The intrigue of the twang

The morsing is a peculiar instrument, not just for how it is played but also for its unique role in a classical concert. A few artists from Karnataka recount their tryst with the percussion instrument and speak of what needs to be done to preserve the art form

October 15, 2015 04:38 pm | Updated 05:42 pm IST - Bengaluru

D.V. Prasanna Kumar,  S.V. Giridhara, S.V. Balakrishna and Arun Kumar;  Photo: Murali Kumar K.

D.V. Prasanna Kumar, S.V. Giridhara, S.V. Balakrishna and Arun Kumar; Photo: Murali Kumar K.

Ever since it made its debut on the Carnatic stage, morsing, the tiny wind-percussion instrument, has craned the necks of those sitting in the audience as they tried to decipher the genesis of the unexampled sound the instrument produces. To add to this, the manner in which morsing is played was in itself a matter of great intrigue because what the audience saw was a man covering his mouth with his hands while his eyes were deep in concentration.

“As a young boy, when I first saw the morsing being played, all I could see was a man sitting on the stage, listening to music and hitting his mouth for some reason. It was hilarious when wedding concerts refused to include the ‘inauspicious’ morsing artist who used to constantly hit his mouth ,” recounts S.V. Giridhara, one of the leading morsing artists and teachers in Bangalore.

Among the ones that craned their necks to find out more about the instrument, were musicians, mostly mridangam artists. In fact, the story of morsing’s journey in Karnataka is actually the story of how each of those artists, intrigued by the instrument, picked it up, explored its sounds, trained in it and soon entered the concert stage as morsing artists themselves. Take the case of the legendary L. Bheemachar, who is touted as the first morsing player of Karnataka. “This was back in the 1950s. I had already been learning the mridangam when I chanced upon a tiny horse-shoe shaped metal instrument in my house. I began exploring its sounds and then went to my master, H. Puttachar to help me understand the nuances of the instrument,” recalls the 83-year-old Bheemachar.

This intrigue seems to have travelled across generations because even a current generation artist like Arun Kumar says that it was curiosity that compelled him to pick up the instrument. “During a Carnatic music tour in the Netherlands, I borrowed it from a fellow artist, practised in front of the mirror, attempting to mimic how the morsing is held by Bheemachar and my teacher, Giridhara Master,” he narrated.

The morsing is a peculiar instrument and by this I’m not just referring to how it is played, but also its status and role in a classical concert. “Unlike the mridangam, morsing is not an essential instrument for a classical concert. It is an optional one but one that has the potential to uplift a concert,” says Rajashekar, Bheemachar’s son and a morsing artist himself. “The beauty of morsing lies in the fact that it blends the treble from the left side of the mridangam with the shruti from the tambura,” adds Giridhara. “The key is to know when not to play the morsing during a concert,” say both, emphasising the uniqueness of the instrument.

How did morsing enter classical music? “It is not an instrument that originated here. I’ve been told that there are over 1000 names for the instrument across the world. Its origins lie in folk music. Often, the Jewish harp is identified as the precursor to the Indian morsing,” explains Rajashekar. “In Rajasthan, they still use a version of the morsing. Initially it used to be made out of bamboo,” adds Giridhara. When it comes to Carnatic music, many artists cite the names of Pudukottai Mahadevan and Pakkiriswamy as the ones that must have influenced artists in Karnataka and perhaps enabled morsing's travels into Karnataka.

Most artists acknowledge that morsing has not been an easy instrument to play and the style varies from artist to artist. There are accounts of bleeding lips that most of them recount from their days of discovering the style best suited to them.

The size of an artist's mouth, breath control, and improvisational technique mark the differences in style, say artists. “Bheemachar Sir has a unique method where he produces sounds on the instrument purely through breath control. In this method, he does not twang the instrument with his hand at all,” describes D.V. Prasanna, a student of Giridhara and a popular morsing artist especially in the classical dance circuit.

What also worked for artists like Arun, Prasanna, Rajashekar and even Giridhara’s brother, S.V.Balakrishna, was the extent of opportunities to play the instrument. “My career as a musician has more or less been shaped by my tryst with morsing. There were few artists when all of us began playing the morsing. I was lucky to get many opportunities to play along with the best in the field. I would be called as a mridangam artist to fill in for someone and then when the mridangam artist unexpectedly turned up, they would ask me to play the morsing,” recounts S.V. Balakrishna.

Morsing’s predicament today, unfortunately, is such that there are numerous artists who know and are good at playing the instrument but they are all faced with dwindling opportunities to showcase their skills. “Among the upa-pakka vadyams, morsing ranks the lowest, after the ghatam and the khanjira. So, especially when it comes to foreign tours, the first to cut out of the budget is the morsing,” explains Arun Kumar. “Or, they prefer artists who know morsing, ghatam, khanjira and mridangam simultaneously. That is how they think of saving costs,” adds Prasanna and says that most morsing artists are also mridangam artists and are more or less proficient in all percussion instruments.

It is both the vocalist as well as the organiser’s call to include or exclude the morsing from the stage, say artists. “Ideally, a full bench concert, has all the instruments and that includes morsing. That is how it has been. Today, we hardly see a full-bench concert,” says Giridhara. Artists feel that concerts are key in popularising the instrument. Perhaps, lecture demonstrations too can be attempted, they add.

Having nurtured the instrument for so many years, Bheemachar feels that Karnataka needs more morsing teachers.

“Many students begin learning the instrument and then stop. We need more good teachers that can encourage students to stay in the field,” he adds.

Morsing and women

Curiously, morsing remains in the male domain with only one female morsing artist in the entire State and that is L. Bheemachar’s daughter, Bhagyalakshmi. M. Krishna. “I’m not sure why there are not many women coming forward to learn this instrument. It could be because a career as a morsing artist is not something that is lucrative. I don’t see any other reason for this lack of interest,” she says. Commenting on the contemporary music circuit, Bhagyalakshmi feels that there is no dearth of opportunities for artists like her. “There is a lot of curiosity about the instrument even today and I think there is a surge in concert opportunities as well,” she says.

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