Peerless voice that carries into eternity

By Ranga CHANDRARATHNE

The singer has everything within him. The notes come out from his very life. They are not materials gathered from outside -Rabindranath Tagore

Sujatha Attanayake is the unique music personality that Sri Lanka has ever produced. She is a music personality at the highest level among the Sri Lankan music personalities. Her multifaceted and trailblazing career spanned over decades in diverse areas in the field of music.

Her signature in diverse arenas

Sujatha excelled in diverse areas in music she ventured into, in general and stands out as a singer in particular. Compared with versatile Indian classical singers in North Indian and South Indian Carnatic traditions, Sujatha is the only Sri Lankan singer with a tonal range of voice as wide as those of Indian classical singers’. She has the best tutored voice among the Sri Lankan singers. For instance, Sujatha Attanayake can sing diverse notes on the three octaves beginning on Concert C. (Lower Octave, Middle Octave and Higher Octave). She could sing up to eight notes on the Higher Octave on the Concert C. In the same manner, she could sing up to 5-6 notes on the Lower Octave on Concert C. This is a unique factor in her voice. What is important is that she can produce notes effortlessly without using the head voice or falsetto unlike other singers except Neela Wickramasinghe and Rashmi Sangeetha.

Unique properties of her voice

A unique feature of her voice is its flexibility and the widest tonal range. Up to now, she is the only Sri Lankan singer with the widest tonal range of voice which spread over the entire scale of music.

Unlike in Western music, in North Indian classical music and Carnatic music traditions offer greater freedom for the performer and the singer. This freedom in performance is particularly manifested in North Indian Classical music techniques like Gamak, Than, Meend, and singing styles such as Khayal, Dhrupad, Tharana and Dhamar.

A distinctive feature of her vocal codes is that she is able to produce intricate microtonal intervals effortlessly.

In addition to her innate ability in her vocal codes, she has gained classical training to produce such complex and subtle microtonal intervals which is described in North Indian classical music as Sadhana (Mental and physical training to produce such intricate notes).

Given the sheer complexities in those diverse styles of singing, a singer, who could master all of these styles, should posses an extremely flexible voice in a wide tonal range of the music scale. Sujatha Attanayake is at home with the diverse styles of singing in North Indian Classical and Carnatic and Western music traditions because of her voice’s flexibility and widest tonal range.

Besides her inherent voice, she is also well versed in those music traditions. For instance, she has rendered her voice to a large number of classical and semi-classical performances.

The Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation has a collection of her songs, classical and semi-classical performances. There are Sinhalese, Hindi and Tamil songs in her collection of songs. She has performed as a super grade singer at the SLBC due to her unique abilities and talents.

A significant feature of her singing is that she sang not only melodiously but also retaining the classical traits of the songs. Her performance is often beautified by her ability to generate high-energy emotions by touching on diverse colours and tones of the notes and chords. This ability differs from one singer to another in Hindustani tradition depending on performer’s knowledge, practice and the properties of voice such as flexibility and tonal range. Ability to be at home with diverse traditions of music is a unique position in Sadhana.

Criteria

The criteria in evaluating the ability of a singer should be the tonal range and ability on the part of a singer to sing songs belonging to diverse traditions of music and in different languages.

How and in which way the songs contribute to the social progress, popularity of a singer and number of songs that a singer sang, are secondary considerations.

It is Sujatha Attanayake who is the most talented singer in Sri Lanka in terms of her ability and tonal range. Before Sujatha, Rukmani Devi had some of these unique attributes.

Preserving the intrinsic qualities of the language is another feature of her singing. Each language has its own unique sound patterns which defines one language from another. She can sing in different languages without mixing the sound patterns and tonal quality of one language with another in general and in Sinhalese, Hindi and Tamil in particular.

She is so talented that she can represent Sri Lanka at any international forum. I could still recall how the highly educated Indian audience appreciated her songs when they were played at the Benares Hindu University in India.

Sujatha Attanayake is so well versed in the tradition so much that if unannounced, one could easily mistake her songs for those sung by Indian classical singers.

In terms of flexibility, Sujatha Attanayake exploits not only the melody power but also the technicalities and other embellishments of the song. In essence, her range of voice and flexibility is equal to the tonal ranges of voices of Indian singers like Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, Anuradha Powdhval, Prabha Athre, Reeta Ganguly and Kavita Krishnamurthy who mastered Indian classical music and its applications.

Mastery in North Indian and Carnatic music traditions

One of her unique attributes is her ability to sing songs in Carnatic tradition of music. For instance, the song Chanchala Nupura kinkini jaale in the film Hithaka pipunu mal (she sang the same song in Tamil, Vennil olikkum Iyarkain Naadam, in the same movie), songs in the Indian movie Wasawadatta which is dubbed in Sinhala, and in her duet ‘Kottakelige Thambala Kannata Dunna’ which she sang with Victor Ratnayake, she mimics the voice motifs of a Tamil girl singing the song in Carnatic tradition. significantly, the Carnatic tradition of music is entirely different to Hindustani tradition and in fact, there are few singers who had mastered both traditions.

What is noteworthy here is that the Tamil-texture of the voice is not generated through the mispronunciation of Sinhalese wods but through finer features of Carnatic music. She pronounced Sinhalese words perfectly yet with a Tamil texture generated by the Carnatic music motifs. Another fact which facilitates her singing in Carnatic tradition is her mastery of several languages such as Hindi, Tamil, Nepali, Marati, Urdu and Bengali.

Playback singer

Sujatha Attanayake is an outstanding playback singer. Her songs had emortalised the films, capturing the imagination of the viewers. For instance, the theme song of the film Parasatumal, Paraunua malwala suwanda Atheethe has not only became an all time hit but also became a part of music legacy of the nation.

Beginning with her first ever playback song which she sang for S.M Nayagam’s film Sohoyuro in 1956, she rendered her voice to over 350 playback songs. She became the first Sri Lankan woman director of music when she directed music for the film Hariyata Hari.

Ability to sing in different languages

Sujatha Attanayake is also unique in her ability to sing in different languages besides in Sinhala. She rendered her voice to 19 Tamil films in addition to singing in languages such as Hindi, Nepali, and Islamic songs.

Sujatha who rendered her harmonious voice to over 352 Sinhala films and 19 Tamil movies is a jewel among songstresses who can sing in eight languages including Hindi, Tamil, Nepali and Islamic songs (songs with Arabic words). She is also a tragic victim of dirty gangsterism in the field of art which dominated the award committees and prevented her from claiming many an award that were rightfully hers.

Looking at Sri Lankan films, no actor has been able to depict the gamut of feelings, emotions and zest generated by Sujatha Attanayake in playback singing.

If Dr.Lester James Peries or Sumithra Peries would have used her learned and cultured voice for their films, they (films) would give the audience much more aesthetically satisfying cinematic experience though they have a rich cinematic language. Though the ordinary audience may respond to songs in the speaking range, they (songs) will subject to objective analysis beyond our shores.

In the long run, films will be appreciated not only for their rich cinematic language but also for their music of everlasting value. It seems that some music directors have not exercised their discretion objectively in selecting playback singers for their films. If they (music directors) had, it would have been Sujatha Attanayake who could be the first choice in terms of her tonal range and on account of her mastery in theory and practice in the craft.

Unsung artiste in music

Although endowed with unique abilities and voice, Sujatha Attanayake remains as an unsung artist in music. In other words, she has not been duly recognised for her talents. Her due place in the arena of music in Sri Lanka was denied by an organised manner. Certain section of the media propped up images of singers with much lesser tonal range, abilities and talents. She is the victim of gangsterism in music.

Sujatha Attanayake’s exceptional talents were manifested at the audition conducted by Prof.Mrs. Deepali Nagh. She was the only Sri Lankan singer who scored 95 marks at the audition which is the highest marks among Sri Lankan singers participated in the audition.

Considering her achievements and international accolades, Sujatha has surpassed the honours bestowed upon by numerous awards. They (such honours) are for those who seek them to glorify them. Given the fact that Sri Lankan award culture is infested with gangsterism and cronyism, the Sri Lankan awards have mock awards.

It is a fact that most of the singers who secured awards at diverse awards festivals have much lower tonal range and abilities than Sujatha Attanayake. Ultimately, what matters is the excellence in creations and the outstanding ability on the part of a singer and not the awards to prop up one’s ego.

It seems that the sole and exclusive criteria of evaluating singer’s ability on the literary richness of the lyric and those who are in the award committees, are apparently ignorant of the fact that the singer’s talents should be evaluated on the basis of tonal range and the application of diverse techniques in music.