Blue skies fade to gray

And I need a blue sky holiday! oh phluzzee...
I don't think I get that for another 4 months
So...
What have I been doing all this while when I didn't blog one sentence!
I could have blogged when I watched Pursuit of Happyness, or about our new year celebrations or about the lack of snow in minnesota due to global warming...there are a thousand things to write about and yet I didn't and the reason is that i am LAZY. I wonder how many people can boldly say that. haha!
I am totally de-addicted to orkut now and I am very happy about it. But I am also totally addicted to youtube - so help me! Take a quiz in this website to see how net addicted you are. I wonder if they have some sort of cure for such partial addictions though.
So why am I talking about addiction? Well,I made a couple of videos of my sis singing in Jaya TV for Ragamalika and now I am totally into windows movie maker to make a movie of my own. So do check out my sis's video and also watch out that space for more creative spurts from me.

Sevikku Unavu

One of my mom's favorite Thirukkural is " sevikku uNavu illaadha pOzhthu siRithu vayitRukkum eeyappadum" literally meaning "when there is no food available for the ears, it will be served for the stomach".This weekend was one such when we had such a treat for our ears that we didn't feel the need for food.

My husband (who also happens to be a pro in carnatic music) regularly did sadagams (riaz/practice) and gave a performance atleast once in two months back in India. That way, even though he didn't want a full time profession in music, he would atleast be in touch with what he likes to do best. And so, we were totally lost after coming here what with new place-syndrome,pressures of work, no guru who would expect excellence from you and push you in the right direction and ofcourse the big question of "where do you actually start of for this?".

Even though we haven't yet found an answer, I am happy that we are going to do so, someday soon. Atleast, the ball has been set rolling...it started soon after my husband and his friend gave a small performance in the Minnesota Thyagaraja Aradhana. After listening to him, the ghatam artist and the mridangist volunteered that they can come over to our place for music practice and be "kutcheri-ready" even though we have no concert lined up. So,this sunday, Balaji and Sriram came over to our place for an extended practice session with their Ghatam and Mridangam respectively and boy was it a treat to listen to all of them together!
After 3 long hours, the music session sadly came to an end and the artists were treated with my wonderful tanjavoor samayal ( I can always claim till you call my bluff :)
I am waitng for the next weekend to come soon when they will get together and practice again.

Caravan of silk and jade

Not being in India, we miss our loved ones...we also miss the honking cars, the morning rush, yummy cusines and the crowded streets.But in December, we miss the chennai-music season the most.
So when we heard about the World beat concert organised by The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, we jumped with joy.
Inspired by the legendary Silk route, it is(was) a presentation of Ouds from Iraq and Iran blended with ragas and thillanas from our very own South India. We were not let down ( oh no, not totally :)...
The program started with a soulful " oud and string quartet" presentation by Rahim Al Haj followed by a not so musical "Blue as the Turquoise Night of Neyshabur". The lowest point in the whole concert was after the intermission when Palukavademira in devamanohari and Mokshamu in saramati were mercilessly murdered. It was totally played out of tune and in an effort to westernise Indian music, they had completely diluted the compositions which only left an insipid taste in the listener's ears and charmed no one.It took us gargantuan effort to stay there even after such a poor display of skills but it paid to be patient. Nirmala Rajasekar, well known veena player here with her accompanying artists Shriniasan Venkatakrishnan on mridangam and Pavan Allalaghatta on tabla lifted our spirits and gave Carnatic music the honor it rightly desreves on a world stage. Her rendition of Rasikapriya and Mandu were the undoubtedly the best pieces of the day.
I can only add one thing here...Carnatic music-You either love it or leave it. Please do not adultrate it.
Oh yes, I do love the way carnatic music is adapted into many tamil film songs, esp. by Illayaraja and there are hundreds of his song that I could give as examples but one of my favorites would be "idazhil kadhai" from Unnal mudiyum thambi" in raaga lalitha...but I guess that takes talent :)
The end was pretty dramatic with a piece from "Mother India" performed by all artists. On the whole it was a good experience. Will I go once again? Maybe not.

Of commercials and jingles

Recently, I have been downloading music that gets played as background score in ads - and no, they are not jingles, but they happen to be good tracks from well-known albums.
It goes like this... I watch the commercial...music sounds gr8... I check out the ad in youtube, do some search to find out the name of the album and download :).
My Today's pick is the latest of Geico's caveman series. The background score for this is "Remind Me" by Royksopp (album - melody a.m).
Watch the ad here in Youtube and let me know how you like it.
Another one I liked was Sheraton's $20 million ad campaign. Arabella Harrison sings "We belong"- orignally by Pat Benatar. You could check out the ad, again in youtube here :)