Archives

by Wilfrid Jayasuriya

Socrates presents A group consensus discussion about Sinhala music and song. Introduction

An Integrated Course In English for the A Level, edited by Charles Parish and Elzabeth Porter and written in Sri Lanka for Sri Lankans, by Vincent Linares, Jeff Kilmer and the editors (all Fullbright consultants) with Cynthia Tambimuttus collaboration, presents an articulated series of lessons with excellent teachers guides.

The text is available in bookshops but not the teachers guides. One of its activities, called group consensus discussion, sets up an awards committee to nominate, after discussion, the best musician, singer, song writer, singing group and so on. The idea is to promote debate. Almost all the groups nominated Amaradeva. The debate however perked up when other points of view were voiced.

Elangai Naganathan (in a feature article in the ISLAND):

What? No baritones or basses?I was taken aback at the attitude of the judges who appeared to be giving marks for voices which were weak, tremulous and monotonous and where the singer gave the impression of relying on one of his vocal chords, comparable to a violinist who plays on one string only.

Socrates: Or comparable to a racist who sees only evil in the other and good in himself, just by birth or history. He too has only one string to his bow, doesnt he? Elangai: A good friend of mine, who makes a similar (feeble) attempt at singing tells me that this is how Sinhala songs are sung, and there is no other way. According to him songs should be sung sarala which I understand as meaning soft, gentle, pleasant etc.

Prasanna de Silva ( a young devotee of Sinhala music and song) Sarala means also simple. Like in Sunil Santhas song Rella Negenna Manda Manda Sulangeh Come with me nango along the ridge to see the lovely rural scene. See, the soft wind ripple the young paddy. The light blue sky, this wonderful morning, pleases and becalms the eye. The emotion is uncomplicated and needs no emphatic expression. So the singer sings in a flowing voice, with slight ups and downs.

Sunil Ariyaratne (As reported by Dee Cee in Kala Korner, Sunday Times 28/4/02 Features P4)

Sunil Shantha (1915-81) having studied classical music in India gave a new twist to Sinhala music. He composed songs with Sinhala folk flavour. He was the first musician to introduce the western touch to Sinhala music. The influence of North Indian classical music was totally absent in Olu Pipeela. The subtle use of western instruments was a feature in his songs. The listeners liked his voice, which had freshness and novelty and enjoyed singing his songs.

Socrates: The songs were full of optimism and were forward looking as fitted the first decade of post independence Ceylon. His rural scenes seem reenactments of Wordsworths rural poetry like Daffodils and the Solitary Reaper. Wordsworth was accompanied by his sister Dorothy in his nature lover wanderings in the Lake District.

Sunil Santhas nango or sister seems as much a de-sexed lover as Wordworths sister. The emotions are rendered sarala? Sexual love in Sinhala pop music and Sri Lankan English literature was yet faraway in the future Carl Muller had to publish the Jam Fruit Tree in the 1990s for literature. Was there a similar breakthrough in song?

Prasanna de Silva: I think of Amaradeva as a singer who provokes ordinary people to gain insights, to have thoughts about their own lives. On lifes journey to stop and look at themselves.

To use song to convey unusual and deep thoughts. In his song Sannaliyaneh Katada Enduma Wiyanneh? a dialog is created. The sannaliya or maker of clothes describes the variety of clothes he makes for the people at various stages in their lives and through his answer to the question, For whom do you weave and spin and stitch? is able to bring us to contemplate the process of birth, growth and decline that life is. It is deeply philosophical and is sung in a heavy, slow, sad melody.

Socrates: Does it remind you of Shakespeares Seven Stages of Man? Can you give us another example of Amaradevas mode of song?

Prasanna de Silva: In another song I forget the title a husband speaks to his wife about how Colombo city is growing and has grown over their lifetime and yet how they themselves are ageing and moving towards death. Colombo city stands for the material non biological entities which remain, while living entities pass away.

Socrates: So Colombo is seen as history. Colombo is also history in Carl Mullers book of that name. But the husbands lament is like Darling I am growing old, isnt it? In that song too, so well known to English speakers, the husband laments old age but emphasizes lasting love: But my darling, you will be, will be, Always young and fair to me.

This sentiment may sound both true and artificial in comparison to the solid pessimism of Amaradevas song, which voices Buddhisms pessimism. Is contrasting human life to Colombo a way of updating the Buddhist point of view? Doesnt Martin Wickremesinghe do it in Viragaya, where he makes a government clerk into a representative figure, seeking nirvana or salvation from desire.

Haig Karunaratne: (well known singer, song writer, musician and dramatist) When you compare Amaradeva, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Sunil Shantha, Carl Muller and Martin Wickremesinghe what you are doing is to indicate that Sinhala music is not isolated. That it is part of a larger culture and that our modern musicians have been swimming in the river of song and performing a trick or two, which we call our own song and music. Contests like this, as to who is the best, hide this broader perspective.

Elangai: How does one express disillusionment with the lover, estrangement, anguish, joy, passion, anger, hatred, jealousy, pride, dissimulation the list is endless in the sarala mode? Mohideen Baig and H. R. Jothipala used to bring some kind of variation of mood and expression and tone into their interpretations.

Not long ago, when the SLBC sponsored concerts were first presented at Elphinstone Theatre, I had the opportunity of hearing both Pandit Amaradeva and Nanda Malini sing. However I didnt feel that shiver of excitement, that sense of magic, which goes with the experience of really great singing. The Pandit may not be resorting to the same of technique of seemimg to cause a vacuum in the sound of the note emanating from his voice, as do the younger generation of Sinhala singers, but to me there was the same monotony of tone and expression, despite his gestures. One feels, when you have heard one song, that you have heard them all. There is no stream or river of song, which Haig Karunaratne referred to, less so a sea with its myriad moods and humours only a quiescent pool.

Haig Karunaratne: I would think that by international standards Sinhala music is still trying to find itself. However, while I agree that certain kinds of singing, though highly regarded among us, is of a very limited nature, there are other songs such as the Sinhabahu songs which use the male voice in an operatic way, giving it more scope. In my view the mantle of Sunil Shantha has fallen on Nanda Malini, who in songs like Galana Gangaki Jeewithe (life is flowing river) keeps a clear melodic line and sings in a beautiful, pleasing voice.

Elangai: Nanda Malini is distinguished among the recognized Sinhala singers of today as being about the only one who sings at a natural mezzo-soprano pitch after Rukmani Devi. The intrinsic weakness in voice production and delivery in Sinhala singing may be due to a lack of a tradition of singing. I believe the vigour of the western school of singing is due to the great tradition of choral and community singing that characterizes Christian communities everywhere.

Prasanna de Silva: Amaradevas popularity is mostly among the middle aged. The young people prefer the fast rhythm vegha rhythma of the Sinhala pop scene. But their songs are not of lasting value. They are enjoyable but do not convey an insight into life. Socrates: What do you think of a song which is often sung at weddings Kendelleh etiwuh kirilli vagey-? Doesnt it provide an insight into life, convey the feelings of the occasion, telling about the bride as a little bird leaving the parental nest? While here comes the bride is a joyous song, this one is both romantic and sad. It talks of the feelings of the transition from girl to wife.

Prasanna de Silva: Thats right. It suits the occasion. But it does not give the long term view, the profound thoughts that Amaradevas slow, quiet songs convey about the dukha that is in life. As someone said Our sweetest songs are those which tell of saddest thought. The bride going away song gets its effect mainly from the melody and not from the meaning.

Socrates: The points of view presented by Prasanna de Silva, Sunil Ariyaratne, Haig Karunaratne and Elangai Naganathan are surely worth thinking about. Perhaps, we will be able to present other points of view and other themes and singers in a later dialog. Thank you all.

A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/

"He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me," in those who harbour such thoughts hatred is not appeased.

Random Dhammapada Verse 3

News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security
Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries |

Produced by Lake House
Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
Comments and suggestions to :Web Manager