Undevotional Music
On the occasion of Shivratri last weekend I started looking for a musical rendition that I liked of that beautiful poem of Adi Shankara's, the Atmashatakam or the Nirvanashatakam. Even those who aren’t religiously inclined like the poem, and it’s a real pity that it hasn’t been set to some truly spectacular music yet.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of “devotional” music being churned out that is guaranteed to bring you out in a rash and takes you to new heights of irritability rather than the meditative calm that’s usually intended. Tinkly, tankly, sentimental and with too much sugary instrumentation. One could always, of course, listen to the devotional category sung classically and one only has to turn to the old favourites like MS for that, but really it would be nice to have something different in the lighter forms.
Another problem is that we just don’t seem to do choral music as well as they do in the West. Even really bad Christmas choirs sound better. So we should stick to single voices and restrained instrumentation until we learn how to sing in groups.
Oh, and what’s with those booming voice-overs and introductions by men with overly honeyed voices? Examples of these voice-overs are here and here and in countless other places.
Nice and new for me, I know of a couple of other Adi Shankara’s hymns to Shiva, but this one is really simple and succinct. It is more like an introduction and less like devotional verse. Great stuff.
My favorite is the Shiva Manasa Puja, good stuff and totally iconoclastic.
Hi Pareshaan
I like that too. The translation I’ve linked to of Chidananda Roopah isn’t excellent but there are others on the net.
Hello..I chanced to come across your blog and read your post on Atmashatakam..I have a small favour to ask..Have you ever come across the wordings of Thotakashtakam on the net? I will be grateful if you can provide me any information.
Pradeep
ptr123@gmail.com
Hi Pradeep
Is this the one you are looking for:http://www.kamakoti.org/shlokas/kshlok1.htm
See here also:http://www.sanathanadharma.com/totaka/totaka.htm
I have some interesting renditions. Not overt orchestration – but extremely well sung. Clear pronounciation (so damn important). Drop me a mail, and will send them to you.
ra, apologies on the delay in getting back to you on the Thevaram songs you enquired about. Will send you the ones I have on CD here with me, my musical knowledge is close to nil I don’t really have a clue. But I can give you a lot of historical information on them if you want. Will fwd them to you over the weekend
I like to collect the renditions of “Gita Govindam” by various artistes. I don’t know whether you can call Gita Govindam as devotional except for the “Dasavatara Stotra” in the beginning, though…
I too absolutely love these.. thanks for refreshing my memory on these – had slipped my mind for some time now..
Neha would it too much to ask to ask you to send them to me please ???
radha
Totally agree with your take on modern “devotional” music. I’m a purist (can also be read as “narrow-minded”, but i dont mind in this one instance) in the matter of devotional songs – give me the golden oldies any day. As for group singing… the epitome of that is the Thiruvaiyaru Thyagaraja Utsavam, preferably led by Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan. Chaos redefined!
Neha, you are a gem, thanks for all that time you spent yesterday sending me stuff.
Uma, thanks so much. My email id is girlmumbai @ gmail dot com
Surya-some versions of Gita Govindam are so lovely-others so awful!
Radha-I can send you what Neha has sent me…
Shyam, I haven’t heard that, but now I’m curious to know what chaos redifned sounds like!
Hello again,
Thanks a lot..I recited this at a shlokam recital 8 years back. Feels great to revisit those memories. Again, thank you. The post below your reply, I thought was addressed to me….:). Do you by any chance have the rendition?
Sorry if I am asking for more.
Cheers!
Pradeep
Pradeep, I don’t have the totaka rendition, if that’s the one you are referring to, but there are some online. The second link I gave you has a totaka rendition. Spell it both with and without an “h” when doing a google search! Or do you mean the Atmashatakam rendition?
I was referring to the thotakashtakam rendition. The one on the website is unfortunately a lilttle towards what you called *undevotional music*. I really prefer a soft and mellow vocal version of any shlokam. But again its one’s choice. Anyway, sincere ‘thanks’ for all the pains you took. And, great blog!
Cheers!
Pradeep
ra,
Thank you so much.. that will be great..
Will call you soon, know I keep saying that..but really will do..
radha
Dear Pradeep & ra,
I understand that you are looking for a rendition of “Thotakashtakam”.
The URL given below, gives the complete sloka, the meaning of each stanza an audio clip of the song.
URL:
http://www.geocities.com/srigant/SriThotakastakam.htm
Good Luck.
SS-thanks for the link. Will email it to Pradeep, not sure he’ll see it here.
Hej ra, Thanks for your mail . Unfortunately, I am not the Pradeep you and SS looking for. Thats someother Pradeep who had commented here earlier. His Mail id also there : #
ptr123@gmail.com
You may want to mail him
Pradeepkumar
Hello ra !
Can you please refer me to a site from where I can get the complete text of Gita Govinda of Sri.Jayadeva Kavi preferably in English text.
I would be grateful to you for this.
Dr.Badarinath
06-11-2006 // 8.10 pm (Kuwait)
E mail ID : drbadarinath@yahoo.com
drbsm58@hotmail.com
Dr Badrinath-there is one here:http://www.gitagovinda.org/gg/library/english/gvp/Gita-govinda.pdf