NEW DELHI: Taking yet another hard jibe at the Carnatic music establishment, renowned vocalist T M Krishna has dubbed musicians as “very self-serving people”, even as he sought to demolish some more myths about this tradition.
“We believe music creates harmony; it is rubbish, artistes are very self-serving people. I have known musicians who don’t care about others,” the Chennai-based Carnatic singer asserted, creating ripples in the national capital after his decision earlier this year to boycott henceforth the ‘December Music Season’ held annually in Chennai.
Krishna was participating in the first session of Day three of the Fifth edition of the Indian Languages Festival (ILF) at the India Habitat Centre here, discussing his radical practices and experiments in music with art critic Sadanand Menon. This year’s festival theme is ‘Insider/Outsider, Writing India’s Dreams and Realities’.
While the session tried to see music as an Indian idiom, Krishna downplayed held notions of the origins of Carnatic music, believed to be 2,000 years old. Disagreeing with that popularly held view, Krishna said, “It is only a form that came in the 18th century,” a remark that is bound to draw the ire of purists.
Krishna also sounded skeptical about “Rama and Krishna stories, which are presented in Carnatic music.” “The moment you say anything is divine, you cannot actually say anything about it,” he quipped with philosophical profundity.
The session was embedded with TM Krishna explaining the beauty of Carnatic music and discussing Tyagaraja compositions. He also elaborated on his radical practices in this session.
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