important part of our musical journey. However, it has been
almost 20 years since we shifted gears from being violinists
to singers. The challenge in being a vocal performer is
unique in itself compared to being an instrumentalist. An
instrumentalist, say a violin player has more responsibility
of presenting the bhaava aspect along with the melodious
excellence in the same rendition. The approach in learning
violin is quite different in that regard. But with being
a vocalist, the entire approach gets a quantum leap.
Moreover, learning an instrument gives a great advantage
for singing as well because it brings the gaayaki ang.
Ranjani: Training a voice after being completely
established as violin duo was quite a tough task. The
transformation fortunately went on smooth because of our
gurus Shri P.S.Narayanaswami who taught us vocals.
Was there any particular reason for you to
switch from violinists to vocalists?
Ranjani: It was sheer destiny I must say. Because by
that time itself me and Gayatri were performing violin
artists in many important festivals. Lot of violinists
were admiring Gayatri’s way of playing violin too.
Gayatri: We started learning vocal music even during
our violin learning stage to understand the additional
layers of keerthanams. When we went to our guru
P.S.Narayanan, he heard us sing and was quite impressed
with our vocals. He then insisted that we should
become vocalists because we had the potential in us. He
actually pushed us on stage and make us perform!
What do you think is the one single practice which
is quite important for a carnatic singer to excel?
Ranjani: Singing akaara saadhana (practice of notes with
rendering the “Aa” syllable instead of the swara names) is the
best way to get voice in control. Carnatic music in particular
is quite a stringent discipline and there is a beautiful pattern
of doing things. Even if a plain shadjam is rendered in the
beginning. It should strike the chord in audience’s hearts.
That can be attained only through regular akaara saadhana.
Gayatri: Yes. Akaara Saadhana helped us tremendously
to move swiftly from one note to another and make it
a seamless task. Akaara saadhana also opens up some
beautiful doors for carnatic music excellence.
When you sing together, it is always like
an artistic conversation. What is the
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approach you put there to attain it?
Ranjani: Thank you. That’s indeed a great compliment.
Before getting into the technical aspects of it, I would
want to say that we understand each other’s strengths
quite well and contrast them. Maybe that is the reason
why the conversational aspect comes into picture.
Gayatri: Exactly. For example, my voice is more into the
higher notes and my sister (Ranjani) has excellent bass voice
which can touch the lowest notes as well. We embrace our
differences and bring out a common factor between us both to
make that musical conversation possible. Moreover, it is also
about understanding each other’s personalities, individual
likes and dislikes which makes up a performing artist duo.
What is the biggest striking factor of Carnatic
singing duo according to you?
Gayatri: One must leverage the aspect of duality when
two people are performing together as an entity. There
is absolutely no point in singing together in the same
notes. The manodharma, raagas and swaras should
become doubly brilliant because of the power of two.
Ranjani: The balance should come out naturally and
it reflects in our music and it must evolve much.
Are there any raagas/raags which you
yearned to perform but still on pipeline?
Gayatri: Well, whenever a raaga captivates us, we go
and perform it straightaway! There is no waiting or
over-analyzing with us when it comes to performing. I’d
say raagas are as good as the people who handle them.
We cannot judge one raga as superior to another.
Ranjani: We have never got into that waiting stage where a
raaga is still in pipleline because once a raaga catches our
attention, we make it a point to work on it and perform in
the upcoming concert of ours! In that sense we get much
more spontaneous in choosing our raagalapanas as well.
And we do not segregate into popular versus rare ragas as
well. For us, every raaga is beautiful and unique by itself!
We don’t prefer to shy away from performing a raaga.
What are your personal favorite ragas which you
would never get bored of performing or listening?
Gayatri: Our favorites change every week (laughs). A true
artist always evolves not just as a performer but also as a
listener. That is why we love to listen and explore the vast
repository of raagas because who knows which can become