Thayambaka by its very nature is a solo performance on the chenda. Yet in recent years, double and triple thayambakas have begun occupying space in temple festivals and cultural celebrations of Kerala. Double and triple thayambakas are spectacles too so that even those among the audience who woefully lack aesthetic density are carried away by those recitals. By his own admission, Mattannoor Sankarankutty Marar has not played solo thayambaka for five years.
In his urge to explore the potential of the chenda, Mattannoor boldly juxtaposed it with various percussion instruments such as the tabla, thavil and even Western drums. In his quest for ascertaining the polyphony of the chenda, Mattannoor has few parallels in the history of Kerala’s percussion music.
On the occasion of the 60th birthday celebrations of thimila maestro Annamanada Parameswara Marar, Mattannoor returned to the ‘single thayambaka’. At the insistence of Parameswaran, Sankarankutty played for a group of percussionists and percussion aficionados in Thrissur.
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The mukham (face) of the pathikaalam (slow tempo) in which Mattannoor usually engrosses himself with imaginative strokes was pithy and precise. The ennams that followed brimmed with the tenor of his glorious predecessors while the manodharmams (improvisations) were refreshing as always.
Contrary to convention, Mattannoor did not play the panchari nada (six beat) with the syllable, ‘thakka thakita thakkam thakita’. He comfortably skipped it and resourcefully headed for the nalamiratti. The reverberating nerkols (vertical falling of the stick at the centre of the chenda’s edamthala) and the ease with which the four stanams, which is nakaram, dhimkaram, chappu and pothu, came alive were awe-inspiring. There was no perceptible hurry on the part of the soloist to raise the tempo.
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The piece de resistance of a thayambaka recital is the kooru. Mattannoor is well known for his adantha kooru (seven beats) in the slowest tempo, a trait he inherited from Pallavoor Appu Marar, the legendary percussionist.
In the present performance, Mattannoor played the slow chemba kooru (40 beats). While spontaneously dealing with the arithmetic complexity of this kooru, his inventive dexterity was evident in the phrases he carved out with the stick and his left hand. The three ennams in the kooru were solid and tonally rich, and the ettichurukkal (progressive shortening of the syllables) magnificent. The supporting percussionists had a tough time registering the rhythm on the valamthala (right surface).
Within a mild momentum, the kooru concluded. Flashes of etavattom and etanila followed. In the irikita segment, Mattannoor deliberately cut down the speed so that the improvised ennam was discernible to the avid listeners. Despite those inevitable staccato beats, melody embedded to a certain sruti, the hallmark of the Mattannoor idiom in thayambaka, was retained right through the performance.
Mattannoor has performed jugalbandis and fusion music with veterans like Umayalpuram Sivaraman and Zakir Hussain. He has once again proved that the classicism of thayambaka is his mainstay. The rasikas assembled to hear his recital unanimously praised the calibre and conviction of the percussion maestro.