have a special occasion, you want to write something, you want to express your feeling.
You hardly have time because you probably wrote it the night before. Are you going to remember it? Fat chance. So, yeah, I don't, I no longer, you know, beat myself up.
Silly. I don't Dobby over it. Is there a gap between what you practise and what you can execute on stage? I think it's a positive gap.
Honestly, I think I do better. Okay. Wow. That's okay. That's fantastic. I know.
At least I think so. It's always been like this or like, yeah, couldn't have always been like this. Yeah.
It must have changed at some point. Right. I wasn't very perceptive back when, you know, and I also had some defences.
Over time, I have learned that, you know, there is a certain energy in the performance, which is extremely special, no matter how big or how small the performance. It is an energy. It's, it's, you'd say the performance is special because time stops.
Ask any performer and she will tell you that those three hours, two hours just went by. Yeah. You don't recall, you know, you don't look at the phone, for example.
Yeah. You know, you do it when other people are gigging, but not when you're mad. You put your life on the line there.
You know, so it is truly the one most meditative time where time stops. You're not worried about it. That time has stopped.
Oh, time stopped. Am I having a drug high here? It is a drug high. Yeah.
Because performance is also in a way, an enhancing, performance enhancing drug. Yeah. So the performance enhancement is simply again, driven by belief that during that time, you're going to do better than ever.
Right. And mathematically, that means you're just getting better and better. You must have already surpassed Eric Clapton and Paul McCartney.
That doesn't happen, man. But that's okay. It's an illusion.
Since you said, like a phone, I think even in even the aeroplane, I don't put it on aeroplane mode, but when I'm on stage, I put it on aeroplane mode. Yeah, you don't want people to tell you, hey Arvind, where is the show, man? Which, which, is this the third floor or the second floor? You don't want to deal with that. So you were talking about energy in a performance.
Is there some kind of spiritual aspect that you think that is there in a performance? Or is it just a means of communication to you? Yeah, things get spiritual very quickly, you know, because once you cannot process data, and you're already outsourcing things to be processed by the other, as you know, the other as in a Freudian other, then you're already invoking some sort of power that is beyond you. Right. You can say maybe you can use analytics.
Just that, just like sports people do these days. Extremely complex problem. There are 11 a side.
It's being played over so many hours, and the situation is changing rapidly. There are millions of dollars at stake with every game. Let's analyse this with data.
I have a feeling that, you know, when you do that, it would seem like the spiritual curve dips a bit, and then goes right back up again. Because your data analysis machines are going to be replicated by the other team. You know, then it again, again becomes a race.
And sports probably is is an analogy where, you know, the analogues work for a long time, and then it stops working. Because sports has an outcome of one or zero, which, which is not something music does. Music has one outcome, which is one.
You always win at the end of the show. It doesn't matter. If you are a flop, you're still winning that show.
Because you put yourself through that show, give yourself some credit. Right. So in any which way, when zero turns into one, I think spirituality is involved.
There has to be something magical that flips the that makes you feel I can do this despite rather than I can do it because of now doing it because of his engineering. And that was a hat I have worn all my life. Now being being a software engineer, hardware engineer, product manager, whatnot, you know, I know this is data, this is possible.
Now, if something happens, despite that, that is called that, that in spite of the odds in spite of all the constraints and all the things that can go wrong, when something goes right, you have an anti Murphy effect. And I would call that really spiritual. That is truly the magic.
Very interesting. Can you take me through the soundcheck process of a canonic musician because I'm coming from the other side, so to speak. Right.
The other side is actually us too. Yeah. In the sense, I would say, you know, whether you're a Carnatic or a jazz performer, at the end of the day, you want to hear every sound that goes on on the stage.
So ultimately, the goal is the same. You want a high fidelity sound experience. And I would say, you know, if we play in a, in a space that is acoustically endowed, say in a closed chamber, or a church or a big hall with with great acoustics, you're you're going to skin it beautifully, whether you're playing Western classical or Carnatic.
I think the problem comes when different kinds of musical genres are in different spaces, the number of people that attend radically changes the kind of acoustics you need. So in terms of the soundcheck, I would say Carnatic soundchecks are relatively easier. Yeah.
And because we don't have as many questions. Yeah, definitely. The moving parts, you know, back in the day when I would listen to Madurai coming back to my old hero, he had a humongous ensemble of musicians.
Besides the usual Mridangam and violin, he had some three other percussion instruments. So his programme, his concert was basically a percussion heavy ensemble. So there'll be a Kanjira, there'll be a Moharsingh, there'll be a Konnakol, there'll be Mridangam.
So most of the time, the magic is all coming out of the percussion happening, and each one of those sounds. So the sounds will constantly go off. And these are not very sophisticated sound
systems.
They're just a bunch of mics. And these are even pre-mix and amplifier. Ahuja mic.
Yeah, these are like pre-Ahuja in fact, very old, we are talking about 80s. So these, these will be just direct connections into wall speakers and so on. And there'll be constant tussle going on, feedback and all that.
So it is, it is not like any kind of music is exempted. But of course, there are fewer moving parts, it's going to be easier to mix. So when we play, you and I, we have played a few times where I play the saxophone, you play the bass.
Yeah. Finished. Yeah.
Right. Those are the easiest, quickest, I think we probably did a two minute soundcheck. Yeah.
On one of those occasions when we played at that Comerant or something. So it was like, in, plugged, you hear me, I hear you, done. Sound vardha.
And the sound, yeah, vardha, let's do it. So it's, it's a, rather than being genre specific, I think it's a number of moving parts. Recently, I hosted a show as, just me hosting, in Gandhinagar club, we had Agam over.
Now that was a three hour soundcheck. Because they had so many moving parts. And there were, there were parts which had to be soundcheck before the main guys came after, during, and it was a constant struggle.
Because also we were hosting 1200 people. Okay. Right.
So a huge crowd, there's gonna be more noise. And I can imagine how, you know, if you're hosting like 100,000 people in a football field, how it could like completely be at a different level. If it's an Iron Maiden concert, you know, I've been to a Metallica show with 100,000 people.
Yeah, I know what that is, you know, it's a different level of soundcheck. And, you know, it's also how much is at stake. Again, that's an economic problem here too.
You know, you make do with a small chamber performance, you throw in, say, $100, just nominally into the sound system. And you add a zero to the number of people attending, you add a zero to the sound budget too. And then the number of hours that you take to do this.
So you could say, it scales somewhat, the complexity scales. So without getting into too many specifics, I would say, you know, the biggest challenge would be, do all the musicians hear all the sounds? And nowadays, we have in-ears, we try and do that, you know, in the studio, we try and just have individual musicians come in and record their bits and then do a mix later, which completely takes the energy out of the performance, but adds fidelity. So that's another way of doing it, separate the parts, add the parts, but add them piecemeal.
Add the parts, but add them with the technology. So I've been asking this question about improvisation to my previous guests. Now, you're coming from a musical background, which is mainly improvisation, I would say.
So I'll flip it around and ask you, what role does rehearsal and planning play in your process? Yeah, that's a great, great way of looking at how Carnatic musicians do, because we study improv very early. Yeah. By our third or fourth year, we are, we are doing kalpanaswaram, ragalapanai.
And our musicians are basically our beasts, as in the violinist and the mridangam player. If I do a gig a week, they do eight gigs a week. Right.
So they are at least an order of magnitude more in touch, at least from the performance point of view, I may be doing music in the other six days. But because we are talking performance here, and performance is a very, very, very special thing. And when you're working, when you're in a performance, you're playing a test match.
Right? How can anything beat the experience of a test match? So what happens when Carnatic musicians meet and perform is, we do not, very often, we don't even tell each other what the set is. We don't have to. In fact, a generation back, if I were to tell my violin player, I'm playing this or singing that, he would feel offended.
He would say, do you think I don't know what to do? Right? So that is the level of trust they have on their art. At the same time, you know, for example, let's say that M S Anantaraman is going to play for you. And this man is a hallowed figure and violin playing.
But you also know his pedigree. You know, what style he plays. Let's say he, he plays a Hindustani infused Carnatic music, right? If you were smart about it, you would structure your performance so that there are things that are playing to his strength.
Yeah. Not the other way around. Yeah.
You know, you do not want to have something that he can do a decent job at. You want something that he can just shred, straightaway kill. Because if he kills the performance, you kill the performance.
You reap the rewards of his greatness. So I think a lot of Carnatic musicians, the smart ones, these days the trend is they do one of two things. One is, you know, give them things that they are strong at and benefit.
But more often than not, things are becoming more like sets these days, just as you have your band and you play day in and day out with your saxophone player and your drummer. But you can still jam with anybody else. Yeah.
Those two other guys you jam with at a different league and level. You guys know each other's
minds. Yeah.
In that sense, there are musicians who do day in and day out concerts with the same guys. They go on tour with them. Yeah.
They may not rehearse, but they are in touch. They have dinners together. Yeah.
Right there, the minds. So a lot of music making is beyond the product of music because music is an emotion and you need to emotionally connect. Like while you can do very, very technical work, unless you have a bond, I have a feeling, you know, it may be just me, but I feel something is missing in the music.
It's perfect. It's technical. It's beautiful.
But there's no soul. Very well said. Yeah.
Yeah. So how do you get that soul? You have to have soul mates. Yeah.
To have that soul. You have to have friends play with you. Not intimidating.
You know, even if they're giants, you want to, even them, you want to, that's why you have to be friendly with the giants that you play with. Saying, I acknowledge that you're a giant. Here is your meal.
Kalyana samayal sadam. Have it. Yeah. You know, and bless me. Yeah. In a way.
So the Carnatic world also approaches the art with a lot of reverence because of the tradition. Yes. Right.
Well, I'm not fully bought into that. I do not either demand reverence or, you know, expect or probably give and it's okay. I don't care.
But the tradition itself, because it's it's hundreds of years old. And there's so much, both great material and uterus that has collected over the centuries. You have to be able to separate the shaft from the grain.
So you have to approach it with some humility, build strength in it, and then use your, your mental, you know, to separate the shaft from the grain. Okay. Brilliant.
How do you deal with the unexpected? Like mistakes by you, your performers, or something wrong in the venue, your mic is not working, suddenly in the middle of the performance. Yeah, I think it's easy to just escape the question by saying expect the unexpected, you know, something cliche like that. I think the unexpected definitely is to be expected.
You, if you don't, if you don't have any, any mixed mistakes or mishaps in a performance, or a computer, yeah, you kind of, you know, you've reached a plateau in your performance, you know, you may be very good, you're not getting better. Right. That means you're not taking risks.
Yeah, you're trying, you don't want to litter your performance with mistakes. Yeah, you know, you want, you want to just push your boundaries a little, where, you know, every performance has one or two mistakes, every recording, there is a flaw in it. I remember once when my, my mentor, Dr. Balamurali Krishna went to a recording, I went with him to the recording.
And he did a 45 minute recording and took a break, he usually takes a break between sessions and has some Vettelapakam, Sampan. And the producer came up to him and said, Guruji, there are two or three places where, you know, there are small mistakes, you know, that are just like little mishaps. Can we do a retake? And he said, Oh, Balamurali should not make mistakes.
Let's just run with it. Let the mistakes be. Let people see the work for what it is.
And Balamurali makes mistakes too. Yeah. And that was a great lesson.
You know, if he can make mistakes, I can make mistakes too. It's just a part of Okay, another thing is, we are not a symphony orchestra. Right? I'm not working for Daniel Barenboim, or Ruben Mehta, or even Miles Davis, I'm not going to be fired if I make a mistake.
Right. And on the other hand, I'm not going to fire my musicians if they make a mistake either. Yeah, as long as you know, there is an understanding and also an acknowledgement.
And just a smile of appreciation, you know, you smile away and say, Okay, this is acknowledged. But there's also a beautiful thing that, you know, the Japanese do and I love this. When there is, you know, broken pottery, they put it together.
And that's a new form of art. Yeah. Rabindranath Tagore was very famous for his, you know, his improvised art.
Yeah. So apparently, he would write poetry, a draft. And as he makes changes, he would scratch off those letters or words.
And then the draft is complete. Some student of his will transcribe it. But he will want to hang on to the original manuscript, because he will join those mistakes and make a painting of it.
Okay. So here's, here's a way to transform and if you cannot deal with the mistakes and make acknowledge them as part and parcel of the art, then you know, it's no fun. But do you ever get flustered for at least momentarily if something happens, or? The pain becomes part of the art.
It's no denying that you want, you know, because it's so deeply ingrained in you, since you were a kid. Also, because we, we have, since the 1920s, at least, we have grown up in an era of recordings, where recordings take 5, 6, 10 takes, you know, in any genre to get it right. And we are, we are basically looking at the end goal of that very, very tedious process.
Seriously, are you going to expect that when you go out there and perform? It's a performance, not a recording. Yeah, we'll have a separate podcast for recording. But with performance, acknowledge that there is going to be some pain, some difficulty dealing with your own failings and shortcomings.
And if you can transcend that and accept it, and be honest with it, you know, smile. That's okay. Or smirk, or if you don't like it, frown.
Fine, you know, be open with your emotion. That's what. What role does the audience play in your performance process? A very, very widely varying role.
Dependent, you know, first of all, the audience has come to listen to you, you know, and prioritised that time of theirs. You're not doing them a favour. They are doing you a favour.
Okay. They're paying your bills too, by the way. Yeah, right.
So, acknowledge that the audience is special. They are your clients. You want to please them to the point where you can be honest with them.
You don't want to fawn all over them. Right? At the same time, you want to feed on their energies. If it is very evident that they're here for the technical aspects, don't tell them stories about the old monk on the hill and bored the hell out of them.
If there's a group of enthusiastic kids, tell them stories, you know, give them something that they can relate with the music. So it is all about, are you able to read the audience? Are you able to serve them to the best of their need and requirement? If you're in a complete misfit place where your music and the audience have nothing at all to do with each other, absolutely nothing, and you realise it quickly, then you got to do something drastically different. Right.
So very early on, like, when I was a grad student, I went and did a solo flute recital, a Hindustani recital, in an exhibition at the University of Virginia premises. So they invited me and they said, this is an exhibition and we also want a performance. And I went in fully expecting, you know, there has to be a chamber and people come and listen.
And then I realised that people just going to walk around all over the place and not even pay any attention to what you're playing. Right. It took me a good 15 minutes to wrap my head around this, quote unquote, disrespect.
Right. But over the years, I think I've played many of those shows. Now it's not disrespect.
It is a different clientele. On the other hand, if it's a recital where, you know, you're making a technical exposition, people are very invested in the music. They're going to sit there and listen to you and totally zip up and listen to it.
Yeah. That's when you have a complete different set of tasks. And, you know, you put your sort of best foot across, you do that anyway.
But here you want to go down that technical alleyway, where you say, this kind of talam or this sort of sequence leads. And, you know, the other thing that has helped me tremendously is I mentioned heavy metal. My musical outlook changed when I started listening to metal.
And it then became, you know, all sorts of other great art over college. And then it led me eventually to jazz. You know, by being interested in these other forms of music, you realise that everybody is affected by music, but they are affected by different genres.
If you can relate in some way or form to a genre that they like, you already have them, you know, they are listening to you, they are lapping it up. It could be simply a mention that, hey, this is the harmonic minor, and we call it Kiravani, you know, now do you get it? That's as simple as that. There is no big technical information.
You're just saying that we call a flower as Padma. And that itself is a revelation, you know, sometimes to an audience. But you can get deeper and deeper into that rabbit hole, and see how far you can go in the discourse.
And also musically, you know, you could say, oh, this scale transposes into that. And this has a harmonic progress. Oh, this is a 2-5-1.
Do you notice how 2-5-1s work in Carnatic music? Have you thought about it? And the jazz musician that was like, dude, 2-5-1 is my life and, you know, breath. And you're telling me that's there in Carnatic music? Absolutely. Because at some level, you realise that much of the music of the world serves a purpose of tension and resolution.
You know, this is a common theme. You're building up, your exposition is there, then you're building a tension. And then you want to bring it back home and resolve.
Yeah, this is it. This is the game. Right? If you understand how the different people play the different games of music, you are at a zone where people love what you're doing.
Brilliant. Can you talk about persona and stage appearance? How important it is for you? Oh, fashionista. Not just also a personality.
Yeah, what you're on stage and off stage is different. In my case, personally, I'm not very different. I don't think I pay much attention to my crafting an image on stage.
I do at least, you know, I do iron my kurta or my shirt. And I sometimes miss out on the footwear because, hey, Carnatic musicians don't wear anything on their feet. And jazz musicians do.
Yeah. And if you remember, when we did a show once, I was wearing slippers. And you were like, dude, maybe next time you wear a shoe.
So yeah, sartorial sense can do better. But I think, you know, just... No, it's totally up to you. I don't know about better or worse, but it's your thing.
Who's to tell you what to do? Correct. Yeah, I think I don't pay as much attention as perhaps I should, you know. Do you think it's important at all? Yeah, I think so.
You know, and I'll tell you why. Because musicians are, whether you like it or not, they're icons. We are icons.
You know, that means that by being an icon, people associate not just an experience or an emotion even. But they associate a collection of values. You know, one of the greatest values a musician embodies is the value of freedom.
A musician is free, is free from making a dreary drudgery based living, which I have done in a past life myself. And I totally stand by that notion that the musician may be in pain. But it's a pain of his or her own making.
We are in control of that. In fact, we like that pain because it feeds into our art, right? An artist will tell you that. So in many ways, the icon of a musician is communicated through appearance and the sound.
You close your eyes, of course, you get a great sound. You open your eyes and you are what? The performer is seen as a sum total of a lot of things, of history, of lineage, of tradition, of iconoclasm. You want to be an iconoclast, you have to also dress like an iconoclast.
You know, it's hard to otherwise convince people. That's why a lot of these, you know, rebel music, I think they're carefully crafted at some point. You want a ponytail, right? That shows you that, hey, this is a cool guy.
There's also, you know, wearing insignias and emblems. You'll see a lot of rock musicians wear a cross. And if you go there, they'll be like Srinivas Iyengar.
Okay, why is Srinivas Iyengar wearing a cross? Probably because, you know, that is the iconography of that form of music. It's okay. You know, similarly, you know, you go on stage and sing Carnatic music, nothing wrong in something on your forehead and, you know, dressing up like a sort of a priest, or, you know, giving that vibe of cultural affinity with that
form.
So yeah, on one hand that, on the other hand, you know, and then what else can you do? As you know, famously Sanjay Subramanian dresses in white. And I'm sure he conveys some sort of message in that being consistent across years and decades of performance wearing that dress code. Definitely is speaking something.
No, I don't ask me what it is, ask him, if you invite him. Yeah. But similarly, you know, you know, in my case, I like to, I wear always a traditional vesti for Carnatic concert, and sometimes a pancha.
And, and I always wear my poonal. Because again, it's it's just, like I said, it's a tradition. Call me what you want.
But this is the tradition of the music. And, and so that that image. But I may not wear a tindoor in my forehead all the time.
Maybe that's the ichloroclasm. That's a degree of ichloroclasm I can do. You know, so, and in the jazz scene, I may wear a hat.
That's about all. From my point of view, that's good. You know, I can't be, I am not Miles Davis. I cannot be Miles Davis. Let me be what I am. So be comfortable.
You know, at the end of the day, you want to be able to play freely. Yeah, you don't want to compromise. Yeah, you know, and feel silly in your wardrobe.
You got to own what you wear. Yeah, absolutely. What is your expectation of an organiser or a promoter of a show? What, what do they need to be? They need to be respectful.
I mean, we can use more of that, honestly. No matter how well known or obscure you are as a musician, what goes into a performance is not a joke. Right.
And, you know, when society can appreciate somebody who does extremely well in academics, or even just passes his grade and moves to the next class. It's famously said that every performance is like an examination that you need to pass. And the outcome has to be a one.
Yeah, you know. So this is what a performer is up against. I would really like to see the organisers or people who organise acknowledging that the musician is putting herself or himself through a lot of that to to come out at the... Also, it is not easy to, you know, just have you being judged for those two hours, you're on stage or... And even after.
Even after, I mean, forever, you know, if you make, God forbid, like a guffaw, and, you know, if you call instead of Ranga, you say Ranja, you're gone. Dude, that dude can't pronounce. That dude doesn't know Sanskrit or he doesn't know lyrics.
He does not know emotion. It is so easy to brand. That's also an economic issue, right? There is a lot of musicians who are aspiring to go on stage and perform.
So the it's a, it's a, it's a biassed market. Right? So it is very easy for the buyer to reject a good. And maybe because of the, because the market is flooded with people who want to perform, there is really no patience on the side of organisers.
So I think maybe what we really need is more carefully curated shows more, where it is not just about, you know, you give the money to the best known or the best performer, but do some homework and go out and listen to people. See how they fare. Don't just look at, oh, does he have a million likes on Facebook or 10 million followers on Insta? But if there's great content, see and feature that content.
You know, that's something I actively do as an organiser of sorts. Brilliant. Let's talk money.
You're coming from a background of, you had a, you were in IT? Yeah. IT job and in the US. So you must have been like very well off.
Yeah. You became a performer and we know how hard it is. Yeah.
Yeah. So how did that work out? What I'm also talking to musicians who the starving artists stereotype. Yeah.
So would you have any advice to upcoming and performers and this thing how to manage their money and I would say, you know, it's working out. It is, you know, I, I can, I cannot say I've cracked it economically. Even if I set a low bar, it is still very hard to justify a decision such as quitting a high flying role in, in hardware or IT or management and do something like this.
In my case, you're right. It was relatively easy because I said, I did 15, 20 years of that. I'm kind of done.
I can't do this anymore. I need my soul back. Right.
I need, I need to do something which will engage me every minute of the day. And it's a romantic notion. Okay.
Practically, the only thing that engages you every minute of the day is, is your own making what you make of it. At the same time, it's true that when you work for a corporation or a big company, and you just basically ask, you shut up, because you're paid well, you know, the economic justification of that is completely detrimental to your soul. It completely.
There is nothing in the world that justifies the fact that you will be basically enslaved in exchange for a pay cheque. So even if you're going down the IT route, find a way to keep your soul unstuck. Do not mortgage it to the devil.
Right. Be careful about that. That is my advice for the other side.
Yeah. You know, people who actually pay us the bucks to go and perform who need the release. You know, if we can give them two hours of hope, we do them the biggest favour of their lives.
If we can give them the aspiration that they could do this, they could be free. And that's why I keep saying, I keep telling people that the musician is an icon of freedom. That is the first and foremost quality of music. Music is there only to free you. That is its only purpose. No, they call it mukti or you know, jannat, you know, call it whatever you want.
But that is really what music does to you. And, you know, the trade off here that somebody like me makes is I trade off, I'll trade the world for freedom. That is the bottom line.
I'll trade the world for freedom. It could mean that, you know, my kids don't get this or that or my, I can buy a home or whatever, or a second home sometimes, you know, but those fade in comparison with what you do with your time with your own free will. The dark side of that is it's your time and you are the manager.
Try doing that. No, it's not easy. Yeah.
You know, because there is no pressure per se. There's no office. Half the time, most of the time, musicians are one man and entrepreneurs, one person entrepreneurs.
We don't really pay a pay cheque to anybody except for gigs. And who are you answerable to? Yourself, right? Yeah. So it's very difficult to have you as your boss.
And that is really the tough part of it. Once you figure that out, you can make do with next to nothing and be the happiest person on it is you have literally the man without the shirt. But my, my take on, you know, the next gen who want to do well, really, there is no way you get super good at something if you don't dedicate your life to it.
If you're not practising every day, you know, in our setting, what that number is, I leave it to you. If you don't feel you're giving all that it takes to get to where you are, then you're not going to get there. I'm so sorry about that.
You know, you could be a good amateur at best. Yeah. When you feel that, that urge that you absolutely have to do it, quit everything else.
And the universe will take care of you. Okay, I promise you this. This was promised to be by my first guru.
Okay. His name was Pallavi Narsimhachari. I mentioned him explicitly because not many people know him.
Okay. And when I did really well in my cads, and my my father had non musical aspirations for me. He told me, it will feed you.
This is your guru. This is my guru telling me. And I'm telling I'm telling I'm seeing that for a fact now.
Yeah. In the last few years that I have taken on music. Yes. Music is taking care of me. I can cover my ass. Yeah.
The rest of my body, I don't mind. Like I said, I'm a shirtless man. I'm the happiest person in the kingdom.
Yeah. Brilliant. How do you navigate personal struggles and things going like bad in your life otherwise and if you have a performance happening, does it affect you? Or are you able to block it out? During the performance, nothing enters my head.
I'm just those three hours is time stops. Right? Before and after it's a complete different story. You know, you're vulnerable.
Yeah. Performance, you are vulnerable for what you're performing. And it is that that the art, the technique, the content, the emotion, the people, how many things are there to engage you? Yeah.
I mean, this is better than getting drunk. Yeah. It's better than being on acid.
This is the highest high that one can get when you're completely in the moment. And you're navigating the sound. You know, and this is the sound that you always loved since you were a kid.
I mean, for anything you want ratification, you want vindication, go back to when you're a child. You figure out what you like the most back then what drove you to what you love. And if you can find the continuity from there to where you are now, then you're doing something really good.
You know, and I feel that with most musicians I met, you know, whether they were always performing or became performers later, it connects very deeply to their childhood. Right. It is an aspiration that goes to their womb, literally, you know, it goes down there.
So therefore, when you're when you have those two, three hours or whatever the time frame, where you're basically connecting to the womb, what can disturb you? Not a cataclysm, not World War Three. Do you remember that scene in The Pianist, the movie? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where he meets the Nazi.
Yeah. And he's living in this decrepit old house. And the Nazi is like, you're a pianist, play me something.
Yeah. And he plays that Chopin man. I cried.
I mean, this is this is life. Okay. The Nazi is the bad things in your life.
Yeah. The bad things come and listen to you, dude. When you're doing the programme, when
you're playing your piece, when you're when you're in Chopin and Chopin is you and your Chopin.
That is when you and the Nazi and the world and everything vanishes. You vanish. That is only music in the room.
That's so brilliant. That's so well said. You were talking about getting drunk and doing acid trips.
What's your relationship with external stimulants? Do you have an opinion if you don't have a relationship? Getting on stage. Lots of people do it. Yeah.
Yeah. I think a phase of life, probably, you know, when you are when you feel like and it's also there is some sort of confidence, maybe pick physical problems, not with, you know, one limb or the other kind of falling out of function as you enter your 50s and you're like feeling the pain. Like literally, that's not when you when you're actively experimenting with with substances and psychotropes and so on.
You know, I think more than actually enhancing the performance, it is quite possible to kick back after or, you know, kick back during when you're creating. And that is just no doubt the sort of long and checkered history of substances and creativity. We can go all the way back to the Rig Veda, you know, where we have what words upon words of this great drink called Soma.
And, you know, we can interpret it however we want. Maybe the most religious amongst us or the orthodox will say that is just, you know, it is a symbol. It's not real.
I would say get real. These people were real people. They were talking about reality.
And in many ways, there are there are like temporarily positive effects, maybe long term negative effects, definitely maybe if you abuse. So what is use and what is abuse is every person's sort of boundary. I would say I have been rather conservative all my life, but not without my fair share of experimentation.
On stage? Not on stage. And the only reason is because I sing. And I find my throat dry up.
If you try anything, you know, even a single beer. If you're sensitive about what effect it has, and you see what it does to your singing voice, you'll notice that it dries you up. Yeah.
And almost every single thing does that to your throat. So I know that there are great singers who belt it out and have a drink and belt it out. If you see the old jazz sets, these guys are smoking.
Yeah. And then going back. All the time.
And yeah, and like downing one. I think even Carnatic music legends have heard stories of not getting on stage. Knock one down and a few off and they get on stage and belt it out.
My theory is that they excel despite not because of this abuse. What about physical and mental fitness for being a high level performer on stage? Do you have any regimen? You do have to be super fit. Right.
And it doesn't mean you have to like bench press 200. You don't need to be like Alcaraz. No, you don't want to be like Singer and Alcaraz, then you're in a different sport altogether.
I think nowadays more than ever before, musicians are keeping fit. Yeah. Because, you know, one of the things that happens to music musicians is RSI, repetitive stress injury.
You're a bass player, you know what it can do when you play day in and day out, and your thumb starts aching, your joints hurt, your elbow hurts, you're carrying a big bass, your shoulders killing you. A saxophonist, we go through similar stress and strain. Vocalists, the voice, I cannot tell you what a delicate organ it is.
You know, of all the organs that, you know, you use in creative expression, the voice is the most whimsical one. Because you do not know anything you ate two days ago could come back and bite you. You know, you've got to be super extra duper careful with your voice.
And despite being very careful, you can still fail you. And the classic example is the kind of regimen that opera singers put themselves through. What they eat, every gramme that they consume.
Forget about drinking. No, forget about all that. For them, and they are peak condition.
They're like vocal athletes, right? Maybe it serves vocalists well to learn a little bit from the opera singers. Not learn to sing like opera, but learn the regimen, learn the discipline. And maybe that will transform us as singers, because they teach you how to not push your voice without abusing your voice.
And what to drink and what to eat, how to recognise signs of fatigue, what kind of warm ups and warm downs help you. So over time, and because we are in information age, I have been able to absorb some of it into my practise routines. Not always, but as and when I need them.
So conditioning is also conditioning the muscle that you use the most. It also means overall physical fitness. You've got to walk or you have to hydrate.
These are things that you can kind of push away if you're not a musician. But if you're a musician, and like you were saying, you stand three hours in a show, that's a lot of stress on your body. Your body is built to be always moving around and sitting a little and moving around.
If you can mimic that in a show, but you still cannot get off the guitar. Now, where are you going to keep this guitar? You're not playing our guitar and getting paid. So similarly, God finally worked that thing and that work is stress and strain.
So I would say athletes, I mean, musicians are sort of athletes, you know, we have to treat our special muscles and our body like really like athletes do. Yeah, work out, do a gym routine, you know, get into walking, get into cycling. Do it.
What is the unique aspect of live performance that you can never get in a recorded medium? Gratification. Oh, how you love that. The instant gratification or the gratification of pleasing people, that is the biggest high, you know, it is such a high that I would actually recommend that some people get off that drug.
Because the feeling that you're pleasing others and you're getting that appreciation, that look in the eyes, the delight that you supply. Oh, how can you compare that with any feeling in the world, man? I love that. The recording, as I would say, it's the complete opposite feeling.
That is the producer who's sitting there and staring you in the eyes. And that dude or dudette can never be pleased. I mean, that person is sucking your soul, managing your every note.
Like, oh, but can you just do that a little less? Like, you don't even understand half the time what they're trying to tell you. But it's lacking emotion. But I gave my heart to that note.
And then they will be like, ah, that was fine. Really? I didn't even like it. So you are not in control in a recording at all.
You know, even if you're the producer, you go on the microphone and you give it to the recording engineer and he becomes a producer now. So two completely opposite experiences. One that is super fun.
The other one is not fun at all. Can you talk about what is the value of human life performance in our in the near future in our fully digital and AI world? Yeah, call me a diehard optimist. But I think the live performance is the one thing about art that's going to get more and more precious, more and more valuable.
This is I share this totally. And this is why I started this podcast. Yeah, I think, you know, you cannot replace the human experience.
You cannot replace the fact that this guy or this group or this girl is just producing music on the go from the heart in the moment. No enhancements, no tracks, no effects. You know, it is completely undoctored, you know, and not, you know, there is no guardrails.
This person is truly taking a risk. Yeah. In this era, you know, the real risk takers are those who can put themselves up there and and then show people, you can be like this too.
And no, I think it has a place in life. But it does. I'm, you know, while I know, absolutely, it has a place.
No doubt. I understand. Yeah, it, you know, kids are, these are information age kids, and there is a lot of information out there.
Fundamentally, though, I wonder if it leads, leaves them more or less satisfied in life. Are you happier or sadder after like a binge watching of reels? It's all I mean, I don't know the answer. I'm asking.
I don't at all do it because I discovered the answer to this question. I'm not happier when I do that. So I stopped doing it.
You know, there are other things I binge watch. I watch every ODI or T20 that India plays, or even test matches. I watch live sport a lot.
Because I feel, you know, it might sound very business like, but I'm always looking for analogies. I'm always looking for metaphor. Right.
And I feel the closest thing to music is sport, in terms of the in terms of the spontaneity. You see how sport is now live sport is just busting in its seams. Live music will too.
You know, I feel people don't realise it. But the next wave of great music is going to be all live music. Okay, brilliant.
I hope so. Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is music that you will pay for.
Not pay $10 to a robot to simply produce and just fill up your screens and your reels. If you're going to pay music, it better be honest. Value yourself.
What are you paying for? Come to a live show. Yeah. Well, respect yourself when you do that, and you'll love it.
Yeah. Brilliant. We're almost at the end.
Just a couple of more questions. How do you define success or failure in a performance? You don't, you know, you perform. You, it's like asking about life itself, you know, because has anyone lived an unsuccessful life? That bollocks.
Nobody does. People are born, people die, you know, and then the series of accidents happen that lets you believe that you succeeded. What BS is that? Right? You have a sort of same story and same ending.
Yeah. Whether you're Einstein or you're just Arvind or anybody else. Yeah. Right. So a performance is basically a few hours of life. It's a slice of life.
Right. A performer has no obligation to judge his performance. The only obligation is to live through the performance, to just live and breathe and give what they have.
Others judge, right? You have critics who write about you or don't even show up for performances. You have audiences, again, who come or don't come. You have organisers who pay or don't pay.
And so on. You have people who like or don't like on social media that you have all these externalities. Those are the externalities and the reasons that compel you into thinking that you had a good show or a bad show.
Ask yourself, right? You never had a bad show, Arvind. You've never done a bad thing. You cannot because you're a bloody child and you're performing.
How can a child go wrong? A child is just having fun. Yeah. Right.
It is the adult that judges the child. It is your adult that judges you. Right.
This is going back to, you know, the whole theory about child ego and all that. I think, you know, it's just somebody inside of you sitting there and telling you, oh, this is the right note, wrong note. You know, I am playing this.
I love this. Yeah. Get in with the programme.
You know, like me, hate me, but you can't do a thing to me because, dude, I am a musician and I'm performing and I'm giving a slice of my life to you. Yeah, that's it. So, I'm beyond judgement.
Brilliant. Performance in one word. Performance is a distillate.
Brilliant. This has been so fascinating. Thank you so much.
Thank you very much for listening. I really hope you enjoyed the show.
