Traditions: Ohio Heritage Fellows; 202; Kanniks Kannikeswaran interview, part 1 of 7

Q: So what does music mean to you?

KANNIKS: Uh, that’s a very good question. This, uh, uh, it means different things to different people. To me, it’s like...

RESTATE

Q:

KANNIKS: It’s very hard to define what music exactly means to me. All I can say is that there is a tune that’s running my head most of the time no matter what I do, uh, doesn’t matter what tune it is, there’s something going on in my head. I can tell you this, umm, I enjoy making music, I enjoy listening to music, more than anything else, I enjoy sharing music with people. Umm, sharing not in terms... not only in terms of sitting on stage and performing but actually talking about it, getting people to a new level of consciousness about, uh, musical appreciation, having them jump from one plane of musical consciousness to another. And, also appreciating the ah, ha moment and when they actually get something, a music distinction that they were not aware of before.

Q: What do I love about music?

KANNIKS: This is a very hard one to answer. It’s, uh, part of life itself and I can not imagine what life would be without music but it is a distinction, it’s being able to appreciate sound or your existence in a completely, uh, in a totally different way relating to the source of our consciousness, relating to the entire universe in a very powerful way. Uh, it gives me the ability to do that. It gives me an ability to drift into a space where, uh, I don’t look at myself as anything different from the rest of the universe. It’s very abstract isn’t it?

Q: How important has music become... when you’re away from home?

KANNIKS: Umm, I think it does become very important and I think its part of our nature too. See, when you’re very close to something you cease to appreciate what you have and you tend to take for granted some of the gifts and abilities that you have and some of the cultural, uh, things that have just been handed over to you that you don’t even know that you are privileged to receive. But when you move a way from where you are and look at yourself in a totally different plight that’s when the value of all these things, uh, strikes you in a very big way. It’s probably... it’s kind of like taking off in a space shuttle and looking at the earth from a distance when all of a sudden it becomes a blue jewel and not your mundane existence that you take for granted.

Q: Can you just tell us where you from?

KANNIKS: I was born in a city called Madres which is known as Ja-nane. I lived in India; well of course, Ja-nane is in India. I lived in India for the first part of my life and then I came to the United States in 1984.

Q: Say and spell your name:

KANNIKS: My name is Kanniks Kannikeswaren. Spelled K-a-n-n-i-k-s K-a-n-n-i-k-e-s-w-a-r-e-n.

Q: So how did you come to be in Mason?

KANNIKS: Well, umm, we... Mason is a growing suburb and we have a lot of friends that live in Mason and the school district is great and they...

RESTATE

I came to the United States in 1984 as a grad student with a scholarship to the University of Cincinnati. Umm, and then, uh, one thing led to another so I started working in Cincinnati and then, uh, uh, this has become a home. I’ve lived here, umm, for more... longer than I have lived in India.

Q: What is your non-musical background?

KANNIKS: I graduated from a school called the Indian Institute of Technology back in India which is rated as one of the top, uh, technological engineering institutions in the world. Uh, and then I came to the United States to get a graduate degree in materials science and then I went on to get an MBA in Information Systems as well. And, uh, I enjoy working with information and, uh, data I’ve been a consultant in business intelligence for a long time. Umm, so my specialty licensed the ability to get knowledge out of data.

Q: When did your musical journey begin?

KANNIKS: Yes, I, umm, still remember, umm, lying on my grandmother’s lap and listening to the songs that she used to sing. My grandmother was not a professional musician but she used to play what is called... an instrument called a Vina and, and, uh, she was a great source of inspiration in many ways and I used to listen to her play music on the Vina along with her father, that’s my great-grandfather, uh, play music together and these used to be very special treat to the rest of the family back in the 1960’s. That is probably my first introduction to music. So, then I... my aunt used to, umm, they started their musical training at that point and time so I used to follow their lessons regularly, uh, until their music teacher advised that I should start taking music seriously which was back when I was 9 years old. So, that’s my introduction to music and then one thing led to another and then I gave a full fledged concert at the age of 13 and, uh, uh, and then I went on started getting interested in other forms of music as well.

Q: What were you learning when you began formal lessons?

KANNIKS: Umm, Indian classical music is what I learned. Indian classical music is widely perceived of as two divergent music streams called conutic (SP?) music of south India and _____ music of north India. So, umm, being from south India I had access to, uh, uh, a teaching tradition in conutic music and that’s what I learned as a child. So, this, this includes the compositions of, uh, some distinguished and revered composers from the 18th century which is part of the conutic music repertoire, so I got an opportunity to learn a number of compositions of a composer by the name of Mutazumi _____ who lived in the 1800’s.

Q: Can you define those two music traditions briefly?

KANNIKS: Conutic (SP?) music geographically the difference between the two is that conutic music is more prevalent in south India where as Hindu style music as it is know is prevalent to the rest of India. In conutic music there’s a tradition of honoring composers in the repertoire that you listen on a concert platform is pretty much, uh, centered on compositions written by, uh, a number of composers who lived in the 1800’s pretty much. Umm, so great emphasis is placed on learning compositions. There is emphasis, a lot of emphasis on improvisation as well, umm; both the streams of music pretty much stress the idea of individual self expression through improvisation. The stress in improvisation is much more in the ______ music than it is in conutic music.

Q: Tell us about Indian _____ music and how it relates to Indian tradition.

KANNIKS: Indian music, umm, is pretty much about individual self expression. So, you have a soloist improvising on what is called a Raga. Raga is a melodic concept which deals with the relationship between the various pitches and of the atonic note. Umm, the tonic note is what anchors a concept. So, when you typically listen to an Indian music constitute listen to what sounds like a drum. That plays a central role in Indian, uh, traditional Indian music. There is no concept of range music in India at all because everything is about your expression, how you interpret a composition and express it. There is no concept of polyphony at all. So, there’s no concept of traditional Indian choral music. Choral music entered India only probably in the last a little over a hundred years. Umm, or maybe.... Uh, uh, it was inspired by the church composition... church music that was heard during the time of the British in India. Umm, in the 60’s and the 70’s you had choirs in cities like Calcutta and Madres, umm, which, uh, which, uh, used to have a lot of television, radio performances... performances of choral music but these were all centered around a lot of it was centered around folk tunes and patriotic themes. Umm, so there’s no formal history of choral music just like you have in the west. In the west you have a tradition that goes back several, several centuries. You have pieces written by leading composers or choirs like, even symphony’s use choral sections. Umm, there’s no room for choirs in traditional Indian choir music... sorry, in traditional Indian classical music.

Q: Can you summarize that real quickly in terms of Indian traditional music is based on...

KANNIKS: Indian traditional music is all about individual self expression, it’s not about different parts playing together to create a whole, to create a whole. There’s no concept of polyphony in Indian traditional music at all. Where as in choir music you do have many parts singing together at the same time coming up with a collective sound. Such a concept does not exist in Indian traditional music.

Q: Let’s talk about Indian choir music. What sets it apart from other choral traditions?

KANNIKS: See first of all, there’s no established traditional guidelines on how you warm up, umm, in India choral music. There’s the concept itself, it’s, uh, uh, it’s, it’s pretty new. There’s established guidelines for, well, there’s a teaching tradition in Indian classical music, umm, but, uh, Indian choral music is not as prevalent as it is in the west so you don’t have a well defined, uh, uh, methodology of... you don’t have anything that you can compare to the west so to say and the singing techniques are also different. Umm, so the collective sound that is produced in an Indian choir is going to be different from what you hear in a western choir. The warm up techniques that have developed over time, umm, involve, uh, people listening to the drum and getting a sense of pitch awareness and meditating and becoming one with the sound of the _____ and then reproducing... reproducing the same pitch into the fifth and the various notes in the scale and then, uh, having different parts synch together and so on and so forth. So in that sense, it’s very different from the warm up techniques of the inter nation, uh, techniques that are used to the west. Uh, so these are things that have developed over a period of... over a period of time and, uh, I was working with these a long with a couple of, uh, mentors during the world choir games and they held... they looked at what we were doing and they were all praised for what, uh, we were doing.

Q:

KANNIKS: Off the record.... There’s no thing, I mean, there’s no formal tradition, there’s no well established methodology for Indian choral music. So, if you talk to people in India when you talk about choir music, they would say...

RESTATE:

There’s no, there’s no formal choral music in Indian... in the Indian classical tradition. There is congregational singing where people sing together, there’s no different parts because there’s no concept of polyphony in Indian music at all, umm, so there’s no, umm, meaningful comparison between Indian choral music and western choral music.

Q: So, an India choir is sort of counter intuitive to the Indian traditions?

KANNIKS: If you asked somebody, uh, as to what they knew of choral music, they would immediately picture a church and an organ. Umm, they would not think of a choir singing classical compositions or anything like that, although in recent years, umm, there’s been... more awareness is being created thanks to the internet and You Tube.

Q: How and when did the choir form?

KANNIKS: See back in the early 90’s I was creating music inspired both by the magic of the Raga system of India and also by the discipline of the arranged... concept of arrangements in western music where a number of things could come together to create a collective whole and the number of things that were coming together were not necessarily the same. So, when I was working on orchestrated piece primarily for studio recordings and all that, one of my friends said, hey, Kanniks, why don’t you form a choir? So, I invited a few of my friends who could sing and then we started singing in choir. Then, there was no formal repertoire available so I started writing my own music, just continuing what I was doing, uh, in the world of... uh, what I was doing in the world of studio music was creating pieces based on Raga with polyphony and I extended the same technique to choral music with different vocal parts and the magic of singing together itself was quite an experience back in 1992. And, we went on to give a first performance back in 1994, uh, the day is still clear in my mind; it was April 8, 1994. It was a choir of about 20, 21 singers, uh, we had regular practice for about 4 months and, uh, the result was, I mean, uh, it was a moving experience, uh, 20 people singing, choreographed to dances and, uh, uh,...

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