NADHA VINODHANGAL - SALANGAI OLI

Swaravardhini, Sriranjani, Hamsanandhi, Vasantha, Lalitha.

Kanniks Kannikeswaran writes:

I am blogging after a while.

A long long distance trip kept me away from the internet.

The long drives through Quebec and North Eastern United States were very interesting. More on that in another blog.

What I really want to write about here is naada vinodangal, from the Tamil film Salangai Oli from 1983 (or was it 82? I am not very sure).

The song naada vinodangal is a work of art. There is a lot packed into the song. More than meets the eye.

The song starts with a sloka. More on the sloka at the end of this piece.
Then, the strings introduce Sriranjani (the raga) along with the tablas and the mridangams.

‘Naada vinodangal’ — booms SPB.

SP Shailaja chimes in.

Then comes the first interlude. Shailaja chimes in on the svara ‘ni’ several times, as the bgm works its way through the raga sri ranjani.

Then there is an abrupt change to the raga hamsanandi.

What?

Yes. Why hamsanandi? The answer becomes clear as we proceed with the song.

‘sari, ni, sa, dh, ni, …’ etc.

The bgm comes to an end, and the song continues.

‘kailai naathan nadanam aadum sivarupam’.

The word ‘pournami’ strikes a jarring note as it uses the shuddha ma as opposed to the tivra ma.
It is then that you realize that the song has switched to the raga vasanta.

Oho.

Then comes ‘bharatam ennum natanam’ — the ‘nam’ on the natanam switches ‘dha’ to the komala dhaivatam.

Aha. Here is lalita.

Then the song returns to the pallavi in sriranjani again.

So there are sri ranjani, hamsanandi, vasanta and lalita – whose “scales” are derived by dropping the panchamam from kharaharapriya, gamanasramam, suryakantam and mayamalavagowla respectively.

Interesting. A decent amount of thought must have gone into its creation.
Now let us look at the sloka.

By and large it is a pentatonic, Sa ga ma dha(komal) ni (komal) sa. But there is an additional tivra rishabham in ‘vande’ in the last line. With these 6 notes, it fits into the scale of ragavardhini (minus the pa of course).

Thus the song itself – a salutation to Shiva uses five ragas all devoid of the panchamam – pa – hence the title panchama varja panchamam.

So, as I had said earlier, there is more than meets the eye in this song. Much more!

Note: The above discussion completely overlooks the tail end of the song ‘kaaviri mangai’, which appears unrelated to the rest of the song.

http://kanniks.wordpress.com/2008/07/10/salangai-oli-naada-vinodangal-panchama-varja-panchamam/