Restrictive nature of art breeds creativity exemplified as it is by a painter working on a small canvas, said vocalist Sanjay Subrahmanyam while making it clear that he was against the idea of evoking same kind of experience from his audience.
"I want every one among my audience to have an experience of their own. Creating same kind of experience is liking a product through marketing and it is not a creative art," he said in conversation with Nirmala Lakshman, on "Duality of performance and creativity and tradition and individuality" at The Hindu Lit for Life.
Explaining that restriction was both self imposed and necessitated by the system, he said lack of documentation had created a lot of misconception about the carnatic music world, which had gone through turmoil during the period of the Trinity - Thyagaraja, Muthuswamy Dikshitar and Shyma Shastri - and post Trinity.
"Change is fundamental and not cosmetic," he said on how the music and musicians had to reorient themselves when it entered the public space from private concerts in courts of kings and in the advent of microphones.
When Ms Lakshman asked whether it was a conscious move on his part to sing more and more vivadhi ragas, that was once considered dhosam and bringing to limelight many unknown Tamil songs, he made a simple alapana to prove that melody was same in all ragas. "Somehow vivadhi ragas were not included in the basic lessons and it became easy for anyone to say that sining them was dhosam ."
Though he argued that Tamil Isai was neglected, the movement launched to promote it was hijacked and converted into a political movement. "When I am singing a keerthana in Todi or Bhairavi the language does not matter, even if it is Chinese," he said.
But he agreed that knowing a language also helped the singer to increase the musical effect. Then he sang, " Vaa vaa Muruga " in different style and speed effortlessly to drive home the point. "I would like to do the same in other languages also. But my audience are predominantly Tamils," he said.
Strongly advocating the idea of learning music from a guru, Mr. Subrahamanyam said taking risk on stage was a character. "I am ready to take the risk because I am never afraid of failure," he said, adding that dedicating 10,000 hours to a chosen field was also applicable to music. "A writer has to write regularly. My daughter insists that I sing at least her quota of 20 songs on daily basis," he said.
Talking about the interaction between music and other art and literary forms, Mr Subrahmanyam said he regularly watched plays and read books. "When I read Russia-born Vladimir Nabokov, my favourite writer, his experiment with English and the creativity he has achieved helps me do the same with other languages in music."
Asked whether receiving the Sangita Kalanidhi award had made him more responsible, he said, "pursuing excellence is what that keeps me going. Awards are incidental."