My meeting Sri M.D.Ramanathan at his home in Adayar in 1967 was the beginning of an adventurous journey into the realm of Carnatic vocal music in a tradition that was fast disappearing.

The gurukulam style had become rare but Sri. MDR and I were very much at home with the tradition and I was fortunately established in my career as a scientist to consider learning music as a pursuit of passion. When I began my tutelage under Sri. MDR, I was also equipped with a strong foundation in carnatic music for I had spent over 20 years under the guidance and training of vidwans in vocal, flute and veena.

My quasi-gurukulam style of training began everyday after my research work was done, when I would head out to spend two or three hours with Sri. MDR at his home. My training was never structured and we would often spend the evening discussing music and many aspects that were of mutual interest and in the midst of our discussions we would drift into the wealth of carnatic music and thus grew my musical development.

Sri. MDR enjoyed this leisurely style of teaching after his regular classes at Kalashetra where he was training students who wished to pursue a career in music. The gurukulam style was close to his heart for it was how he had assimilated most from his guru Sri. Tiger Varadachariar. Sri. MDR often reflected on how some of his best moments as a student were outside the classroom when he followed his master like a shadow.

A vivid picture of Sri. Tiger's musical lifestyle is clearly depicted in a poem which Sri. MDR composed in honor of his guru. The poem reveals how Sri. Tiger's musical genius would burst forth at the most unexpected time and place. Being inseparable from his guru and blessed with a quick grasp and a phenomenal memory, Sri. MDR was able to absorb vast volumes of original, creative music from his guru during these spontaneous sessions, which happened under a tree or at the beach or while walking along the road.

I was magically transported to a memorable concert at the Mysore Palace as Sri. MDR described, in his sonorous voice, how Sri. Tiger began singing at midnight and continued singing nonstop for four hours. Apparently such arduous singing was not uncommon for him for Sri. MDR said that Sri. Tiger would sit at all hours of the day and even nights, under the famous banyan tree, at the Theosophical Society gardens, and sing for hours. At such times, Sri. MDR would be by his guru's side absorbing the subtle nuances and when Tiger noticed this he would affectionately remark, "Triudan, tirduan" (thief, thief).

Since the gurukulam style was unstructured, it had its own challenges and on days when I felt frustrated with my progress, my guru would recall his own early experience when a famous musician advised him to forget a career in music and take up a government job. The suggestion only spurred Sri. MDR to want to prove that he had it in him to become e a success in the carnatic music field. He was driven towards Kalashetra to seek training under Tiger Varadachariar. Much like my experience, they felt the special guru-disciple bond at their first meeting.

Tiger took Sri. MDR under his wing and taught him in a style similar to his own learning from Sri. Pattanam Subramaniam Iyer. In this unique method Tiger first imparted the fundamentals required for good vocal music and then developed the musical content of varnams, kritis, ragam, tanam and pallavi. Sri. MDR told me that anyone aspiring a successful career as a performing artist, should have a repertoire of at least 400 songs, mostly of the Carnatic Trinity, and about 50 to 100 tana-varnams including javalis, tillanas and padams.

I feel very fortunate when Sri. MDR decided that my study should follow a path similar to his own. The traditional gurukulam system, which often lasted for 10 years or more, was special because it enabled the disciple to absorb the impromptu display of subtle creativity and intricate nuances from the guru. Because creative nuances are often spontaneous and dependent on the guru's mood, the disciple needs to spend as much time as possible with the guru to be able to capture and collect them. One such experience happened late one night when Sri. MDR stopped me, as was I about to leave his home- for he had suddenly remembered how Tiger taught him Sri. Kshetrajnar's padam "Ela vachindiro," in Navaroj raga. As Sri. MDR started teaching me the padam; he took care to explain the word-by-word meaning of the composition as he sang it several times in the most mesmerizing and unforgettable manner.

Voice Culture

Voice culture techniques are not common in Carnatic vocal training because of the vast number of compositions a student has to learn thanks to the Trinity- Sri. Thyagaraja, Sri. Shyma Shastri and Sri. Mutuswami Dikshitar. However, Sri. MDR knew how voice culture is practiced in Western opera music and Hindustani vocal music and he always emphasized the importance of developing the voice. From some aspects of voice culture, imparted to me, the four fundamental requirements for a resonating, sharp yet mellow quality in vocal music are as follows:
1. Akara singing in at least four speeds with clarity with each notes rolling like "laddus" in Tiger's terminology, with good kalapramanam (uniform style), which must be practiced in many ragas.
2. The swara stana or frequency of each note reflecting the ragabava or expression. To achieve this, one needs to know the character of each note in a raga like which is a raga's 'resting note' and which is not, which note is rarely used and which note brings out the personality of the raga.
3. Develop facility in three complete octaves.
4. Breath-control in all three octaves- with an ability to increase or decrease the volume of a note without changing its pitch. This involves knowledge of how to position the tongue, neck muscles, and the volume of the mouth cavity, directing the sound around the mouth cavity, for each note.

Sri. Tiger, like his guru Pattanam Subramaniam Iyer, was noted for his exposition of ragam, thanam, pallavi. Pallavi is full of neraval, which is to be sung in thanam style. To accomplish this, a vocalist should first be very familiar with the raga to sing the thanam and have mastery of the kaalapramanam and finally be able to fill the space between the notes. For the ragam-thanam-pallavi to sound fluid, the vocalist must have good aakara clarity with speed without losing sight of the ragabhava. Sri. MDR has followed his guru's style and trained me in this challenging task of singing the janta prayoga with controlled distribution of swaras in tisra (3), chathura (4), and kanda (5) grouping. My guru has recommended a practice of this in a three-routine every day for at least 10 years to achieve a good level of competence.

Following the principle of Tiger, Sri. MDR also wanted me to focus on singing the tana-varnams at three degrees of speed. (medium tempo, the lower-half speed of the medium tempo and double the speed of the medium tempo.) This practice is for strengthening the technical skills while the thana-varnam is to be performed in medium tempo.

Next aspect he told me was that several tana-varnams ought to be learned in the same ragam, especially the ata-thala varnams. Like his guru, Sri. MDR has composed many varnams in adhi and ata thalams in ragams like Ranjani.

Sri. Thayagaraja has pointed out that the main resonating cavities are, Nabhi (stomach region), Hrid (chest), Kanda (neck), Rasana (tongue i.e. mouth) and Nasagrea (top of the nose i.e. head). These are classified in the Western classical music as, the chest register, middle register and the head register.

Sri. MDR had learned voice culture from two styles, one was an accomplished European opera performer and the other was a famous Hindustani vocalist. Equipped with such training and a loud resonating voice with lower range scale (six-kattai lower octave) as his mid-range, Sri. MDR could achieve a special quality of majesty and a pleasing tone. To achieve such a special majestic vocal quality, he asked me to hold each note as long as my breath permitted and while holding the note, to use the mouth cavity and tongue to direct the air jet to the appropriate places that create the resonating effect. When done correctly it resembles the sound of a conch. This vocal training should be done early morning on each note and in three octaves. Following my guru's advice, I have continued to practice this for 13 years and my experience is that it does result in a very resonating and pleasing voice though not similar to Sri. MDR's unique voice, which had a sharp yet mellow quality. Therefore, the goal of such practice should be not to imitate MDR but to bring out the best in one's natural voice. Select the mid-point of your vocal range and begin the practice. I found that two kattai or D scale was ideal for my voice and have developed my voice in three and a half octaves using this practice. Sri. Tiger was known to demonstrate such facility in five octaves and has explained that developing one's voice in three octaves makes a vocalist's voice very attractive in the middle-section of the range. After developing a special voice, Sri. MDR was able to adopt a very slow tempo style of singing which became his trademark. It was impossible for any of his students to offer vocal support during concerts because of his low pitch range, which was beyond normal male voice, and his method of constant improvisation according to his creative moods.

Layam

Maintaining a very slow tempo for a long time requires a very strong laya jnayam or sense of rhythmic judgment. The demand is similar to slow bicycling on a high wire. Sri. MDR had the divine gift of being able to decorate a ragam or kriti with the appropriate anuswaras, with his voice picking up the nuances of minor notes of the ragam - this can be neither cultivated nor learned but one can acquire as much skill as possible by hours of listening to the great masters.

I often remember an analogy which Sri. MDR used to illustrate importance of layam. The thalam should be performed such that the grip of the palm on the thigh should be like the grip of the lizard on the wall. As the lizard moves up the wall, the grip is not visible but it is present- such should be the vocalist's control of the kalapramanam or uniform speed, especially while singing at the low tempo. With time he used to tell me, the kalapramanam becomes one with the self at which point it is not even necessary to use external thalam beats with the hand.

Sri. MDR was very particular that the body posture, head position, clear thalam beats on the thigh should be practiced rigorously. He would also insist on avoiding contortions of the face and body while singing.

As a Musicologist

An erudite musicologist, Sri. MDR has presented several lecture-demonstrations on various advanced topics such, as handling Muthuswami Dikshitar's vivadi-mela ragas- in which he was an expert. Sri. MDR often delivered presentations in fluent English when the occasion required it.

His deep knowledge of the theory, musical creativity, and abiding devotion to Lord Rama (following in the steps of Sri. Thyagaraja) blended together to bring out Sri. MDR's composing ability. He preferred to write his compositions in Telugu script even though he was well versed in Sanskrit, Tamil and Malayalam. Since I started as an instrumentalist, I was used to taking down songs with the swara-notation and though my guru Sri. MDR did not favor this method; he made an exception for me.

Sri. MDR became a professor at Kalakshetra where he was once a student and many of his students to mention a few, Sri. Subramanian, Sri. Ramakrishnan, Sri. Sriram all had taken to teaching music and have had successful careers.

His Spirituality

Sri. MDR was a great admirer of Swami Vivekananda and often identified his relationship with Tiger to that of Vivekananda's relationship with Sri. Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. A sign of his deep guru bakthi was evident at an occasion when he presented a demonstration of Sri. Tiger's compositions. I spent the evening before the demonstration with Sri. MDR and there was no move on his part to practice any of the songs even though he had learnt them several years ago and had not sung them since. The next day, he gave a stunning demonstration and when I asked him how he did it, he said that at 3 a.m. that morning when he meditated deeply on his guru, the memories of his student-days flashed before him and everything seemed recent again. Sri. MDR would humbly say that he appears as a big musician only because others view him through the "Tiger-lens."

My Relationship

My association with Sri. MDR was special for he considered me not just as his disciple but also as a brother, a friend and a well-wisher of his family. Little did I imagine that the very special bond, which grew steadily over nearly 20 years, would be severed so suddenly by his untimely death soon after his 60th birthday. He would seldom make an important decision before consulting me like the instance when he wanted to admit his son Balaji to school. He asked me to register Balaji in school so that he too would follow my path into higher education and one-day study in the United States. I was happy to be able to do this and was even happier when Balaji fulfilled his father's wishes by coming to the U.S. Another important milestone in Balaji's life that I was very happy to be a part of was organizing his Upanayanam in full Sama Veda style as Sri. MDR requested. Though Sri. MDR was not physically present at Balaji's wedding; I was able to play a role, as he would have liked me to. Balaji has had the blessings of growing up listening to Sri. MDR. Balaji has also made it possible for us to enjoy some wonderful compositions like, Nadagopa Yashoda Tanaya, which Sri. MDR was inspired to compose as he watched Balaji's play and was reminded of Lord Krishna's pranks in Gokulam.

Many of Sri. MDR's students who completed the Sangeeta Siromani program from Kalakeshtra, went on to follow successful careers in teaching music as well as performing, such as Kottur Subramaniam, Ramakrishnan, Sriram, Rajalakshmi and Jayalakshmi. Few like Mr. Rajagopal and Mr. Nagarajan took to other professions and performed occasionally. Sri. MDR's son Balaji also enjoys performing occasionally in chamber concerts

In summary, my association with Sri. MDR has taught me that while it is impossible and not advisable to imitate Sri. MDR's style for the result would be a ludicrous mimicry. Instead, one should absorb the content of his music and reproduce it in a manner that is closest to one's own voice and imagination. Since no one continued to learn under Sri. MDR for a sufficiently long enough to attain the level of a performing artist, many had taken to other professions. For me however music has been a Nadopasana, a part of my spiritual sadhananas. Sri. MDR recognized this and had designed a gurukula style of imparting his music to me to help me gather as much about his guru's music and his personality by narrating his personal experiences, some pleasant and others painful. Our random conversations, which often took place under the stars on the terrace of his home, opened a channel of communication that was unique for modern day. I always was comfortable enough to ask him any question about music and he would readily answer it and even demonstrate. I believe that he was ever eager and happy to share his knowledge of music or any other subject from the very first day I met him. After I communicated clearly with him that, my approach to music was not as career but as a Nadopasana and impossible quest for perfection in music is my life journey. Though a cruel stroke of fate took him away from his students, his admirers, his friends and family, he has merged with his favorite deity Lord Rama and has left behind a rich heritage of Carnatic music.

In conclusion, I would like to share with you my guru's blessings in his own handwriting, which reveals how well he had understood my passion of Carnatic music as well as his spontaneous creativity, which he inscribed on the book that he presented to me on my birthday.