Season tidbits from V. Sriram. Had to reblog this. 🙂
Madras Heritage and Carnatic Music
The best Abhinaya is to be seen at music concerts where singer, violinist, mridangist and upapakkavadyam-artistes all signal to the sound man to increase their volume-
Shrngaram – artistes look enticingly at sound man
Viram – some make bold to speak into the mic and ask for volume
Karunyam – out of compassion, sound man twiddles a few knobs
Adbhutam – the artistes are wonderstruck that their requests have been heeded to
Hasyam – sound man secretly laughs at such innocence
Bhayam – artistes fear that some of them may be cut off from the mic completely
Bhibatsam – they are disgusted when exactly the above happens
Roudram – they are roused to anger and demand volume
Shantam – peace returns when a compromise is reached and the artistes realise it is best to get on with the concert. The mic man is anyway always in a state of shantam.