From: srini@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Srini Pichumani)
Newsgroups: rec.music.indian.classical
Subject: S.Kalyanaraman (SKR) - reminiscences
Date: 14 Jan 1994 20:07:47 GMT

Thanjavur S.Kalyanaraman, who passed away recently, was one of
the senior disciples of the great GNB and a very creative and
intelligent musician himself.  Although he was much less popular
than the late MLV and received very few awards if not none, he
was very highly regarded in the musical circles and they both
were considered the torch-bearers of the GNB tradition in their
lifetime.

In 1991, when he visited the Detroit metro area for about a week,
I spent a couple of evenings listening to him ramble on music, 
musical personalities, his guru, and so on while I drove him around
from his lodgings to some appliance stores and stuff.  It was quite
an interesting experience. 
And the manner in which he described his friend, the late Santhanam,
polishing off "aDais" by the dozen, when the two dined together, was 
rip-roaring. 
 
SKR had some original ideas/theories about voice production and was
very keen on publishing these in a collaborative effort with some
experts in the medical and scientific fields.  During our conversations, 
he talked about it very briefly and in an idiom entirely of his own.
I don't remember all the details but he said that KVN had perfected 
the "chest" voice to a great extent.  After saying this, he sang 
Todi in typical KVN style phrasings and enunciation that left
me stunned by the accuracy of his imitation.  Then he mentioned his
own congenital heart problem and other respiratory afflictions, 
and said that he could not have survived singing all these years
had he not learnt early to use his stomach muscles for voice production 
and projection.  He stressed that one of the distinct
characteristics of his technique was that the voice/tone/shruti will
not "spill" when producing a pure note - I took this to mean that  
he could produce pure notes of great strength and weight that would
waver very little.  He remarked that with a chest voice there is
a lot of "spillage".

Another interesting thing he mentioned was that it was physically
easier for him to give an exclusive whistling concert than a vocal  
concert, despite all his afflictions. For those who don't know this,
he has given quite a few such concerts - of 2.5 hrs duration - 
accompanied by prominent artistes.  With a twinkle in his eye,
he said that he charged a much higher fee for a whistle concert
than vocal.   
Once, when a friend of mine and a "disciple"/accompanist of SKR, 
K.S.Mani, played some excerpts of such a concert over the phone, it 
sounded very much like a 4.5 kattai or so flute.

While driving around he whistled a few phrases of the Dikshitar
kriti "kalAvati kamalAsana yuvati" in kalAvati (~ yAgapriyA, the
31st melakarta) at my request.  SKR excelled in rendering
such vivAdi rAgas and dvi-madhyama rAgas, in addition to the regular
stuff.  But he exercised more caution about 
rendering such rAgas now in contrast to his youthful, energetic 
days since some critics had stuck him with a label that he dwells 
too much on the rare stuff.  In a somewhat facetious/serious
manner, he said that he had asked some of his ardent rasikas to stay 
away from his concerts for the next 15 or whatever years while he
tried to make a decent living and not bother him with requests for 
esoteric stuff. 

SKR will be very much missed ...

-Srini.

ps: aDai is a thick south Indian crepe made from the flour
of different lentils/rice.  The "Pasand" restaurant in San Jose 
used to define aDai/dosai as "south Indian creep" in their menu :-)