KRIPA KRISHNAN
In conversation with
Ashwath Narayan
Ashwath Narayanan is a contemporary pioneer in Carnatic music currently based in Chennai . Hailing from a family of carnatic music enthusiasts , Ashwath started his journey very early on . He has always been able to find the sweet spot with regards to the balance between music and education , and now , an alternate career as an IT consultant . Interestingly enough , for a rather fun fact , he had his own band back in the day creating covers and independent fusion music .
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There are a lot of conceptions about how carnatic music can be extremely stringent compared to other forms of music . Ashwath believes that although this may be true , there is still a lot of creativity and freedom within the established confines that can be explored . He likens it to a painter and his canvas - even within the boundaries of the canvas you can unleash your creative flair . In fact , the whole Melakartha scale of raga classification , according to him , is more of a school of thought as opposed to an objective means of raga identification , clustering etc . Ultimately it boils down to the artist and how they chose to embed their flavor in their performances and of course there can be infinite variations in how this is done . Moreover , Ashwath talks about how artists should not be judged solely based on their performances but rather their holistic persona and how they express themselves . He considers himself to be more bold and advocates challenging the status quo whilst being cognizant of preserving the tradition . He believes that although many carnatic artists are referred to as performing artists , the performance aspect is a mere subset of their entire offering .
The dynamic / interplay of carnatic music has evolved over time especially with the advent of different forms of mainstream , and very recently , non-commercial / independent music . Ashwath draws parallels with the game of Chinese Whispers wherein a certain word is passed around via a whisper / secret