It is said that the Carnatic trinity of M.S. Subbulakshmi, D.K. Pattammal and M.L. Vasanthakumari had an amazing sense of layam . Intricate talams at various speeds used to be child’s play for them, recall old timers.
E-mail from participants of The Hindu Margazhi Classical Music Competition have been enquiring if they could use various accompaniments to ensure talam in their performances.
Keeping talam would be one of the basic things that the judges would look out for in this competition.
The last date for sending entries as Google Drive or Dropbox links to thm- argazhi@thehindu.co.in is Saturday.
Vocalist Ashwath Narayanan recalled how nagaswaram musicians in those days used the betel nut cracking tools to keep their talam , so that they could multi-task between betel nut cracking and practising.
“They were such masters of layam.Laya praghnya , or having an innate sense of rhythm, is intrinsic to music, as it is to life in general. It is that ability to comprehend time signatures that transcends as various ideas like talams , gathis and nadais. Rhythm gives the grip for any melodic sequence to be expressed in a certain way,” he said.
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