Anyways, let's get down to business. I made this mostly to keep track of what I do in school, all of the crazy stuff I come across, or things that I don't write down that I would otherwise forget about. But I figured it would be a cool way to see what being a UNT music student is like, and it's almost like getting a free music class, except I'm not getting paid, so it's not really a class.
I'm certainly not against getting paid though...
Today is Wednesday, and in my life, Wednesdays mean the second day of tango class and South Indian Ensemble. South Indian Ensemble is the cooler than the other side of the pillow. My teacher, Sriji, has this awesome Indian accent and is just a badass in general, complete with iTabla and iTandura iPhone apps. We all sit and a circle and speak nonsense and clap and it's a fun time for everyone!
The Basics of South Indian Music:
- All rhythms can be subdivided in to 1, 2, or 3 notes, but for convenience's sake, we sometimes subdivide four. Subdivisions are "ta", "ta ka", "ta ki ta", and "ta ka di mi", respectively.
- Time signature is called "tala". It works basically the same way any other time signature does but some beats are stressed and others are not, depending on which time signature you're in. Stressed and unstressed-ness just depends on what hundreds of years of tradition say to do.
- Just like western solfege, S. Indian solfege has eight notes; they are Sa, Ri, Ga, Ma, Pa, Da, Ni, and Sa (again). Unlike western solfege, whenever you flat or sharp a note, the word stays the same - no mi/me, la/le business.
- A raga is a melody, in the simplest of terms. They are all based upon the 72 "melakartha", which are every possible combination of notes from Sa to Sa without skipping notes.
- The first (Sa) and fifth (Pa) note never change. No flat fifths.
- In the first 36 melakartha, Ma is natural (F in the key of C); in the second 36, Ma is sharp (F#)
- Then, the 2nd/3rd and 6th/7th notes follow a pattern:
flat - double flat
flat - flat
flat - natural
natural - flat
natural - natural
sharp - natural
- Since notes can never have the same frequency as each other, you can't have double flat - double flat, that would make C Dbb, which is just C C.
- To find what melakartha you are using, decide 1. F natural or F#? 2. which pattern does the 2nd/3rd follow? 3. Which pattern does the 6th/7th follow?
- So, the first melakartha is C Db Ebb F G Ab Bb C; the 27th is C D E F G Ab B C (2/3 is the fifth pattern, 6/7 is the third)
The difference between a melakartha and a raga is the use of gamekas, which are inflections or ways of hitting a note, like sliding up or vibrato or the like.
It's kinda confusing and took me a while just to get the solfege down. But I got it eventually.
Fun fact: ragas are only sung at certain times of day or for certain occasions. Since all the little indian boys and girls have their music lessons early, the all sing the same raga when they're learning, the morning raga. At concerts, sometimes musicians play long enough to play past midnight, so they can play a morning raga. They get sick of the night time ones.
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Now, rhythmic stuff.
What we've been doing has been based around and 8-beat cycle, with the 6th and 8th beats unstressed. So clap on 1-5, don't on 6, clap on 7, don't on 8.
||: clap / clap / clap / clap / clap / rest / clap / rest :||
So far we've spent two weeks composing variations on a basic pattern, which is this: 7 sets of four sixteenth notes (ta ka di mi), followed by a set of 5 (ta ka ta ki ta). Three times. Then a 6 sets of four, and a set of 5. If you add them all you get 128 sixteenth notes, or 32 quarter notes, or 4 8-beat cycles.
Clap the cycle while trying to sing the basic pattern.
Now, if you thought that was crazy, there are other variations. Try it with eighth notes, dotted eights, quarter notes, 5-lets, 7-lets. I'll write it all out and show you if you're really interested.
M
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