padmanabha
13th August 2006, 10:20 PM
[tscii:74b275b38d]When music lovers saw a thin, fair, young lady with a saxophone, they were awe struck. Women and saxophone?How can it be?
With the commencement of the concert, they had to accept the fact that women are in no way behind in handling musical instruments as tough as this. Meet Lavanya the only women saxophone player in India. She was in the capital to perform saxophone concert at the Karikkakom temple.
Lavanya belongs to a family of musicians. Her grand father M R Rajappa was the court musicians of the Mysore Palace. Her father M R Sainath is a leading mrudangist and working as the staff artiste of AIR. He has accompanied many leading artistes especially Kadari Gopalanath-the saxophone maestro. “I was trained in vocal music and regularly attended concerts and had the oppurtunity to hear Kadari amny times. Gradually I was attracted towards saxophone and decided to learn. I was only fifteen then. It is a complicated and complex instrument. One need to spend great effort just to familiarise the fingering techniques.Initially my playing reminded of ancient houses where women blow the fire with a pipe. Then it was like somebody pulling a chair. Even I thought of quitting” LAUGHED Lavanya.
The artiste need lot of energy to play this. Initially you may develop severe throat pain and muscular pain in the jaws. May be this is the reason why women never try saxophone. “I play even tough compostions. Recital of heavy ragas is really challenging as you have to sustain the notes for long. I never restrict myself to lighter and easier pieces” added Lavanya and continued “The instrumenthas many limitations. Basically it is a western instrument, designed to play western music. Our music is full of grace notes and it is tough to bring that quality and still we do our best”.
“My guru Kadari was initially trained in Nagaswaram. When he was just eleven years he saw saxophone being played at Mysore. He somehow wanted to learn and there was no teacher available to teach classical music in saxophone. He learned it all by himself and could evolve a style of his own.He was trained in music by T V Gopalakrishnan” informed Lavanya.
“I have not tried Hindusthani music in saxophone. But I do play bhajans and abhangs. My sister M S subbalekshmi also accompanies me these days. Suddenly she developed food poison and hence couldnot make her presence here. We are popularly known as saxophone sisters” said Lavanya.
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With the commencement of the concert, they had to accept the fact that women are in no way behind in handling musical instruments as tough as this. Meet Lavanya the only women saxophone player in India. She was in the capital to perform saxophone concert at the Karikkakom temple.
Lavanya belongs to a family of musicians. Her grand father M R Rajappa was the court musicians of the Mysore Palace. Her father M R Sainath is a leading mrudangist and working as the staff artiste of AIR. He has accompanied many leading artistes especially Kadari Gopalanath-the saxophone maestro. “I was trained in vocal music and regularly attended concerts and had the oppurtunity to hear Kadari amny times. Gradually I was attracted towards saxophone and decided to learn. I was only fifteen then. It is a complicated and complex instrument. One need to spend great effort just to familiarise the fingering techniques.Initially my playing reminded of ancient houses where women blow the fire with a pipe. Then it was like somebody pulling a chair. Even I thought of quitting” LAUGHED Lavanya.
The artiste need lot of energy to play this. Initially you may develop severe throat pain and muscular pain in the jaws. May be this is the reason why women never try saxophone. “I play even tough compostions. Recital of heavy ragas is really challenging as you have to sustain the notes for long. I never restrict myself to lighter and easier pieces” added Lavanya and continued “The instrumenthas many limitations. Basically it is a western instrument, designed to play western music. Our music is full of grace notes and it is tough to bring that quality and still we do our best”.
“My guru Kadari was initially trained in Nagaswaram. When he was just eleven years he saw saxophone being played at Mysore. He somehow wanted to learn and there was no teacher available to teach classical music in saxophone. He learned it all by himself and could evolve a style of his own.He was trained in music by T V Gopalakrishnan” informed Lavanya.
“I have not tried Hindusthani music in saxophone. But I do play bhajans and abhangs. My sister M S subbalekshmi also accompanies me these days. Suddenly she developed food poison and hence couldnot make her presence here. We are popularly known as saxophone sisters” said Lavanya.
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