Talk:Ram Narayan

Comment by Blanchardb

I inserted the hangon on behalf of the creator, even though I listed this article myself. See Talk:Surjeet Singh Sarangi --Blanchardb-^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}-timed 16:44, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Style and family info

This edit contains potentially useful information on Narayan's style. I added some sourced info on tans I wanted to round out the style section with anyway, but the added content is unsourced/unverified, so I removed it. A reliable source that verifies the content is welcome. The content on his family is not sourced by the given citations. Hekerui (talk) 20:46, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Style and family info sources

The information from the edit was obtained from two locations: The analysis of style is verifiable through several online video sources. This video can verify the remarks on style and be used as a video citation: Raag Barwa, particularly onwards from the 9min 15sec mark to the end of the video. More such videos samples of Narayan's technique are available. I would take note of the end of the gat, which is where the scale run is typically performed. The biographical information on Aruna Narayan is from Aruna Narayan's website. Narayan actually has two daughters, not one, although a "reliable" and "published" source confirming this claim is not easily available. The information on style and on Aruna Narayan should be added back in with the above two sources as citations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.237.208.85 (talk) 05:27, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Qureshi starts her chapter on Aruna Narayan Kalle with "Aruna Narayan Kalle is the only daughter ...", which conflicts with the claim to several daughters - Qureshi's book was published in 2007, so the book is pretty new and it's straightforward. If there was a reliable source to the contrary then that would be a different matter (the pdf doesn't contain the info). If the analysis of the video is done by a user and not included in a reliable source then it's original research, even if it's well-written and correct. On Kalle's playing style, the comparison in the pdf is not the same one as the one included in the edit, and the policy states: "without a secondary source, a primary source may be used only to make descriptive claims". Hekerui (talk) 08:13, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

A more authoritative source for detailed data on Narayan's family is required. I've added in the missing sources from (Sorrell 1980) to support the anonymous contributor's recent additions on style. More details on biography and style and influences will follow in the coming weeks, transcribed from interviews with Ram Narayan as well as Aruna Narayan Kalle (these will be included as media citations) -- the interview media is currently under production.Kharaj21 (talk) 00:06, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Paltas

I modified the changes from this edit, because:

• equating rudiments with paltas is not in the source
• "deep and correct technical development of the rendition of a raaga" is not in the source
• paltas are not scale runs but limited according to the source
• that paltas are time consuming and how they are incorporated into a teaching process is not the source

From Sorrell, p.70, from the first paragraph "Constant variation and extension of what may seem to be relatively little material is the essence of Indian performance, and it applies equally to practice. Without it stagnation occurs, and, in Ram Narayan's words, 'the practice does not mean anything'." "This is why the teacher will often give the student a small number of simple exercises with instructions to practise them daily for a year or more. These little exercises, sometimes remarkably similar to their Western counterparts, are known in Hindi as paltas...". It goes onto describe how Ram Narayan tends to practice on relatively few paltas. Kharaj21 (talk) 17:31, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

The cited page doesn't address much of the process of teaching, mentioning that he has students practice on paltas, but no mention about "progressing to variations or increasing speed". The fact that he gives exercises doesn't belong into the style section imo Also, that people do practices daily for a year doesn't mean the practices are time consuming, it's not stated how long the practice is every day - "little exercises" suggests it's not that much. Sorry for being nitpicky, but I think it's best to stick to the source. Hekerui (talk) 18:11, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

In this case, there should a separate section on teaching and practice, as it provides insight into the artist's views and methods. The quotations directly from Sorrell should be included without being paraphrased, interpreted or abbreviated, but this can only be done to a certain extent without reproducing the entire text, so there should be a reasonable compromise. The issues relating to the inclusion (ie. images) of the palta charts from Sorrell should be considered. Agreed on practice sessions themselves not being time consuming. It's best to quote the source directly/verbatim inline in this case, again in a separate section.Kharaj21 (talk) 04:35, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

• pointing to a usage in a specific YouTube Barwa performance to demonstrate something is problematic - the guideline of original research states: "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. Without a secondary source, a primary source may be used only to make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is verifiable by a reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge." which was by no means guaranteed, especially since the description of paltas conflicts with the one in the source, and it is difficult since the copyright status of the Barwa video is unclear and it could be removed, leaving the reader with no way to find it out as there's no source/location/date
• Aruna Narayan is linked only with part of her name and only in her second occurence and she does not fulfill WP:MUSICBIO from what I read in Qureshi

Hekerui (talk) 09:22, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Qureshi is only a single source, not solely or expressly disqualifying the inclusion or creation of an article on Aruna Narayan. In fact, there are readily available and reputable press releases and reviews of concerts by Aruna Narayan (some of which are quoted on the artist's website in a basic PDF page). The artist has also released a CD circa 1995 through Nimbus records (which has released recordings of many major artists, including Indian classical performers such as Ram Narayan), as well as on ZigZag (verifiable through their online catalogues or via a search on Amazon). There are also contributions to a few film soundtracks (Monsoon Wedding, Exotica). The Nimbus record was released under the name "Aruna Narayan", without the surname "Kalle". There is also a preview on CBC's Metro Morning column, participation on a CBC panel discussion, and a television special on a collaborative effort on Vivaldi's Four Seasons with the Tafelmusik baroque orchestra. Various news releases (although not reviews) show this collaboration was performed in at least China and Canada (the geo.international.ca news pages were the sources). The book "World Music: Latin and North America, Caribbean, India, Asia and Pacific" by Broughton, Ellingham, and Trillo mentions Aruna Narayan as a female exponent of the instrument (p. 78 of that book). The spirit of this effort is still inclusivity and information sharing, citing qualified sources. I believe the creation of a separate article on Aruna Narayan is justified. I have a list of the above mentioned sources with me.Kharaj21 (talk) 17:31, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

It's just my opinion and I could well be wrong on this. Her notability is more difficult to establish, because the usual metrics of music notability (charts, prizes, tours, radio play, competitions, tv coverage etc.) are not that clearly there. I have read much of the internet content mentioned, and she could well be notable as the "subject of multiple non-trivial published works", but such evaluations are more easily made looking at an article. The problem I had was more about how the redlink was on the second mention of her name and not her name as mentioned in the accompanying source, which could be confusing. Hekerui (talk) 18:25, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia's guidelines are exactly those: guidelines. Notability for artists in these fields is indeed more difficult to establish due to lack of popular Western media coverage. Many important European world music concert reviews are not given much credit in general in North American media; credibility of reviewers is a matter of opinion (the same applies to awards, tours, competitions, interviews and technical write-ups, and even TV coverage on channels such as the CBC). However, this is a very big discussion. The existence and careers of Ram Narayan's immediate and most successful students should certainly be considered for investigation. Information on reviews and other technical data on their work playing classical Indian music to a more global audience -- including collaborations -- over time, is valuable (consider for example, Zakir Hussein's work with Shakti). To summarize, my opinion is to include more information in general, both in depth and breadth of the network of Indian classical musicians.Kharaj21 (talk) 04:35, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

August 2010

I modified text inserted on 8 August 2010, because it is not found in that way in the reliable source cited at the end of the paragraph; the last sentence was redundant to a descripion found in an earlier section of the article. The Sorrel source p. 63 shows a more complicated diagram that can't be reproduced here for copyright reasons, and the description added to the article didn't explain the abbreviations. I added a general point from the source on the fingering technique instead. Hekerui (talk) 10:25, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Wesleyan faculty

I removed the category because it's not clear that Narayan was a member of the faculty. Hekerui (talk) 22:15, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

I removed the Massey source for that teaching altogether. It's only used once but gets his early life wrong (explicitly stated as such in other sources) and reading through it, it's not that well put together. Hekerui (talk) 14:26, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Some comments

Thank you for writing this wonderful article, Hekerui. This is with regard to a few changes made to this page in the last hour or two. I see those changes were reverted, so I would like to substantiate the rationale beyond the edit summaries.

• I changed the title from Ram Narayan to Pandit Ram Narayan : the main reason is that the subject of the article is often referred to as "Pandit Ram Narayan" where 'Pandit' is an Indian honorific. Hence, this should be included in the lead section and the use is optional after that.
• I added "former" before "Indian President A P J Abdul Kalam" since Kalam is no longer the President of the Indian Republic. This change was reverted and now the article reads as if Kalam is still the President. Perhaps "the then Indian President A P J Abdul Kalam" would be more appropriate?
• The section on "Discography" contains only a link to Ram Narayan discography. This is not suitable for a featured article. Either the section should be briefly expanded to include his more prominent works, or the section should be removed in totality and a link included somewhere in the prose.

— Nearly Headless Nick {c} 23:19, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind words. Some thoughts: "Pandit" is not his name, it's not anything official at all, so it should not be bolded or otherwise added to his name; Kalam was president at the time so the wording is fine, the wording with the "former" would suggest that Kalam gave the medal while out of office; and the discography section only contains the link because selecting the "more prominent" works would be personal bias unless you can come up with a useful criterion for "prominence" I hadn't.

Also, you changed "Indian Empire" to "British India" - I don't consider this an improvement, as the Wiki article linked states, "after 1876, the resulting political union was officially called the Indian Empire". The country of birth was named "Indian Empire" in 1927, not "British India". Hekerui (talk) 23:42, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the response, Hekerui. (i) I agree with your analysis with regard to inclusion of "Pandit" before his name since that is not an officially accorded title; (ii) Would you consider "the then Indian President A P J Abdul Kalam" more appropriate? (iii) Since we do not have any objective criteria to identify his "more prominent works" we could either attempt to build consensus around his works which received more acclaim among reliable sources or we could include the entire discography (would perhaps make the article lengthier than needed) or exclude all of it. Either way, I think we are in a bit of a dilemma here, keeping an entire section devoid of content with the exception of a link to a list is not appropriate for a featured article. Do you think we could rather include a link to the discography in the prose instead of having an entire empty section devoted to it? (iv) With respect to the use of "British India", that appears to be the common and generally accepted practice among biography articles on subjects born in the subcontinent during the British Raj. IMO, the use of the contemporaneous and more commonly used term is more appropriate. — Nearly Headless Nick {c} 00:03, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

(ii) "then-President" is not a good style, we give dates and that eliminates the need for vague/colloquial words like that, the sentence before states that this was in 2005, so readers understand

(iii) I could write a sentence in the section, using the sentence in the discography article as a template, or one could combine the discography and writing sections Hekerui (talk) 14:54, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Edits November 2015

I shortened the lead back by only mentioning the Padma Vibhushan. It the highest in the series of Indian civilian awards he received, the lesser ones are simply less exclusive and detailed in the article body. I also removed the Padma Bushan template, as it does not include a link to this article or any others, merely to lists of recipients, and that is sufficiently addressed with a link, which exists in the recognition section. I replaced the video link with one to a recent upload by the label, which separates the songs. Hekerui (talk) 09:05, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Edits October 2017

I added information from a source, restored the style adapted from the sources and the sorting of categories. Hekerui (talk) 13:05, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Fingering technique needs more explanation

Narayan's fingering technique requires more explanation. How exactly is it simplified from the older/more traditional way of playing? 98.123.38.211 (talk) 04:03, 28 December 2023 (UTC)