Music and Musical Instruments

Dr. Gift Siromoney's work in music is almost as varied as all his other interests and work in different fields. He possibly has not analysed the music generated by migrating butterflies, if such music does exist, but has succeeded in intersecting his interest in music with a large number of his other areas of interest. His music has a deep grounding and root in his faith. He participated in the choir at the worship services in the Bishop Heber Chapel and in the Anderson Hall. He learnt to play the mridangam, and also encouraged his colleagues and others to learn. He learnt enough to accompany the Tamil carols sung at the Bishop Heber carol service. One of the motivations for his learning to play the mridangam was his view that a musician should be able to play different types of musical instruments (string, wind, percussion), and different music styles (Western, Carnatic)]. He helped bring out music books - the second edition of the Nativity of Christ and the second volume of the book of Christian lyrics by A. Charles. His work in information theory and computers intersected with his interest in music. This included his work on style as information in Karnatic music; computer recognition and transliteration of mridangam mnemonics; computer recognition of hand-printed Tamil musical notation; and computer translation of South Indian music into staff notation. Research in music and archaeology resulted in work on stringed instruments of the ancient Tamil Country; and musical instruments from Pallava sculptures. He put some of the Narikorava chants into staff notation. Some of his creative thoughts and work in music that may not have been published include the following. There are some compositions that may be regarded as variations on the theme "BACH". In one classical style of music notation, the letter name "B" stood for what we now call "B flat", and "H" stood for what we now call "B". So the theme is on the sequence of notes "B flat", "A", "C" and "B". One of the Narikorava chants descends a semitone at a time, down three semitones ("C B Bflat A"). He commented on this being another variation on "BACH". One season of his life was spent in trying to record the songs of the magpie robin. He picked up a directional microphone (an ordinary microphone at the focal point of a dish-antenna-like dish) for this purpose. He speculated on the uniqueness of each bird's song, on variations in the songs during different seasons of the year, and on use of the song to mark territory. In addition, he felt these recordings would be useful to generate themes for musical compositions of the future.

- Arul Siromoney(1 2 3)

TAMIL CHRISTIAN LYRICS - 20
SET TO CARNATIC RAGAS A&M
FOR USE IN CHURCH WORSHIP HARMONIZED BY A.CHARLES, TANJAVUR, 1963.

Mr. A. Charles is well-known in the music-circles of Tanjore and Trichy - in Tanjore as a popular music master and a former organist of St.Peter's Church and at Trichy as one of the judges at the music competitions held under the auspices of the Christian Endeavor Society. He is well versed both in the Western and Karnatic Schools of Music.

During the past two decades he has been successfully training students in piano and violin for the examinations conducted by the Trinity College of Music, London. His pupils are found all over the State and some of them are organists in their Churches. He was a member of the St. Peter's Musical Association, Tanjore and can teach and play several standard instruments.

He has devoted his whole life to music at all levels - from mending musical instruments to composing original pieces in Karnatic Music, He has a great concern for purifying the Indian melodies used in our worship and so he studied Karnatic Music under late Sri T.S. Venkatachalam Pillai, A.I.R. Artiste, Trichy, for the three years. Some of his works have been successfully rendered in Churches and on concert platforms with orchestral accompaniment.

I heartily welcome his venture in bringing out his first 20 lyrics, in the tradition of late Dr.A.J. Pandian who pioneered the idea of harmonizing pure Karnatic melodies. We hope that Mr. A Charles will bring out many more volumes of the type and that at a future date, the Church of South India may edit a lyric music book, with each lyric having several alternative tunes contributed by different composers.

Tambaram,
24-5-1963.

(Sd.) Gift Siromoney M. A.,
Lecturer in Mathematics,
Madras Christian College.

Foreword from the book
BOOK - II CARNATIC & TRADITIONAL SCARED MUSIC
TWENTY-FIVE TAMIL CHRISTIAN LYRICS A&M
HARMONIZED BY A.CHARLES, TANJAVUR, 1968.

I desire to pay my tribute to Dr. Gift Siromoney (grandson of the Late Mr. A.G. Pitchaimuthu, B.A.,L.T., Thanjavur, to whose memory this book is dedicated) and to Mr. Ian Manning both of the Madras Christian College, Tambaram, for their praiseworthy interest in Carnatic music, in general, and in my labors for the cause of Tamil Church music in particular and without whose encouragement and sympathy I could not have found the wherewithal of bringing out this book.

THE NATIVITY OF CHRIST,CHRISTMAS CAROLS (A Sacred Cantata)
Collected Transcribed and Edited By Late Dr A.J. PANDIAN

and Harmonized by G. DHANA RAJ,

The Christian Literature Society,1969.

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION

We are happy that the Christian Literature Society, Madras is bringing out a second edition of this book which has been long out of print. Dr A. J. Pandian was a pioneer in introducing into church music, pure Indian melodies set to simple harmony and in using both Indian and Western musical instruments in his orchestra. He worked with a dedicated group of able musicians and from this group emerged men like Captain D. Gnanavolivu, Dr A.S. Thava Pandian and Messrs. George Harris, C. D. Israel and A. Charles who have made distinctive contributions to church music. In addition to his musical abilities, Dr Pandian was a keen agriculturist who won prizes for producing high yielding paddy, an Associate of the Royal Photographic Society and a manufacturer of Pandither's siddha medicines. Mr G. Dhana Raj, a talented musician who received his training in orchestration from Otto Smith of Mysore Palace, has been teaching music in Madras and writing popular music.

The song of prayer invoking the blessings of God on Their Imperial Majesties King George V and Queen Mary contained in the first edition has been replaced by another version often used at weddings at Tanjore. In this edition, full texts of the last few songs are printed at the end of the book. Apart from a few minor corrections in text and music, the format of the first edition has been retained.

The proposal made at the time of the first publication to bring out collections of wedding songs, Easter songs and Tamil anthems could not be carried out during Dr Pandian's life time. A number of fine gramaphone records brought out by him are no longer available. One hopes that it will be possible to bring out at least a small collection of Dr Pandian's songs from his note books left behind, and to translate some of his songs into other South Indian Languages.

This second edition is made possible by a loan from Mrs Jothi Pandian who has shown a keen interest in the project.

- GIFT SIROMONEY, MADRAS CHRISTIAN COLLEGE,1969.

Publications on Music and Musical Instruments

Style as information in Karnatic music
Journal of Music Theory (Yale School of Music) viii, pp 69-74, 1964. READ
Some new light on stringed instruments of the ancient Tamil Country
MCC Mag, Vol.XXXIV, No.2, March 1965. READ
Computer recognition and transliteration of mridangam mnemonics
Quarterly Journal of the National Centre for the Performing Arts, vii, pp11-17, 1978 (with Chandarasekaran, M and Chandrasekaran, R) READ
A Pallava musical instrument
The Sunday Standard, January 28, 1979. READ
Musical instruments from Pallava sculptures
Kalakshetra Quarterly, vol.2, No.4, pp 11-20, 1979. READ
Computer recognition of South Indian musical scores
MCC Mag,. Vol xl ix, 1980(with Chandarasekaran, S and Chandrasekaran, M) READ
Machine recognition of hand printed Tamil musical notation
STAT - 41/80
also paper presented at the Annul Conference of the Computer Society of India. February 1980, Bombay (with Chandarasekaran, M and Chandrasekaran, R) READ
Music of the Narikorava people.
Studies in Vagrivala, A collection of papers on the Narikorava people of the Tamil Nadu, Edited and Compiled by J.P. Vijaya Thilakan, STAT 27/77 February 1977. READ
Computer translation of South Indian music into staff notation
Proceedings of the International Symposium on Microwaves and Communication, IIT Kharagpur, pp 170-173, 1981(with Chandarasekaran, M and Chandrasekaran, R) READ