Mysore: Schools, universities for music is the need of the hour, says expert

(Mysore, January 22, DHNS) – To preserve and enhance the scope for music, there is a need to establish music schools and universities, opined violinist Prof. S. Mahadevappa. (Rec.: Father of Mysore Sri M.Nagaraj & Dr. Mysore Manjunath = Mysore brothers, see videos)

After inaugurating the first anniversary of Ganayogi Panchakshareshwara Hindustani Sangeetha Vidyalaya at Veene Sheshanna Bhavan here on Sunday, he recalled the days of the Maharajas, when music was given high priority. He expressed regret over decreasing popularity of classical music among the public.

He called upon the students to learn music with dedication for a successful career.

He advised parents not to force children into learning music just for the sake of appearing in media. He stressed on the importance of maintaining good relationship among teachers and students.

With high regards for teachers, self respect, confidence and patience one can be an expert in any art form, said Krupa Phadke, a classical dancer. She said art can become a property of achievers, provided they practice it with constant hard work and dedication.

Illusion

She said popularity in the media was an illusion, which is short-lived and only those who are continuous learners can be real achievers.

The function was presided over by Pt Indudhara Nirodi. Various classical music forms were presented by Shiva Deva, Dhushyanth H Dore, Mayur H Dore, Sunitha Hiremath and others.

(Source: 01/22/2012 – Deccan Herald)

The Mysore Brothers…

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CH – Raga CDs of the Months (01/12): TALA – Indian Rhythm Cycles.

Raga CDs of the Months

TALA – Indian Rhythm Cycles

Same as for Indian Ragas, there are different traditions and developments of the North Indian classical period over hundreds of years since the 16th century, the Hindustani music and South Indian Classical period (Carnatic) are reflected in the system of the rhythms.

date of broadcasting…
23rd January 2012 – 10:00 p.m. METZ (04:00 p.m. EST) @ Radio RaSA (CH)
(premiere: 4th Dec 2007 – 09:00 pm METZ @ Tide Radio)
broadcasting plan | streaming (Internet Radio & Mobile Radio) | podCast

Tala is a Sanskrit word (Talā) and means clap. It is the Indian system for rhythms of Hindustani Music.

One can approach over the harmony theory to the Tala-s, via the “cadences“, a succession of groups of sounds (groups of chords). This rather unstable sound system of strain and relaxation is the basis e.g. for the Indian Rhythmic composition Tikhai, Mukhard and Parvan. The alternative…

Arvartan… the concept of the cycles.

With Arvatan, the concept of cycles exists a music philosophical understanding of the Indian classical period. The Tala-s are much rather illustrated hereby and therefore Arvartan – the concept of cycles is the subject of our December 2007 show.

The cyclic concept reflects the understanding of Hindu philosophy of the universe, which follows the principle of repetitive cycles (Rhythm Cycles), too. The cycle of nature is represented in Indian Classical music and illustrated by the rhythmic principles of Tala-s.

The prominent percussion instrument of North Indian Classics is the Tabla. It is a pair of drums covered with goat skin and appears for Indian Ragas on stages as rhythmic accompanying instrument and in solo play for Raga interpretations. The Tabla sound characteristics are unmistakable.

Ghatam | Hanjira | Mridangam | Pakhawaj | Tabla

The Tabla was developed from the Pakhawaj, a drum, which can be found in the Dhrupad, the eldest existing vocal style of India nowadays. Beside these two instruments we find the Mridangam and Ghatam for rhythmics in South Indian Classics. The Carnatic music has it’s own Raga scales (Ragam) and rhythmical system (Talam).

Odisha: Rajarani Music Festival concludes

Bhubaneswar: The annual national Rajarani Music Festival organised by the tourism and culture department concluded on Friday evening at the Rajarani temple premises here.

The music festival witnessed scintillating performances on Odissi percussion instruments led by eminent Mardala player Guru Dhaneswar Swain and Hindustani vocal by internationally acclaimed Hindustani vocalists Padmabhusan Pandit Rajan and Sajan Mishra.

     

from left: (1) Odissi vocal recital by the great singer, scholar and a versatile artiste Pandit Dr. Damodar Hota at Rajarani Music Festival ( Photo-Ashok Panda). (2) Pandit Sajan & Rajan Mishra

The concluding evening’s first programme was Brunda Mardala Badana by Guru Dhaneswar Swain and his disciples who played Aditala of 16 beats producing different layakaris punctuated with bols or Ukutas with special use of traditional musical phases like khandi, gadi, arasa, mana, bhaunri mana, chhaka mana, jamana.

In the second phase Guru Swain presented Trital of 16-beats punctuated with typical musical renderings using uthana, elaboration of Dharana, Jati, Chakradar, Biram, Abiram, Lagana mana, Biramana, Kaida, Sabdaswarpata, Rela etc having different layas and chhandas.

This unique ensemble of indigenous musical instruments was well orchestrated with mardal, tabla, tikira, khanjani, khol, nal, jhanja, ghungura, manjira, dhol and jhumka, etc.

The evening’s second programme was a Bandis ‘Kabana Gatvai Mori Piya Na Puchhe Ekaibar’ set to Rag Bageshree, Tal Bilambita Ektali followed by two Bhajans, ‘Sadha Raseo and Ab Krupa Karo Ram Nam Se Dukh Talo’.

The programme was marked with step-by-step elaboration in Bilambita and Drutalaya giving scope to vocal embellishments, simpler and softer movement from one note to other.

(Source: 01/22/2012 – orissadiary.com)

Los Angeles: Musical therapy is making breakthroughs

Technology enables people with severe physical and mental disabilities to communicate and enjoy a more enriching life.

By Mark Swed (mark.swed@latimes.com)

(January 22, 2012) There is a great deal of music in the world, and no one knows exactly why. But it does have its ready uses. The music business can make you rich and famous. The pianist Christopher O’Riley admitted in The Times last week what a lot of classical musicians won’t: He learned the piano, at least in part, to attract the attention of girls.

Born with cerebral palsy, Dan Ellsey blossomed with help from Tod Machover,… (MIT Media Lab, MIT Media Lab)

As I write this, a sparkling new recording of Tod Machover’s “Sparkler,” an infectious overture for orchestra and live electronics, is playing on my stereo and making itself useful. The CD, “but not simpler…,” is drowning out trucks on a nearby home construction site whose backup beeps are loud enough to wake the dead a mile away. “Sparkler” is more effectively fueling my fingers as I type than was my morning double cappuccino. The music is lifting my spirits and making writing almost fun. Even so, I’m not getting the greatest, if least explicable, pleasure “Sparkler” can provide. That’s obtained by giving the score undivided attention.

Machover, an intriguing futurologist as well as an inventive composer, runs the departments in hyper-instruments (acoustical instruments given spiffy electronic features) and opera of the future at MIT’s ultra-high-tech Media Lab. Last week, he was at UC Santa Barbara to speak on “Music, Mind and Health: Diagnosis, Treatment, and Well-being through Active Sound,” one of four lectures he’s given recently at the university’s Sage Center for the Study of the Mind.

Music, Machover said, touches on just about every aspect of cognition. There are theories that music exists to exercise the mind and to help coordinate its separate functions. Music lovers intuitively know what researchers have verified, that music modulates our moods, helps us move, stimulates our language skills, strengthens our memories and can wondrously bring about emotional responses without their bothersome consequences.

The practical applications of music for healing are irresistible. Cutting-edge music therapy can help Parkinson’s patients walk, enables the autistic to rehearse their emotions and provides opportunities for stroke victims to regain speech and motor movement. Music is usually the last thing Alzheimer’s sufferers recognize. It is our final way to communicate with them, and now it seems music can play a significant role in forestalling Alzheimer’s.

This is terrific news. I’m also looking forward to the optimistic day when we will be reimbursed for the price of symphony and opera tickets by BlueCross BlueShield.

But that’s not all. In an inspiring feedback loop, Machover and his MIT minions, which include some of the nation’s most forward-looking graduate students, are applying their musical gadgets to therapy. The process of making remarkable restorative advances is changing how they think about and make music. And that could affect how the rest of us might think about and make music in the not-so-distant future.

It all began with Hyperscore, a program Machover developed to enable children to compose by drawing and painting on a monitor. A sophisticated computer program translates their artwork into a musical score.

Machover’s team took Hyperscore to Tewksbury Hospital outside of Boston, which serves patients with severe physical and mental disabilities, including the homeless. The residents, many of whom were physically unable to communicate or were otherwise uncommunicative, discovered their inner composer. Through Hyperscore they found they could express themselves in a way that bypassed language.

A few patients with hopeless prognoses and no meaningful life had significant enough changes in their pathology that they could actually think about at least partial recovery. Some found a decrease in auditory and visual hallucinations. There were behavior changes in many that allowed for socialization.

Dan Ellsey became the model patient. Born with cerebral palsy and unable to speak, he was forced to communicate with a clumsy headset that pointed to letters to spell out words. He had little control of his body movements. He was in his early 30s, had never been more than five miles from where he was born and seemed doomed to spend a cocooned life in the hospital.

The Media Lab scientists designed a more refined headset for Ellsey that not only inspired him to compose (he turned out to have interesting musical ideas) but even allowed him to perform by controlling tempo, loudness and articulation. He blossomed, and Ellsey, while still a severely affected cerebral palsy patient, has become an active participant in the Hyperscore program, performing, making CDs and teaching other patients. He was a star at the 2008 TED conference.

What this work with music therapy has shown Machover and other researchers is the potential for what he has dubbed “personal” music. This will be a music tailored to an individual’s needs, be it medicinal or simply a matter of taste.

A noted MIT neurologist, Pawan Sinha, for instance, is learning how to analyze brain waves to determine what you are hearing when listening to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Machover imagines making a piece of music that is your brain listening to the symphony and then creating a Beethoven Fifth jukebox consisting of pieces based on different people’s way of listening to Beethoven. The jukebox might then serves as “an automatic empathy system.”

Traditionally what a composer has done, Machover explains, is to create a piece that will reach the largest number of people. But as our knowledge of how music affects our bodies and minds grows, the opportunity will arise when a piece of music can be designed specifically for your life experiences, needs and moods. A piece can even be made to change over time as you change.

Machover is already putting some of these ideas into action. At dinner after the talk, he told me he would be flying the next morning to Silicon Valley, where he would visit Google. He is writing a score for the Toronto Symphony that will have an interactive online component looking for Internet expertise. Wonderful as musical healing is, I expressed dismay about a brave, new world of personal music. Music has always been for me about discovery, about giving a listener new experiences, not reinforcing preferences or prejudices.

But Machover was a step ahead of me. He said that my personal music could be designed to provide all things that I never could have possibly expected. I felt better already.

(Source: January 22, 2012| Los Angeles Times – Music Critic)

Playing the right tune: Nonprofit helps community with music

Written by Siobhan ( smcandre@rgj.com )

Michael Lahnala sings lead during a Note-Ables rehearsal at the McKinley Arts and Culture Center in Reno on Monday, Jan. 16, 2012. / David B. Parker/RGJ

Even Manal Toppozada got cut from the band.

Toppozada is the executive director for Note-Able Music Therapy Services, a nonprofit music therapy agency.

The nonprofit, known for its classic rock group the Note-Ables, began as a music class that Toppozada started 14 years ago.

“I wasn’t getting to do what I wanted to do,” said Toppozada, who moved to Reno with her husband in 1998. She previously worked in psychiatric facilities in California teaching music therapy.

“I just put up flyers for this music class for people with disabilities and 20 people showed up in this tiny room at the Center for Independent Living,” she said. “I realized that people wanted a class like this, and that there were people in the community with this talent.”

The classes became so successful that attendees decided to start a band.

The band has since performed at fundraisers, the Sparks farmers market and Artown.

“In the beginning, I would play with them but they got so good that they don’t need me anymore,” said Toppozada, who still plays the violin for the Reno Philharmonic.

“We audition people now and it’s competitive,” Toppozada said of the 10 bandmates who play originally-written pieces.

The Note-Able Music Therapy Services is the only nonprofit music therapy agency in Nevada. But the band is just one part of the nonprofit.

The nonprofit has expanded and keyboard, dance and music skills, and therapy classes are taught in the basement of the McKinley Arts Center in Reno.

About 100 people each week take classes, and the organization does outreach in local hospitals. A staff of two full-time and two part-time employees and volunteers help students ranging in age from a few years old to older than 70.

Classes encourage inclusion and are a mix of people without disabilities and those with, including autism, Down syndrome and dementia.

Recently, the nonprofit started a singing group called the SingAbles.

“I’m not sure if they will want to perform eventually, but it’s up to the group,” Toppozada said.

The nonprofit’s fundraiser, A Note-Able Evening of Romance, is Feb. 4. The event features performances by the NoteAbles, the Reno Jazz Orchestra, food stations and dancing.

Music will feature hits from the Rat Pack era including Sammy Davis Jr. and Sinatra, and guests are encouraged to dress in retro glamour.

The event, in its eighth year, raises about $40,000. Money raised helps pay tuition for students taking classes.

“There are a lot of great fundraisers out there, but what makes this one different is that you interact with the people it helps,” Toppozada said.

“If you go to a benefit for homeless people, homeless people aren’t usually there — but this event is about inclusion,” she said. “Our band plays right next to the jazz orchestra and you can mingle and dance with people with disabilities.”

(Source: 9:00 PM, Jan. 22, 2012 – Reno Gazette-Journal | rgj.com)