Unique Raga Alapanas

Raga alapanas in carnatic music is a core part of manodharma sangeetham (extempore music). It shows one's creativity, voice reach, etc....

Raga alapanas usually starts with a phrase which shows the audience what raga the singer is going to sing. Then the singer dwells more into step-by-step exposition of the raga and concluding with phrases which goes across the raga.

But there are unique alapanas done by maestros. Not certain where I came upon this news....but anyway this happened in one of Mali's concert. Mali started one raga alapana with swaras only from sa ri ga pa.....putting audience in dilemma if this is Mohanam or Hanshadhwani. This was done ofcourse deliberately, contrasting to the belief that one should show the raga in the starting of the alapana itself. After Mail dwelt this for few minutes; the violinist played the swara ni thinking that it might be Hamshadhwani. But immediately Mali replied with swara da showing it is infact Mohanam.

There is one more instance in which the artist put the audience in dilemma. This is a concert of one if the "unsung heroes" of carnatic music T. K. Rangachari. He is a stalwart in innovating new ideas. Once in a concert he started an alapana and sang only the swaras ma pa da ni sa.....capturing these swara many thought it might be Harikambhoji. This was done for almost 4/5 minutes but suddenly he came down and took the shatshruthi rishabam, i.e., ri3 to show it is Vagadheeswari....it is simply outstanding. I have that recording downloaded from somewhere. For your pleasure just hear this amazing raga alapana of vagadheeswari. Many might argue it is against the tradition but I think it shows the creativity of the artist and transforms the music to the next dimension. Ofcourse it delights the audience too. Here is the vagadheeswari alapana (I hope it is not a commercial one...if it is commercial please inform me I will take the link off)

Violin is none otherthan MSG.


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