{"id":9868,"date":"2011-09-05T13:07:11","date_gmt":"2011-09-05T12:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=9868"},"modified":"2011-09-05T14:03:08","modified_gmt":"2011-09-05T13:03:08","slug":"pdv1-a-masterpiece","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=9868","title":{"rendered":"PDV1: A masterpiece"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Nimai Hawkins<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was in a moment of deep concentration on the Holy Name that I had an epiphany of HG Aindra Prabhu’s legacy. I had heard all the Vrindavan Mellows CDs many times, some of the other random live kirtans as well as bits and pieces from other albums such as Cintamini Nam, but in one stunning realization I felt the impact of his kirtan as powerfully as any poem I’d ever read, any line from Shakespeare, any literary endeavor to describe a feeling or emotion ever undertaken. And probably the most amazing thing about this was that it was not so much my realization about the potency of the Holy Name, but rather Aindra Prabhu’s and he’d managed to ingeniously express it without the use of the English language, only the 16 words of the Maha Mantra. Now as an amateur music critic, i like to pinpoint moments in songs or pieces of music that really represent, from a musical perspective, the perfection of what an artist is trying to achieve. I look for the deepest, most profound moments of groove or rhythm, the most expressive part of a solo etc and then i’ll single that perfection down to a moment in the piece like 2:14 which is a way of breaking down and analyzing something great. Obviously this is a little mundane and definitely not something you would want to apply to kirtan as kirtan is about congregationally chanting and associating with the Lord through his transcendental Names, not breaking down mrdanga fills and chorus intensity. Having said that, the realization that came to me occurred at a specific moment in the track, I was not being falsely emphatic.<\/p>\n

That moment was 0:15 of the very first track from Aindra Prabhu’s ‘Prayers to the Dust of Vraja’ album. I would like to analyze this moment in time not from a musical perspective but from the angle of my realization. Firstly, it is very easy to overlook the 12 second introduction of young kids chanting in the temple as just another “ambient vrindavan sounds” intro that feature so prominently on Aindra albums. His first order of business is always setting about establishing a vrindavan mood, whether it be rickshaw wallas calling out, cows mooing, bird calls, streams… you name it. I took this to be the case with the opening moments of this album too, as I’m sure most people would. I believe this to be only half of the picture now, the other half is in where my realization originated. You’ll need to actually listen to this track (again) to know what I’m talking about, there are kids beating mrdangas (a little out of time) and singing a fairly familiar melody. Its not random. The melody is like a nursery rhyme, a limerick… almost simpler than the “Prabhupada tune” that became the pre-nineties Hare Krishna anthem (and still today even), of which nothing could be conceivably simpler. And yet the kids, who from the sound of their voices appear to be only about 6 or 7, manage to make it even simpler… a little chaotic, out of time and absolutely carefree. Natural – from the hearts of innocent children.<\/p>\n

This is part 1 of the realization: the Maha Mantra can be chanted as a nursery rhyme by a 6 year old gurukula boy and there is almost nothing that we could conceive of that would BE, musically, any more basic. Part 2 starts at 0:15, and that realization is one that Aindra lived by and embodied – advancement, being elite. I do not know if he made this tune up or not (I suspect he did) but not only is the tune itself a masterpiece in every sense of the word, but Aindra Prabhu’s execution of it and musical accompaniment, to me, echo the hair raising appreciation of such composer’s as Bach and his world renowned Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. It’s that good. Almost every semblance of normality and familiarity that decades of ISKCON kirtan have had are here broken down. The call and response is explored, Aindra follows his own call on an overlay track only a second or two after he sings the first while the response from devotees is still there, the tempo starts off extremely slow and more than doubles in the first 40 seconds! (I’ve NEVER heard this done in kirtan, period) and yet the rhythm continues to improve and experience bridges and breakdowns without getting too fast while Aindra’s melody is clearly different from what his soaring, octave exploring harmonium is playing. On top of this there is an ambient layer of peacock calls, ethereal chimes and the melody evolves and changes each time it is sung such that it is never sung the same twice and yet the melody is still the same melody. In my experience there has never been a greater recorded kirtan masterpiece that I have ever heard. It is quite simply amazing, I have listened to the track well over 200 times and each time there is a new layer, a new emotion, a new experience.<\/p>\n

Aindra taught us through his example that its not sufficient to sing for half an hour at Guru Puja and Gaura Arati and then go on with life. In an emotionally charged, choked up voice he implores devotees in his Srila Prabhupada disappearance day speech to give up being a Hare Krishna clone, to endeavor with great determination to get off the neophyte level of devotional service and delve deep into the spontaneous, unlimitedly variegated rasas that exist in devotional service. He displayed these moods in his kirtan – burning anguish, jubilant joy, grave sobriety, childish innocence. Kirtan can never be limited.<\/p>\n

The Maha Mantra, like Krishna himself (or rather just, KRISHNA HIMSELF!) can be the most simple and the greatest conceivable thing all at the same time. This is demonstrated in the Bhagavad Gita – Krishna says offer me a leaf, flower, fruit or water and then displays to Arjuna His inconceivable Universal Form. I believe this first track from Prayers to the Dust of Vraja in the first half minute similarly displays the gamut of possible ways in which everyone in this material world, from every walk of life, can experience the Holy Name, be it a kid chanting a nursery rhyme version of the Mantra, or the greatest Kirtaniya of our time at the height of his powers demonstrating incredible dexterity and complexity in crafting a masterpiece Hare Krishna melody. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Nimai Hawkins<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was in a moment of deep concentration on the Holy Name that I had an epiphany of HG Aindra Prabhu’s legacy. I had heard all the Vrindavan Mellows CDs many times, some of the other random live kirtans as well as bits and pieces from other albums such as Cintamini Nam, but in one stunning realization I felt the impact of his kirtan as powerfully as any poem I’d ever read<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9868\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}