WYSIWYG Dreamz: Jayanth.Krupanidhi@Sun.COM

Dictionary.com defines music as "any sweet, pleasing or harmonious sound or sounds". Well, that's just the dictionary meaning of it! I would rather go a step further and complete the definition by adding "... that penetrates your senses and touches your soul". Music, as such, without the "soul factor", doesn't make much sense to me.

I'm neither a musician, nor one of those self-proclaimed authorities in the subject matter of music, though I've tried my hands at composing a few times and have even succeeded fairly in creating notes & tunes that were at the least, impressive to me. But I'm a music-lover, a fan of good music, whose rights transcend even those of a musician! Not because being just a music-lover is convenient and less painstaking than being a musician, but more because of that inexplicably sublime feeling that I experience every time I listen to a piece of something that I call "music"!

Born in a musical family, I fortunately had that innate quality to relate so well with the nuances of Indian Carnatic music, a quality that only got better and more refined with age. I had my initial lessons of vocal Carnatic music under a "guru" named Devasahayam, whose methodology encouraged me and eventually drew me towards the notion of "swaras", which comprised every "raga". Also, being the regular film-song-fanatic, getting lulled to sleep listening to the countless melodies of Ilayaraja & Rahman was almost a daily affair. I do not remember a single day in those years, when I'd slept without listening to a good song. It was almost impossible, with all the good music in the world, from "gaanas" to "ghazals" & "keerthanas" to "symphonies", piled up as a cassette-collection, a collection that I took great pride in possessing! That those cassettes were replaced by audio & MP3 CDs and got even bigger by the years is a different story, but nevertheless, still a matter of pride.

I was also lucky enough to find friends who shared similar musical interests with me. Ravishankar is one such friend, who has accompanied me for many scintillating Carnatic music concerts. Most of our interesting conversations, both spoken and unspoken, have revolved around the topic of music & continues to do so even today. Raghavendran is another friend, with whom I'd spent countless minutes with, listening to Ilayaraja & A.R.Rahman's songs and analyzing their compositions. So much was our craze for these composers, that when any of their compositions didn't top the charts, we went to the extent of taking it as a "personal failure"!

Knowing about "swaras" and "ragas" not only encouraged me to appreciate Carnatic music more, but also appreciate the similarities in foundation between different kinds of music. That's when I realized the true advantage of actually "knowing" music. I found it to be true that listening to any other form of music after knowing the basics of one form makes you appreciate the other form even better. It's something like watching a famous foreign language movie that's dubbed in your local regional language.

Years rolled by & I found myself unconsciously decoding every song and every piece of music I heard into "swaras". I'd have to mention that 14th December, 1997 is one date that I'd love to remember forever, for it was the day my dad bought me my Yamaha PSR26 keyboard. After a few days of practising with "swaras", my fingers acquired reasonable agility and I could play any melody that had a normal tempo. Even today, the immediate involuntary action that I do when I come across a catchy tune is to play them as notes with my fingers on an imaginary keyboard.

Let me pause here. I know I have all the time in the world to talk about music and my musings about it. So, why do it all at once? More musings would follow in my future posts...