Jim and I got into the taxi and handed our taxi driver yet another name of an obscure location for a Carnatic music concert. We headed off to the right section of Chennai with the driver still mumbling the name of the hall as if constant incantation of the name would make it materialize. (Of course, two days earlier, he had deposited us at the wrong hall and then had to find the right one!) As we approached the appropriate section of the city, he pulled the cab over, avoiding puddles left by the heavy rain earlier in the day, and summoned a bystander. Brandishing the notecard with the name YGP Auditorium on it, he asked for more directions. The bystander looked blank but took the card over to ask yet more people. Receiving their collective wisdom, without ever getting out of the car himself, the driver grunted and headed further down the street. We had successfully arrived! 

This event was the final Carnatic music concert of our visit to Chennai. The artist Sowmya was performing as part of the annual music festival. We first met Sowmya several years ago at Drew when my colleague Karen Pechilis sponsored her in concert. We were looking forward to hearing her perform again. 

The world of Carnatic music, the venerable classical tradition of South India, has had an appeal for me ever since I first learned about it as part of a course I taught on "Music of the Whole Earth." On a visit to Chennai in 1996 I had succeeded in turning Jim into a fan also. Now 12 years and several concerts in New Jersey later, we were back in Chennai for a few days of "the season" where one can spend all day, everyday, going to concerts. Sowmya was our sixth artist in the last four days. 

I had spent time during the day reading reviews in the local newspapers of concerts we hadn't heard. I read about the performers who lacked the right spirit of bhakti (devotion), the ones whose voices weren't good in the upper register, the ones who had beautifully negotiated the svaras, etc. The reviews had only reminded me of how ignorant I really am about this vast tradition. The music is both composed and improvised, essentially devotional and vocal although also performed instrumentally, traditional yet always changing, bound by complex rules yet open to the creative spark. The repertoire is handed down from guru to student, much of it in Telugu, not the language of this region which is Tamil. The music is an integral part of the Hindu devotional tradition. The concert stage is both performing venue and sacred worship space. 

As Sowmya started her first piece, humming a few key notes of the raga to tune to the electronic drone and moved to explore the raga (scale) of the piece, I reflected on the variety of meanings in music. Due to the nature of music, it is hard to pin down specific meanings - that is the beauty of the art form! But that doesn't mean that we all understand it equally well. I've listened to just enough Carnatic music by now to know that without detailed study and a knowledge of the texts I am grasping only a small portion of the meaning of this performance. 

There is no written program at a Carnatic music concert. The performer just sings and the cognoscenti happily turn in their little books to find the piece if they don't already know it. Sometimes the performer will make a verbal announcement of the title, raga and tala (rhythmic pattern) but that is more the exception than the rule. You are just supposed to know! 

Each raga comprises a part of the world view - more than just a set of notes, it implies a particular mood or emotion and a complex set of musical figurations. My ear is too untutored to identify the raga but I nevertheless thoroughly enjoy the exploration of the raga that can be as short as a few seconds or as long as 15 minutes in the performance of a piece. Sowmya and her accompanying violinist explorerd the raga, starting low in the range, working up through the important notes to the highest notes and then descending to the very lowest notes before settling back on the fundamental tone. Through this process she conveys to the audience the complex synergy of devotional feeling and musical expertise. 

You may wonder just what draws me to this music that I only dimly understand. I love the different ragas. I love the way in which the performers shape a concert experience. The same piece can last for five minutes, if played straight through as composed, or for forty-five if the performers insert all of the types of improvisation. The mridangam (double-headed drum) offers an amazing rhythmic counterpoint to the basic tala pattern that performer and audience members "keep" with hand clapping and waving. While many of the pieces are in the 8-beat "adi" tala, three, five and seven note talas are also part of the repertoire, lending some wonderful assymetry to the rhythms. The musicians often come together just for the concert. They rely on their own knowledge of the shared repertoire to create something new when they come together. And the sounds are wonderful. 

Music - a universal language? Not really. While I can imbue the music with my own understanding, steeped in years of the European classical tradition, I am aware that when it comes to understanding Carnatic music I'm at the basic linguistic datge of "buenos dias" and "que paso?"! I am humbled by the beauty of this tradition and the integrity of its practitioners. I am ever more grateful for the variety of musical languages that allow for the compelx expression of unique cultures around the globe.