This is a well written article by Jithin Das in his Google Buzz (found it through Thulasi) and I am re-publishing it here with due permission from him.
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By Jithin Das
There was this ‘famous’ scene in the movie Sankarabharanam where noisy neighborhood kids annoy Sankara Sasthri with loud music at midnight. The vocal was a lampoon, intentionally done to annoy Sasthri and guitars were off the track. Situation surely warrants an interception. Sasthri did it. Then the unusual happens.
Pathetic rockers inform Sasthri that this is not Sa Re Ga Ma music and he wont understand it. Sasthri in turn challenges the kidos by telling them he can sing whatever they can but they cannot sing the way he does. One of the guys try out a tra la la l and Sasthri mimics it perfectly. But when sastri hums a raga rock kid fails to repeat it. Ashamed, he accepts defeat. Well, movies are movies.
What would have happened in real (if the entire rock band members weren’t complete morons as we presume everyone except Indian classical singers to be! ) is more like this:
Rocker: “Sasthri, this is not your sa re ga ma. You think it is noise because you dont understand western music.”
Sasthri: “Is that so? I can sing whatever you can, but you cannot do that to me.”
Rocker: ” That challenge shows your ignorance, Sasthri. Let me tell you something. What I meant by sa re ga ma music is, your music follows only tones. Your system trained you to associate everything with a note, a pitch and a beat alone. Sounds are in solfage and anything that falls out, such as a chord may sound like noise to you.
This is evident from the very fact that you challenged me to sing a vocal bit so that you can repeat it. If I sing something, you- the master of Carnatic should be able to understand it at tones, pitch and beats. But the music we make is much more complex to be measured by these alone. Rock has its own different aspects. The one you just heard was a verse chorus, which has a very different effect than solo singing or harmonic singing . Asking one of us to do a solo verse is like telling me to separate sugar from my coffee so that you can prove coffee is just some grains of sugar. I hope you got it now.”
Sasthri: “Are you telling me your music is as systematic and scientific as classical music? Our popular songs are not.”
Rocker: “Yes it is. The difference is, the popular music or rather film songs here did not evolve . It is fusion of Carnatic or Hindustani and very basic western classical. But our music keeps on evolving. Rock inherited everything it can from classical to folksongs and then, it evolved as a new music genre. In fact it is not one system, it is several systems that keeps on evolving.”
Sasthri: ” Now I am getting it. May be it is so different and so complex that it doesnt sound like music to me.”
Rocker: “It is not so hard. As a person who knows music you should be able to understand an unfamiliar one too. Just listen to this guitar chord. It is called C major seventh . It is sa-ga-pa-ni played together. sa is the root note, ga & ni are the major notes, pa is the perfect note. Together it becomes the chord C major seven . Now can you identify this?”
Sasthri: ” it sounds like sa-ma- ga-dha- mixed.”
Rocker: “you got it, it is F major seven. ma is the root, dha & ga are majors sa is the perfect fifth. I told you it is not as hard as you think.”
Sasthri was impressed. He learned several new things that night. He sang too and the rock kids were mighty impressed by his perfect microtones and easiness of improvisation. He just doesnt need to write down anything to make an improvisation!
That night Sasthri decided to lead the brats to forming a new band where he will be one of the vocalists. Kind of fusion music, but very different from those who pathetically mix and match music. Sasthri did his sweet revenge to the orthodox Carnatic music fans who outcast him because of his suspected illicit affair . In his new world nobody cares a shit about the guy, they just want his music. He did not have to beg and borrow anymore to make both ends meet. Needless to say earned reasonably well, his band was popular enough to get some concerts every now and then, for a decade.