In a true musicians' life, there comes a point where the petty technicalities, the notations and the never ending debates on ragas and melakarthas become meaningless and obsolete; he dies and all that is left is total immersion of his mind in music, a pure and instinctive creature is born; it thinks and feels in music; music is its language; it is guided by it, and expresses itself through it, its sings out of joy; not vanity, it plays for itself, it plays to feel, to emote. Music is its emotion. It hears naught but notes, but it no longer thinks of music as a collection of notes, but as a whirlwind of passion and emotion; notes are meaningless; they are for the unenlightened; who must grovel and crawl in search of that elusive realization. It no longer needs to study notes to play, all that is required is emotion, and music is his vehicle of emotion; can you not feel the despair and anger of Beethoven in his fifth symphony; his anger at not being able to hear his own music and his audience's applause, his despair at Nature's cruel irony of gifting him the ability to create but not hear his own music?

Video: Beethoven's Fifth Symphony; Conducted by Herbert von Karajan; one of the world's most renowned conductors....

Carnatic thillu mullu

Jus came across a divine article here on kutcheri sterotypes; worthy of Russell Peters himself!!
Here's some samples:

Sing-along Subbalakshmi: Usually a maami who sings at dasara kolus with a lisp and an appalaathu maavu kural (a voice similar to that achieved by coating your throat with papad batter): "Tharatha thaama dhaana, bheda danda thathura.." Insistently sings along with every song in the kacheri to prove that she knows them all. Is also the most glared and hissed at phenomenon in a kacheri, apart from Giggling Gayatri and gang.

Giggling Gayatri: Usually seen huddled in a corner with a bunch of cousins and friends, passing comments about everyone and sniggering throughout the concert. Neighbours who object to the noise are instantly made a part of the giggle club and soon a whole section of the audience is giggling uncontrollably.

The Paradise Flycatcher: The old biddy in the front row, usually an invitee, who enthusiastically plucks imaginary insects out of the air in time to the music. Screams bhale, and sabhaash at random moments in an alapana, and throws the musician completely off sync by loudly clapping out an aadi taalam to a mishra chaapu krithi. The musicians, too polite to fling their silver chombus full of dubious liquid at the rasika’s head, usually screw their eyes tightly shut and sing louder.

The Devaranama/Meera Bhajan destroyer: The sort that is clearly convinced of the superiority of music over poetry, and the irrelevance of the actual words being sung. Hence if Meera sang:"Maii thwo kirithara ge ranku raaaajee", Krishna would still appear, albeit scraching his nails on a blackboard. This artist is also convinced that all devarnamas are composed using the two imaginary kannada words "Hothle and Hidhlu" and will sing an entire purandara dasa kriti using them.

Asalooru Ambis/ambujams - indian born foreign settled boys/girls hovering around popular concert programs (especially Aruna, Sudha, Unni etal) with mineral water in hands


Varaaha Vaidyanathan: For the uninitiated, this is the delicate art of piggyface making. Especially prominent while executing delicate sangathis during a raga: "Thu dhu rin na nu....uuiiium", or during a long phrase in a Thyagaraja Krithi involving words like "munu ju joochuchumu".

Today's video: Maha Ganapathim; a nice jam/remix/fusion version from Morning Raaga. Singer: Bombay Jayashree.