Delivering the T.S. Parthasarathy memorial lecture, Dr. Lakshmi Subramanian, looked at writings on Carnatic music in the early years of the 20th Century. She also spoke of the methodological difficulties of recording music history, because one had to deal with a complex history of cultural practices.
When musicology emerged as a discipline in Europe, it presumed a lot about non-European societies, and gave itself a superior position. And when we were colonised, the Indian elite’s response to this was to try and come up with a counter discourse. When Carnatic music moved to city sabhas, a Western educated, mostly high caste audience constituted the new listening public, and they wanted to represent their music tradition to their colonial masters, giving it a textual history and theoretical paradigm.
Textual archives were created through newspaper writings, publications of anthologies and biographies. Lakshmi took up for analysis the writings of P.S. Iyer and C. Subramania Iyer. The former wrote in Daily Express , and later compiled his articles in a book. His articles present a fascinating array of subjects — wrangles in sabhas, social accounts about sabhas, and a record of who sang where. He wrote about what kind of aesthetics should be formalised in sabhas. He wanted notations to be used to preserve tradition. C.Subramania Iyer believed in a scientific approach to music.
Juxtaposing these articles written in English, with those written in Tamil makes for an interesting study. Kalki takes on both kinds of writing and expresses his disdain for pedants, whether they talk of scripture or science. His criticism of pedants was like a plea for another movement, and that plea was answered when the Tamil Isai movement came along.
It is important to look at how musicians, through their performances, have contributed to theory, said Lakshmi. A historian has to go beyond institutions and look at subjective experiences, and a new methodology has to be developed to document music history.
Talking about archiving she said: “No archive is innocent. We all document with a bias.”
Regarding TV programmes, she said it was amazing how auditions for these music shows happened and how music teachers dealt with technical questions that arose.
And if people say this music is not authentic, then her answer to them is that the ‘authentic’ has always been up for grabs. She believes music has been democratised and has reached beyond a small circle.
