Todi - Ustad Sayeeduddin Dagar with Pandit Mohan Shyam Sharma -Brussels ArtBase December 2014 II

Second part of the morning raga concert of Ustad Sayeeduddin Dagar in December 2014.

Higher resolution audio available here: https://archive.org/details/concert-t...

Here guruji introduces us to his way and profound significance of singing raga Todi, with a meaning which differs quite a bit from other musicians. He introduces it by saying "For me it is very pathos...whenever I sing this raga I feel that somebody was with me and now he is no more with me. In Indian customs, that until he alive everybody wants to take care that he should survive, but as soon as he is breathless, we are the first epople to say do quickly take him to the graveyard. We don't keep the body. Like this. So we prepare the body, amke the coffin and takeing to the graveyard like this. Always in this raga I have this feeling. I don't know about the other musicians, what they feel, it is my own thinking, my own way...also I am dedicating this raga to my elder sister because she is no more with me. Raga's name is Todi."

During the singing, he will show various movements:
"the body is ready", "you have to take care", "how the body is going", "and when we reach the sa, that is the destination, when the body have to be put"

To his students singing along or providing vocal support, he also mentions some technical advice on ragas of bhairav family and todi: "after bairagi bhairav don't try to sing todi, it will never manifest. If you sing todi first followed by ahir bhairav, it will create its mood. But if you sing todi after ahir bhairav it will not give you that mood".

The composition is 'Kauna Bharama Bhole Mana Gyani', a classic Dagarvani composition for Todi. Its meaning is a humbling one to learn, as it can speak to the musician (or questions the student?) about the so-called learned knowledge one thinks one posseses in the mind. It emphasises that primarily, one needs grace or blessing. The concert then concludes with a fast tandava composition in raga Gunkali, a beloved favourite among guruji's Belgian students, whom you may heart singing along (even from the audience).

As mentioned in the beginning of this concert, the Brussels concert location ArtBase held and holds a special memory for guruji and his Belgian audience and students. Every year Sayeedji used to visit and always sing there - in such a way, that it felt like a home or a family environment for all of us. Hence it was the perfect location to organise a morning raga concert, so that listeners had the chance to hear morning ragas in a live concert setting.

These recordings are strictly non-profit, and for memory and educational use (and pleasure) of listeners only. They should be shared with living ears, rather than being hoarded as treasures on the distant hard-discs of a privileged few. Let this living aural memorial archive be of merit and use to those whose way it finds. More recordings to come soon, both on this youtube channel and on archive.org - including outtakes from lessons, daily life moments, and private or rare concert occasions.

This upload is fifth in a series of archival recordings of concerts, lessons, and time spent together over the years in dhrupad music, time spent with a master, a teacher, a friend who lived from the heart, who was also funny, generous, and whose essence, music, and life words fail to describe. In this concert Sayeedji was very ably accompanied on the pakhawaj (the double-faced drum used in dhrupad) by pandit Mohan Shyam Sharma, whom you may hear he playfully called 'maharaj'. For many years, Mohan Shyam was a very solid and dignified accompanist for Sayeedji during his tours in Belgium, France and beyond. His stage presence was always most serene and steady, while the percussion and rhythms were lively, entrancing, encompassing and of a whirling counterpoint - on occasion "making thunder", as Sayeedji used to call it.

Wim de Winter, 16.01. 2022.

Why is this on YouTube? The platform has been used over many years to upload and discover many people's archival recordings of great masters of Indian music. I found many recordings of great artists here, including ancestors from the Dagar family. It's the best possible way to allow the most people interested in this music to find it.