Indian Diaspora, Carnatic Music, and Competitions

   There was a time when learning Carnatic music was an enjoyable activity for the US children of South Indian descent.  For the parents and elders,  programs where these children displayed their talent were a real treat where they wholeheartedly applauded every child along with utmost an understanding inward chuckle at their lapses like that of a lisping child uttering a phrase incorrectly would get.   As for the children, they came and participated happily - mind you, participated, and not competed -  and went away with some present - everyone a winner, which indeed they are for engaging themselves in an art form of a distant land despite the challenges of finding time to practice and (at least partial) lack of understanding of the attending language, mythology, and context.

  Then came the introduction of competitions.  Initially, we allowed also participation without competing, but - we don't know whom to blame - that also went away, and all we have now in many places are competitions.  To some extent, the competitions perhaps have increased the effort put in  by those who were really there to compete as well as others, and we got better and better quality of music even from the young.  Thus, an activity that was mainly one of encouraging children that were 'lisping' music  turned  slowly into hours of enjoyable music.

    Of course, to be able to judge competing performers with some uniformity, it becomes necessary to announce a set of kritis (songs) or ragas (melodies) or talas (beats) over which they all will be tested.  The net result immediately turns learning music into coaching for a competition, and a new kind of an industry.  Rumors abound that some teachers charge as much as $400 per song and polish them over an extended period of several months just to create winners in some competitions.  Some organizations make a killing in participation fee; a group of one hundred children simultaneously on stage singing as a group and each paying even $50 for the 'honor' is not small change!  Honestly, one is confused on who is really competing - the kids, the parents, or the teachers?  When I begged him to lend his stage in Chennai for some of "our" children (our in the sense of NJ children; mine never got to that level unfortunately), a great music organizer in India also highly informed on Carnatic music - whom I must leave unnamed -  once remarked to me, "These youngsters from your America are good, I would even say very good, for the two or three kritis they know, but their improvisations are not improvisations at all but regurgitations of learned phrases with no real spontaneity.  How can you expect me to put them up on my stage?"   [I hasten to add that we now do have some really talented Carnatic artists born and brought up in the USA who are standing shoulder to shoulder with their counterparts in India, although they are far too few compared to the thousands learning the art.]  For many children in the USA, it is no longer a matter of learning a new art for learning and enjoyment per se.  As my own daughter once remarked, "Appa, I felt like I was a show pony."    No wonder, many including those showing high promise leave the activity for good once they leave the nest of their parents. 

     Now, we have taken things to even a worse level, thanks to all the 'idol' programs and the like on television, now mimicked by many US based organizations.  We now have 'professional' judges,  not all of whom are a Sri Santhanagopalan beaming with encouragement and kindness; some of them appear more eager to show how clever and knowledgeable they are and grill the kids mercilessly in public, interrupting their performance repeatedly asking them to do, not music but acrobatics with music.  Honestly, I hate to even go to  such shows, since I cannot even listen to one segment, let alone an entire piece, sung or performed in its entirety by anyone without being interrupted by a judge.  The type of 'music' we get in these competitions as audience is not music that is 'the food of love' but of great heartache and indigestion.  We really need to think on this and ask ourselves what it is that we are trying to achieve here.

   To me, the motivations behind these children's events should always be to provide them an enjoyable day while connecting them to their great inheritance and to groom them to be able to appreciate the richness of that heritage as they grow into adulthood.  Simultaneously, we want to give the opportunity to those who want to go much beyond that and enter even the professional arena, but that should always be with our resounding applauses, personal words of praise and guidance, establishing contacts and finding opportunities for them to learn with stalwarts and to perform in bigger venues.  With all my experience as a teacher, I personally cannot understand how a public flagellation would encourage a student; honestly, there is no better way to kill talent altogether.

    I understand that we cannot groom real maestros here without the rigor of theory, tests, and testing, and I am one who keeps hammering that we cannot live for ever on borrowed feathers from India and need to groom our own stalwarts.  I have also expounded on the virtues of honest criticism elsewhere, after all. ( https://veeraam.blogspot.com/2017/10/a-critique-of-critics-and-criticisms.html ). Can we not reserve those tests etc., only for those who want to take that path and do those tests and testing in a more private setting allowing our public programs to be ones where children and youth can sing for their sheer enjoyment and let us enjoy music too without those totally irksome interruptions and questions?
    I can almost guess the answers that will come from organizers: Yes, we can, if we have more volunteers to help us organize and run additional events, and enough donors to foot the bill.  Yes we can do all that as a community, but shall we, or will we just let things drift whichever way?