The first of two spicmacay/ ggs jam (What are these?) of the Summer 08 semester was held as usual at the ICEC upstairs, meditation room.

Attendance was low (4 children and 2 adults), as to be expected in summer, but it was an enjoyable meeting. Prasanna's recording of the session.

Jam Moderator was Meera.

We followed the Jam format.

***Session 1 (for children).
Jazz-blues improv on keyboard -- Anousha,

***Session 2 (set pieces+ lecdems): Please go to karnATik website to get any of the below lyrics (nearly 2500 lyrics) and also go to really good audio archive by Shivkumar Kalyanaraman which include his and others' renditions of many pieces
--We had a discussion about the lagu-dhritam structure of a talam and how the phrasing interacts with this structure especially the downbeats (samams and dhritams) , including the need for different starting points (eduppu) and tempos of the talam. the
--We also discussed the differences between instruments, the relative advantages of veena/violin/vocal. In particular, we noted that the veena was probably incomparable for studying gamakam and extracting the percussive aspects of gamakam, the interaction of the phrasing with rhythm (which is used heavily in thanam) and for exploring complex but relatively slow rhythmic aspects -- but not that good for Neraval, Vritam which depend crucially on phrasing. Nor is the veena particularly suited for Briga (fast runs of successive notes of the raga), or scintillating speeds -- these require vocal or a shortbridge instrument, or atleast an instrument that has 2 picks/strums per stroke (like guitar or sitar or anything else that uses a mizrab or a plectrum).

Session 3
Surprises piece with improv

Customary Raga round (Mayamalava gowla, Chakravagam (nishadam down), Thodi (gandharam down), Shubha Pantuvarali (madhyamam up and nishadam up), Dhenuka (madhyamam down), Shanmugapriya (madhyamam up, nishadam down, rishabham up)

Other Topics discussed:
--Promotion of Indian classical music: in addition to reaching out to musicians who are trained in other styles of music, we talked about modern lifestyles and the need for other types of participatory and interactive semi-formal and formal gatherings and not only relying on the Kutcheri option. A TV program was mentioned "Margazhi ???" where a short kutcheri by professional artists was accompanied by a question-answer session with demonstrations.
--Different styles of singing the same ragam: O.S. Arun's lecdem clip which is on youtube was mentioned, but there he seems to be changing the raga and sometimes even Shruti!
--The ICEC room is not available anymore on Saturdays, ICEC needs the cash and hence they will rent out the rooms during weekends for weddings etc. Understandable. We anticipate that we will use an alternative venue (at the Reitz Union, preferably) will have to be found, or occasionally we may move it to Sundays at ICEC between Noon and 7pm.