Madhumad Sarang

My sister many times calls fellow young musicians to her practice den and they practice and discuss together in a good spirit. Yesterday a young talented and enthusistic lad - Omkarnath Havaldar came over to sing along few devotional songs which they had to perform in a concert. Me and my sister wished to listen to his classical talent. He was nice and he sang rag Madhumad Sarang which was one of his favourites. The rendering and swar patterns were amazing and after the brief recital, all three of us stood silent for a long time to sink in the idea of the beautiful rag. Ofcourse this was due to his excellent rendering.

While he sang, I noticed sound being present all over the place. Even behind the artiste. I went out to test and realised that, the musical sounds were present almost in every part of the space all around him upto aound 25 feet. This was a breath taking experience for me since I was enjoying the sound very pecularly in all directions. There was no use of mike. I felt like opening the walls of the den and make him sit in the center of an elaborate garden. The room restricted the sound. Later I narrated my experience to him and he replied with a story of rang mandira of Hoysala temples in which the stage was in the center and the audience aspired to sit behind the artistes to liten to the recital. Now this was interesting fact and I wondered how we sit in the front of the artist in the modern day performance powered with mikes and speakers. It is simply impossible to experience the beauty of sound being present in the immediate space in a modern day concert.

The discussions ended with talking about rare rags which is incidently his keen interests. The 'Sarang' soon faded leaving the space alone.