WHY RIYAAZ? - Page 2

Quoting Chatbuster from another thread (with his permission ) 😊
we've now gone beyond riyaaz of basic raagas to generally putting in hard work in refining and honing in on one's craft. i'd have to be crazy to argue against the latter. most folks who succeed generally work hard, though reverse is not necessarily true. but the issue i had was with working through the same riyaaz day in and day out. that is where i thought we were getting into the realm of being too rigid- for folks who need that discipline perhaps it's the best way to improve, but certainly it need not work for others.

in school, we had folks who were very good at multiplication tables because that's what they did all day. did not add to their ability to solve advanced problems. in college, i can recall "muggus" who would spend all their time cramming up formulas on a daily basis, or later cramming up all the vocab words for gmat/ gre. they never did as well as some of the others who had a basic intelligence in such areas. i dont know what it is but too much structure has often been found to be limiting.

As for the various examples some folks have cited, basic question is this. can we be sure that their greatness stemmed solely from riyaaz and not from their inborn talent? a lot of folks do riyaaz everyday, but not everyone makes it. we might be just looking at a sample where the folks started with loads of talent and their riyaaz was the proverbial icing on the cake. given insufficient data, it is hard to derive any conclusions as to what was the deciding factor behind their success- but hard for me to believe it was just riyaaz.

Originally posted by: punjini

Fantastic, Bhaktaji. Sorry about the sampoorna raga example (it was from google!)

But what do you say about creativity vis-a-vis riyaaz? Chatbuster says that if you go on singing the same thing over and over again, you are not going to be creative in trying new things.

maybe just cut and paste what i had? somehow dont like the sound of how the statements above sounded😉

and do remember to keep the points about finite life-times as well. and if we bring in ambassadors such as parveena to make our point, then maybe others shld be able to bring in others who folks the world over have found to be enormously creative? what say?

actually, have fun... will not get to this till the end of the week.😊

Originally posted by: kishore_bhakta

From my personal experience, I definitely try not to sing the same thing over and over again. If I want to practice Raga Bhairava (morning raga), I would take a handful of songs with different lyrics, different dhuns, and hopefully different talas and practice. I would practice alankaras (combinations and permutations of the notes) and try to do it with as much as accuracy and develop some speed. As you know, compositions aren't gonna be in vilambit laya (slow speed) all the time, and you have to be able to hit the note properly in time with respect to tala.

Singing "jaago mohan pyaare" every day w/o any significant changes will eventually make the song sound stale when singing it. It is great to practice a song for some days, but you can't practice one song over and over again forever.

Singing is such a thing which you can't rank as a second nature task. If it were, then what is first nature?

good stuff, kb.

btw, have slowly found folks sliding and shifting away from what they were initially talking about when it came to riyaaz, the daily drill with the same stuff for hours on end, years on end, for most of their lives. if folks are now correcting themselves and it is now taken to be a catch-all for hard work and perseverance, then i am all for it, have always been. but if it is repetitive rote stuff, then too much of it can in fact be detrimental to creativity. and i stand by that.

[btw, do read the last line carefully]

Great Post punjini, very imformative.. -

THANKS 👏 👏 👏

and with Punjini's exhortations to do the ultimate bappigua, am cutting and pasting following from elsewhere:

no one's arguing the need for a basic level of proficiency. some riyaaz is needed to get someone to that point. but to suggest that a draconian riyaaz schedule is needed is sort of ludicrous, sorry. now i know we dont like to talk western music here, but if we look at the beatles, they got started only in their teens. did not give them a headstart on riyaaz. and certainly they did not have the extreme work ethic that some of the folks here seem to be suggesting is necessary to learn and be creative. and they were creative now, weren't they? steve jobs was pretty creative with apple wasnt he? do you know how he got creative? not by taking classes in computers and doing riyaaz in programming languages when he was in college. rather it was a course in calligraphy that got him started thinking. btw, we have established now that it is fine to draw examples from other fields, so pls no berating me for bringing in these examples to make my point.

So for as many examples as someone can point to that weigh in for riyaaz, i'll find umpteen the other way around. And the basic question has not been answered. how are we so sure that when we speak of those greats that we are not talking about people who were very talented. perhaps riyaaz was just the icing on the cake? these folks wld have been great no matter what?

- Punjini, do check the finite life-times post. meanwhile tc folks... bye

Thank you for your response, Chatbusterji!

Here is another fact to consider.

Back in the golden days of music, music was topic considered "guru mukha vidya:" "knowledge which must be obtained by the mouth of the true teacher." Music was {{once}} a field which one must spend their whole life with. Last year, I heard an interview late sitarist Nikhil Banerjee gave on the traditional gurukula system. He said that the method was very strict as one had to live with the guru. The guru would provide the necessities for the student, while the student would wake up very early in the morning, practice material taught, take breakfast, obtain new instruction from the guru, and practice the rest of the day with that material. In turn for the knowledge received by the guru, the student would offer service to the guru, like cleaning his home or wash his clothes. Like this, a great amount of time of the student's life is learning hence riyaaz will seem very very repetitive.

Of course, today's culture of technology would not favor such intense training as shown through the gurukula system, as one cannot truly devote every atom of time in learning music, as done traditionally. This is why regularly scheduled classes are met up and riyaaz are "sped up." The teacher should have a great amount of experience, so they should be able to guide the student in the proper direction.

Originally posted by: kishore_bhakta

Thank you for your response, Chatbusterji!

Here is another fact to consider.

Back in the golden days of music, music was topic considered "guru mukha vidya:" "knowledge which must be obtained by the mouth of the true teacher." Music was {{once}} a field which one must spend their whole life with. Last year, I heard an interview late sitarist Nikhil Banerjee gave on the traditional gurukula system. He said that the method was very strict as one had to live with the guru. The guru would provide the necessities for the student, while the student would wake up very early in the morning, practice material taught, take breakfast, obtain new instruction from the guru, and practice the rest of the day with that material. In turn for the knowledge received by the guru, the student would offer service to the guru, like cleaning his home or wash his clothes. Like this, a great amount of time of the student's life is learning hence riyaaz will seem very very repetitive.

Of course, today's culture of technology would not favor such intense training as shown through the gurukula system, as one cannot truly devote every atom of time in learning music, as done traditionally. This is why regularly scheduled classes are met up and riyaaz are "sped up." The teacher should have a great amount of experience, so they should be able to guide the student in the proper direction.

the real art then seems to be in picking the right/ creative guru...

btw, i think that was a barter economic system where the guru got something in return. still, so much time spent on other chores, not on music. i've seen some orphanage-type ashrams also operate the same way- pretty regimented. it's a better life than what the kids might have otherwise, but it is not necessarily the ideal one if one had other options for study and school.

Here is Bismilla Khan's lament about riyaaz and guru shishya parampara.

"Where is the aadaab of older times? Aspirants now go to schools and colleges to learn music. They do not persevere under gurus. They want instant benefits. Stalwarts of yore — Abdul Karim Khan, Fiyaz Khan, Omkaarnath Thaakur — died poor. They had no time for personal gratification. Where are musicians now to do riyaaz like them? I may give time. But is there a disciple who can take it, snatch it from the guru? Besides, the shishya must find time for his own saadhanaa. I still remember. When I was a boy, my guru would come home tired at 4 in the morning and go to sleep. I would go to his bedroom and massage his legs. He would smile at me. He knew what I wanted. He would cast away sleep, give me his shehnai and say 'betaa, bajao'."

Originally posted by: punjini

Here is Bismilla Khan's lament about riyaaz and guru shishya parampara.

"Where is the aadaab of older times? Aspirants now go to schools and colleges to learn music. They do not persevere under gurus. They want instant benefits. Stalwarts of yore — Abdul Karim Khan, Fiyaz Khan, Omkaarnath Thaakur — died poor. They had no time for personal gratification. Where are musicians now to do riyaaz like them? I may give time. But is there a disciple who can take it, snatch it from the guru? Besides, the shishya must find time for his own saadhanaa. I still remember. When I was a boy, my guru would come home tired at 4 in the morning and go to sleep. I would go to his bedroom and massage his legs. He would smile at me. He knew what I wanted. He would cast away sleep, give me his shehnai and say 'betaa, bajao'."

👏👏👏 Thanks for posting that!

(sighs) Bismillah Khan! I remember I used to fall asleep listening to his "Shehnai" (1984) and "The Soul of Shehnai"(1985) recordings. He was simply amazing!

Originally posted by: chatbuster

the real art then seems to be in picking the right/ creative guru...

btw, i think that was a barter economic system where the guru got something in return. still, so much time spent on other chores, not on music. i've seen some orphanage-type ashrams also operate the same way- pretty regimented. it's a better life than what the kids might have otherwise, but it is not necessarily the ideal one if one had other options for study and school.

I've started enjoying your responses now. 😊 Barter economic system. 😆
Actually, music was not a hobby or a side activity as it is now. It would be the ONLY activity worth living for. It was a passion, a lifetime commitment. So a shishya who wanted that knowledge would be ready to do anything to learn from a guru. Washing clothes and cleaning wouldn't be a waste of time for the shishya because he would be bonding with the guru even at that time. The guru in turn would feel real affection for the student and this would lead to the process of passing down knowledge from one generation to another.