CHAPTER 6 - A Brief History Of Carnatic Music
Copyright 2007, Nithin , National Institute of Advanced Studies
Like many things Indian, even Indian music has a colorful history, which can probably give us insights into some of its numerous traditions and grammatical structure. Indian classical music, as an institution, has evolved greatly over the years - it is still in the process of evolution, changing itself at every possible opportunity and adapting itself to popular sentiment and political climate. Let us take a quick look at the history of Indian music - of course, it will be a 'quick look' and you can look in any of the references quoted at the end of this primer for an in-depth study.
Remember that in ancient India, music played a significantly larger role in people's lives compared to these modern times. Our ancestors did not listen to music in their chariot-stereos the way we do these days. Greater percentage of the population (compared to these days) composed music, performed it and even did research on it. People dedicated themselves to music. Kings and queens patronized music and had a full court of accomplished musicians. As Dr. Baghyalakshmi puts it, "The Kings went to sleep and woke up to music...". There were music competitions held every once in a while, which pitted one learned musician against another, where the degree of difficulty was so high that most of the modern day musicians would not even qualify to enter. Although these music contests produced outstanding scholarship, they were also vehicles to heap shame and humiliation on the defeated rival - an aspect, which is hard for me to understand. History is also full of legends and astonishing individual accomplishments. Very high standards were established. It took a musician several decades of intense studentship (typically in a Gurukulam) before he or she could be considered a concert performer. These days after one summer, kids are already on stage 'performing' music.
Even in the early part of this century, people did not have the modern day 'high stress', 'no time for anything' lifestyle. Concerts lasted all night and people sat down and 'sustain-listened' to the same Ragam performed for the sixth continuous hour. These days we get a few minute condensed pop versions of most Alapanai on CDs and tapes. Well, I am sounding like a bitter cynic, but it should be borne in mind that the ancient texts on music (and traditional Karnatic music in general) are way, way more complex than what I have elaborated. There is almost very little you or I can add to the Indian music theory, really.
There is a staggering amount of written work on music that exists in India - right from Vedic times to the present day. A good lot of them are extremely sophisticated and seminal and boggle the mind on the level of analysis. It is easy to read just the first paragraph of one of those works and get totally lost in a buzzword-maze of "Lakshana', 'Beda', 'Grama' and so forth. These texts on music are about as tough as texts on Indian philosophy and the degree of abstraction employed can be scary. Remember that we had more than our share of mathematicians and theoretical people (and software folks !) in India who not only invented concepts like zero, but also established fascinating mathematical foundations for music. Not knowing enough sanskrit (or music for that matter) can only hamper our quest for understanding these texts. Suffice it to say that there exist elaborate frameworks on which the musical system is based. Throughout history, famous texts on music were more or less considered the 'Bibles' and the rules and formulations they spelt out were strictly conformed to and taught to students.
Sama Veda-SamaRaagam-Karaharipriya:
There is something or the other mentioned about Indian music in a variety of Indian literature. Even in the Vedic times, elements of music were recognized. Mantras were chanted using selected notes. Initially, only a few notes were used, but eventually to relieve the monotony, more notes got added. Sama Veda, the most musical of the Vedas, is almost 'sung out' even these days. For most parts, the lower octave was employed (Mandra Stayi, remember ?) Music was considered divine and was kept in the selected social circles for most parts. The earliest Ragam is speculated to be 'Sama Ragam', which could be a derivative of the modern day Kharaharapriya. Theories and treatises began to be written - about how the primitive sound 'om' gave rise to the notes etc.
By the time the Epic period came around, the ancients were entrenched in the seven notes used in Indian music as building blocks, namely Sa, Ri, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha and Ni. They were considered the 'Saptha Swarams' and explanations were abound regarding their deeper meaning. About the only thing that was not fixed was the exact 'frequency' or pitch (in the octave) that was used to produce each of these notes. Which 'keys' could be used to produce these seven notes ? The relationship between Sruti (frequency) and Swarams (notes) has been the focus of several theoretical works on music through the ages.
Bharatha Natya-only 22 notes in an octave is perceptible by human ear !
-written by Bharata. This is a monumental reference for the Bharata Natya and other dance forms, but contains several chapters on music as well. The date of this work is pegged somewhere between the 2nd century BC to the 2nd century AD. This is probably the first work that clearly elaborated the octave and divided it into 22 keys. Bharata based his idea on a stunning scientific experiment he performed using his musical instrument (made of strings) that 'proved' that there could be only 22 basic frequencies that could be generated in an octave. He even located them in his octave and thus tuned his string instruments.
Not only did Bharata 'invent' the keys in an octave, he also gave some basic rules to scale building. He defined three major scales with the following shifts to choose seven keys out of 22:
Scale 1: 4/3/2/4/4/3/2 (This is called Shadja Grama)
Scale 2: 4/3/2/4/3/4/2 (Called Madhyama Grama)
Scale 3: 3/2/4/3/3/4/3 (Called Gandhaara Grama)
Here the word 'Grama' is simply a synonym for a scale. This kind of algorithm is somewhat similar to the Western Major/Minor algorithms. In addition to these principal algorithms, he also derived seven secondary 'scales' per algorithm - each of these derived scales was called a 'Moorchana' (literally meaning 'fainting'). From these Moorchanas, using some other rules, he derived even more scales which could have less than seven notes (called 'Tanas') which eventually led to what could be called Ragams ! Phyooo ! It isn't clear whether Bharata used the term 'Ragam' in the sense it is used these days.
The interesting point is, Bharata's theory has been pretty much the guiding principle for subsequent musicologists through history. Various theories were framed to understand the divine and religious nature of the seven notes. There were theories to assign each note to a body part that produce sounds, like nose, throat, stomach, head etc. Yet another theory suggested that the sounds of each note matched those of common animals like Sa for peacock, Ri for ox, Ga for Goat, Ma for crane, Pa for Cuckoo, Dha for horse and Ni for elephant. All this might sound very primitive, but believe me, these theories quickly go into extremely complicated mathematical formulations. Some people have even suggested formulas to generate millions of Ragams!
Dathilam:
The next major work to hit the scene after Bharata's work was Dathilam. The exact period of this work is not firmly established. Here too, the author sticks to the 22 sruti per octave formalism and even goes to suggest these 22 srutis are the only ones a human body could make. (This view was expressed again by another musicologist of the thirteenth century of name Saranga Deva in his famous work Sangeeta Ratnakara - in fact, Sarang Deva was an expert in Ayurveda as well and goes on to give an Ayurvedic basis for the 22 sruti octave)
Other works:
There were other seminal works such as Brahhaddesi (9th century AD) written by Matanga. He probably takes the credit for the emergence of the term Ragam, although the term had been used by authors before him. Matanga was the one who explained it and helped 'define' it. Interestingly, around the same time, the native South Indian music also dealt with terms like 'Pann' and 'Paalai', which can be construed as the South Indian equivalents of 'Ragam'. Tevaram and Silappadhikaram describe several such 'Ragams' and in fact, we have already seen that Ilango Adigal, the author of Silappadhikaram has described the prevailing Tamil algorithms to build scales. (called Ilikkiramam) It is quite possible that Ilango Adigal and the composers of Tevaram and South Indians in general were aware of the all pervasive work of Bharata's, 'Natya Sastra' (Quite a lot of cultural exchanges took place between the South and the North, contrary to what we would like to believe now). However, these Tamil classics are major works in their own right and it is a pity that not too much of this is discussed in the context of history of Indian music, especially due to the large volume of musical literature in sanskrit.
Sangeeta Makaranda, a book presumed to be written in the 11th century by a person called Narada, enumerates 93 Ragams and classifies them into masculine and feminine species. The next major work on music was Sangeeta Ratnakara written by Saranga Deva during the 13th century. Saranga Deva was a Kashmiri, but wrote his work while in South India.
Hindustani/Carnatic bifurcation:
It was approximately around this time in history that the South Indian (Karnatic) music and Hindustani music bifurcated themselves and began to evolve in two different directions. (Dr. Rangaramanuja Iyengar, suggests the 12th century as the cut off point, in an operational sense) Even now, the Dhrupad music practiced in the North India is somewhat similar in style to the South Indian Karnatic music. For example, in Dhrupad, they use a percussion instrument called Pakhwaj, (instead of Tabla) which is similar to the South Indian Mridangam
Sangeeta Ratnakara (by Saranga Deva, 13th century):
Sangeeta Ratnakara was a milestone of sorts. Not only was it a musicology text, but it also had detailed prescription for the performance. (The grammar and framework are usually called 'Lakshana' and the actual performance is called 'Lakshaya') We have already seen how he gave an Ayurvedic basis for the 22 sruti octave. He too performed a famous experiment (on a veena) to determine the 22 srutis uniquely. He also mapped the 22 srutis into seven Swaras. (like our Table III) and also suggested the 'mood' for the various Swaras (Sa produces heroism, Ri - terror, Pa - love and so on) He was probably responsible for suggesting an inter-relationship between the various notes constituting a Ragam, by proposing the Vaadhi-Samvaadhi-AnuVaadhi-Vivaadhi notion of a Ragam.
A word or two about this since you might hear these terms mentioned. What is the relationship between the various notes in a Ragam ? How can we understand how the note 'Sa' is related to the note 'Ma' or 'dha' in that Ragam ? This scheme defines a concept called the 'Vaadhi' or the primary note of a Ragam or the sonant or the 'King'. And by the same token, a Samvaadhi or the 'Minister' or the second in line ('Concordant note'); 'Anuvaadhi' or the 'Servant' to give the 'proper shape' to the Ragam ('Assonant') and finally the 'Dissonant' or the Vivaadhi, or the 'enemy'. It is questionable as to how useful such dissection is; but considerable volumes have been written about such things and several hundred Ragams and their Vaadhi-Vivaadhi etc structure has been catalogued by several authors. You must remember that this theory is essentially to analyze the concept of a Ragam and explain what gives its specific appeal.
Kaku:
Saranga Deva, among other things, defined almost 264 Ragams, including some Dravidian and North Indian ones. He also described the various 'kinds' of 'microtones' and how to produce them. He also classified them into various categories. He defined something called 'Kaku' (a term that is hardly used these days) as a blending of melody and sruti.
More than anything else, after his work came into being, it provided a veritable guide to the performers. Any standard reference such as Dr. Bhagyalekshmy's or Dr. RangaRamanuja Iyengar's or Dr. Shringi's book has greater details on Sangeeta Ratnakara. Saranga Deva's work probably launched a whole new era in music compositions and performance. In fact, for several centuries afterwards, the theorization of music became dormant, giving importance to performance. In the 17th century, there was a resurgence of theoretical works - such as Sangeeta Sudha (written by Govinda Dikshitar) and Chaturdandi Prakasikam (by Venkatamakhi). The latter expounded the present day Melakarta Scheme. The author mentions the 12 sruti octave and defines the Melakarta Ragams. At that time only about 19 (out of 72) were 'known'. He proposed the Katayapadi scheme of figuring out the keys used in the Melakarta from the name. It is interesting to point out that the original names given by him for the 72 Melakartas are not the ones used these days. For example, he called the first Melakarta as Kanakambari whereas it is called Kanakanki at present. In fact, except for one or two Ragams almost all of the 72 names are quite different compared to what he had meant - although his names, as well as the present names follow the Katayapadi scheme outlined in Table V ! It must be remembered however, that this is not the only way to classify Ragams. There are several other alternate schemes and names (composers like Muthuswamy Dikshitar used alternate names for several ragams) and you can get very deeply into such things.
While such elaborate theoretical works were being written, eminent composers appeared on the scene and produced music. Annammacharya (1424-1503) a devotee of the 'Lord of Tirupati' composed several notable pieces. He was followed by Purandara Dasa (1480-1564).
Purandara Dasa: “Father of Carnatic Music”
Purandara Dasa is considered the father of Karnatic music. He was a multi-millionaire ('koteeswara') to begin with, and accumulated enormous wealth in business. He was only interested in the pursuit of money and material pleasures, like most of us, till one day due to a divine intervention, his life changed one eighty degrees. He renounced his wealth and became a 'Dasa' (which means a servant) dedicating his life to serving god and making music in god's honor. From then on, his life was one misery after another and there are several legends associated with him which make interesting reading. Through all this Purandara Dasa never stopped making music. He is said to have composed nearly a quarter million songs in his lifetime, for which he probably earned quite a lot of 'Frequent Composer Mileage' awards. By the way, this works out to be about fifteen songs for every single day of his life. Even discounting for exaggeration, he was quite prolific. Several hundreds of his songs are still available, although it is likely that many of the present day versions of his numbers were set to tune by later musicians. His compositions were mostly in his native tongue, Kannada.
Purandara Dasa's songs are simple and easy for beginners to learn. He was the one who is credited with standardizing the Mayamalavagoulai Ragam as a Lesson Number One for beginning students and is said to have even composed the Sarali Varisai/Jantai Varisai (exercises in 'note' reproduction) for beginners.
The Golden Age: The Trinity Composers
The Golden Age of Karnatic music was perhaps the time when the Trinity of Karnatic composers Thyagaraja (1767-1847), Shyama Sastri (1763-1827) and Muthuswamy Dikshitar (1775-1835) made music. Interestingly, they were all contemporaries hailing from the same Thanjavur district, although it is not clear what kind of influence each had on the other. Their lifestyles, music, attitudes seem so different that it contributed to their musical styles being distinct from each other. Volumes and volumes have been written about them. So what you will find here are truly only the thumbnail sketches.
Thyagaraja (1767-1847): “The King of Carnatic Music”
Thyagaraja is probably hailed as the King of Karnatic music, although when he was alive he shunned publicity and even rejected the King's invitation to join his court. In fact, he renounced worldly goods, (including copyrights to his songs :-)) and devoted himself to God. His songs have the raw devotion ('Bhakti', if you will) and are considered emotional. He composed songs in his mother tongue, Telugu. It is not known how many songs he has composed, but nearly a 1000 songs are available at present, completely notated and interpreted. He has also composed operas. From the musicology point of view, Thyagaraja is credited with the invention of 'Sangatis' and with numerous other creative ideas in rhythm. Thyagaraja's most famous compositions are the Pancharatna Kritis set in the Ragams Nattai, Goulai, Arabhi, Varali and Sree. Yes, who hasn't heard the song 'Endaro Mahanu bhavulu..' and not liked it ?
Muthuswamy Dikshitar (1775-1835):
Dikshitar was more of an academician of music and a pedagogue. He was quite a handsome man, which perhaps explains why he had two wives. He spent considerable time in the North studying Hindustani music, which influenced him quite a bit. He wrote his songs primarily in sanskrit (I have heard one of his songs with just one stanza in Tamil). About 400 or so of his songs exist at present. His songs are more complex and few can sing some of his complicated pieces. His lyrics are generally praises of the God (or Goddess) in point and are much more subdued and formal compared to the raw energy of a Thyagaraja song. His songs are often slow (influence of Hindustani) and often went into several different aspects of the Ragam.
Shyama Sastri (1763-1827):
Shyama Sastry is the most obscure of the three - he is considered a wizard of rhythm and composed several pieces called Swarajatis, which enunciate various rhythmic patterns.
Interestingly, none of the Trinity's students made it very big. (some of them became reasonably famous alright) This brings to point the curious teacher-student relationship that used to exist in India. Karnatic music was largely an oral tradition. Information was often lost, sometimes forever, when Gurus passed on their knowledge to their disciples - and this doesn't even count jealous and selfish Gurus who wouldn't teach everything to the disciples. It is surprising that the ancient Indians, clever as they were, did not invent a scheme to notate music.
Other notable composers:
There are several other notable composers such as Gopala Krishna Bharathi who composed in Tamil and was a contemporary of the trinity. Prior to him were other Tamil composers like Arunagiri Nathar and Arunachala Kavi Rayar. Swati Tirunal, the king of Travancore was a great composer of the nineteenth century. Among the more recent composers are Papanasam Sivan and Balamurali Krishna and the list goes on and on. Now we have come to a point in history where not only has theorizing stopped, but even composing of heavy duty pieces seem to have stopped and we are left with only performers ! Many of the references I have cited at the end give a long list of such performers - some real luminaries and some also-playeds, but most have pompous sounding prefixes like 'Shankarabharanam' Narasayya, 'Todi' Raghava Iyer and 'Mohanam' Somebody.
A more fascinating aspect of history of Karnatic music is to study its evolution, delineate the broad musical trends etc. For example, even the instruments used in music-making have changed over the years. Gone are the olden instruments, which were mostly derivatives of Veena. In fact, Veena-making was a fine art and there were many, many types of Veenas serving various different purposes. The harp type instrument ('Yazh') and the ancient flutes have disappeared. Instead Western instruments such as Clarionet, Guitar, Saxaphone and Mandolin are increasingly being adapted to Karnatic music. Interestingly, not many newer Hindustani instruments (such as sitar, sarod and sarangi) are used in Karnatic music.
Violin:
Another historical accident was the introduction of violin in Karnatic music. It was popularized in the 19th century by Vadivelu, who was a member of what is considered as the Thanjavur Quartet - a set of four brothers who were very talented composers/musicians especially of dance music. (They came a little after the more famous Trinity) Vadivelu was a court musician in the Travancore Royal Court and made extraordinary contributions to dance music, besides being a master of violin. By the way, he is said to have accompanied himself on the violin, a no mean feat ! Like his musically gifted patron, composer Swati Tirunal, the king of Travancore, he too died when he was in his mid thirties.
It is interesting to note that the violin was embraced very easily by the Karnatic music tradition whereas it is not so prominent even now in Hindustani music. Prior to violin, veena used to accompany vocalists. The present day vocal concert always has violin support, even though the violinist only plays in the shadow of the vocalist, with very few chances in the concert to show off his talents. This is quite intriguing to say the least. (Of course, the violinist can mask the vocalist sometimes and this can actually be a plus point if the vocalist has a horrible voice!)
For more detailed accounts of the recent history, happenings etc, one should read a magazine published from Madras called 'Sruti', which not only provides concert reviews, news events etc, but also gives us a peek into the prevailing 'Karnatic music' taste and culture. However, if you are a history buff, my strong recommendation will be Rangaramanuja Iyengar's delightful book. He is fanatical about Karnatic music and gets quite merciless in condemning the 'modern day Karnatic music world' - his modern day being the 1950 s ! I wonder what he would have to say if he sees people with questionable credentials writing Karnatic music primers - who even has the temerity to suggest that a Western electronic keyboard be used as a learning tool!
MANGALAM ! A few final words
While you are trying to get more and more interested in Karnatic music, you should also perhaps ponder about where Indian classical music (and Karnatic music in particular) is heading toward, as we enter yet another millenium. The old generation and conservatives complain about the total degradation of the standard of Karnatic music these days, the low level of present day talent and how everything is so hurried and compromised. Oh, this age of high crime and fast computers and social mores ! Add to this the relentless onslaught of music from other cultures (notably Hollywood and Europe) and movie 'pop' songs that completely take over the popular taste. Does Karnatic classical music, as we know it, even have a chance of survival ?
I think the answer is 'yes' - purely because it has survived and in fact, flourished the last several thousand years, like many other Indian traditions and institutions. Part of the reason for this resilience is that the Indian classical music systems are very adaptive - they change and rejuvenate themselves. If some of the Western ideas can be incorporated, they will be. Who knows, several decades from now, concepts like chords, polyphony or orchestration may be standard in Karnatic music.
The other reason for my optimism is that the Indian institutions always percolated down to the masses and touched them. I know I am treading controversial grounds. (Following Dr. RangaRamanuja Iyengar) The Vedas were too complex for the ordinary people. So its core principles were outlined in simpler works like the Epics and Puranas. While expert musicians dueled with each other in Royal courts, the masses sang Bhajan songs without worrying about any musical intricacies. These days too while concert musicians play to packed halls in Madras, there is an overabundance of classical music being composed for the masses - movie songs and Bhajans - which are quite appealing and tend to 'hook' people to classical music. Composers like Ilayaraja and A.R. Rahman have composed many, many nice classical pieces that are every bit melodious as some of the ancient songs, even if they don't meet all the criteria for great classical compositions. If you take good, classical music directly to people, you are not going to lose!
We just cannot hang on to our past. We cannot go back to Gurukulam days. We cannot analyze Sa Ri Ga Ma in terms of horses and elephants. Let us learn more and adapt ourselves to the new and exciting things in front of us. And let us enjoy Karnatic music !
REFERENCES
(1) Fundamentals of music - Raymond Elliott, Prentice Hall.
(2) Carnatic Music Composers - Edited by Dr. B. Dayananda Rao, The Triveni Foundation, Hyderabad.
(3) History of South Indian (Carnatic) Music - Dr. R. Rangaramanuja Ayyangar, 1972.
(4) Indian Musicology - Melodic Structure - Mriganka Sekhar Chakraborty, Firma KLM Private Limited, 1992.
(5) Carnatic Music Compositions - Dr. S. Bhagyalekshmy, CBH Publications, 1994. (Also by the same author, Ragas in Karnatic Music and Lakshanagrandhas in Music, both published by CBH Publications as well)
(6) Music in Cilappadikaram - Dr. S. Ramanathan, Madurai Kamaraj University, 1979.
(7) Karnataka Sangeeta Sastra - Theory of Carnatic Music - A. S. Panchapakesa Iyer, Ganamrutha Prachuram, 1989.
(8) Sangeeta Ratnakara of Saranga Deva - R. K. Shringy and Dr. Prem Lata Sharma, Munshi Ram Manoharlal Publications. (Vol I and II), 1991.
APPENDIX I: SOME MELAKARTA RAGAMS AND THEIR DERIVATIVE RAGAMS
Melakarta 8 HanumaTodi (popularly known as Todi)
Derivative Ragams: Dhanyasi, Asavari, Ahiri, Punnagavarali, Bhoopalam, Hindolam
Melakarta 15 Mayamalavagoulai
Derivative Ragams: Bhowli, Malahari, Vasanta, Saveri, Nadanamakriya, Jagan Mohini, Goulai, Lalita, Sowrashtram.
Melakarta 20 Natabhairavi
Derivative Ragams: Abheri, Ananda Bhairavi, Kannada, Jayantasree, Dhanasree, Darbari Kanada, Jonpuri, Bhairavi, Mukhari, Reetigoulai, Saramati, Hindolam.
Melakarta 22 Karaharapriya
Derivative Ragams: Abhogi, Kapi, Kanada, Chandrakauns, Suddha Dhanyasi, Devagandhara, Darbar, Bageshwari, Brindavana Saranga, Madhyamavati, Sree, Sahana.
Melakarta 28 Harikambhoji
Derivative Ragams: Atana, Khamas, Behaag, Kuntalavarali, Kurunji, Kambhodhi, Kadankuthoohalam, Chenchuruti, Dvijavanti, Tilang, Navarasa Kannada, Neelambari, Nattaikurunji, Bilahari, Mohanam, Sama, Surati, Valaji, Savitri.
Melakarta 29 Dhheerashankarabharanam (commonly known as Shankarabharanam)
Derivative Ragams: Arabhi, Suddha Saveri, Hamsadhwani, Mohanam, Kedaram, Kurunji, Neelambari, Begada,
Source: www.khazana.com
Monday, November 19, 2007
Chapter 5 - The Concert musician
copyright 2007, Nithin , National Institute of Advanced Studies
Raagam-Taalam-Pallavi (RTP)
It is always a dream of every student to become a performing musician and to be top notch. But before being let loose on concert stages, they still have one final plateau of excellence to reach - the ability to perform what is called a 'Ragam, Tanam, Pallavi' or RTP or simply 'Pallavi'. (Note again, how we use the same word Pallavi to mean two different things) Ragam, Tanam, Pallavi is a total elaboration of a specific Ragam and is one hundred percent improvisation and creativity. It is the perfect place for a musician to show off his skill and mastery in enunciating a Ragam. The Ragam, Tanam, Pallavi is in fact the centerpiece of a Karnatic music concert.
First of, the musician chooses a 'strong' Ragam to perform his RTP. Oftentimes he picks a Melakarta Ragam, where the scope to make creative melodies is enormous (because they have all the allowed seven notes in the scale - remember they are all Sampoorna or 'complete' Ragams) He would also often choose a complex Talam to set his musical phrases in. Let us say he chooses Shankarabharanam and set to a Talam with an eleven beat cycle (!). In real concerts, usually the artiste does not reveal the Ragam of his RTP before hand. The audience and often, the accompanying musicians find out the Ragam just when the musician begins to play the RTP.
R of RTP i.e. Raagam or Raaga-Alapanai or Alapanam:
The first part of the RTP is simply the Alapanai of the Ragam (the word 'Ragam', is also a synonym for Alapanai, remember ?) After the Alapanai, the singer usually takes a break (and sips 'hot water' or milk kept on the sidelines) when the violinist takes over and tries to play the same musical phrases the singer just sang. This calls for a tremendous memory and ear for musical phrases. Of course, no one keeps tabs on how accurately the violinist follows the musician. The closer the violinists and the musicians are, the better. (This probably explains why specific violinist play for specific musicians because they 'know' each other well)
T or RTP i.e. Taanam:
The second part of the RTP is called Tanam - don't confuse it with TaLam. Here the Ragam is elaborated even more. But now, the improvisation is in a faster tempo and set to a rhythm. Syllables such as 'Tum', 'Tanam' etc are used in this section (as opposed to syllables typically used in Alapanai). The violinist usually follows the musician after every passage. (unlike in the Alapanai part where he waited till the musician got done with the whole Alapanai) If instrumentalists are performing the RTP, in Tanam segment, they would play the sympathetic strings for added effect.
P of RTP i.e. Pallavi:
After the Tanam, the singer then starts on Pallavi, which in the context of RTP is just one line of text - often made up by the musician himself. He could very well have chosen 'Baa baa black sheep' as the Pallavi if he can massage the line to fit the Talam. Here, the Mridangam and Ghatam join in. The musician would embark on a series of 'Neravals' stretching the one line of Pallavi into several melodic phrases. The violinist of course follows the musician one step behind. Interestingly, at this point, the Mridangam would play when the musician sings and the Ghatam player would play for the violinist. The musician would cap it all off finally with a spate of Kalpana Swarams, by which time all the dimensions of the Ragam would have been (hopefully !) brought out.
Raaga Maalika:
Then the singer would break into an impromptu Raga Malika - singing Kalpana Swaram sequences in a bunch of Ragams, one after another. He chooses the Ragams in the Raga Malika to be widely apart, instead of being only subtely different. (Often 'light' ragams or Hindustani type Ragams are chosen). If Shankarabharanam is the Ragam for the RTP, then derivatives of Shankarabharanam are usually not chosen in the Raga Malika section). At the end of the Kalpana Swaram passage of each Ragam, he would sing the old Pallavi in that particular Ragam. The grand finale is when he breaks into a long series of Swarams (typically in the reverse order of the Raga Malika Ragams) and finally landing on the initial Ragam he had set out to play - (Shankarabharanam).
Tani Avartam or Tani Avartanam or Tani:
At this point, the singer typically lets the percussionists (Ghatam and Mridangam player) perform solo. This is called Tani Avartam or Tani Avartanam or Tani. This is also the time when the audience too takes a break and typically indulges in disruptive behaviour like chatting, rushing home or even dozing off. The percussionists grab this opportunity to perform the intricate aspects of the Talam.
A good Ragam, Tanam, Pallavi can last upwards of an hour and it is a vehicle for showcasing a singer's talent.
A Typical Carnatic Musical Concert:
One of the dangers on writing about a 'typical' music concert is that these days there is no clear definition of what is 'typical'. Only a few years ago, instrument solos were rare in the Karnatic music tradition. Now, they are all over the place. These days several Karnatic musicians follow the Hindustani format as well and just sing a Ragam, Tanam, Pallavi and a few additional pieces. There are of course, numerous other changes that always keep happening - some trend-setting, some others just passing fads. Let us however look at a garden variety Karnatic concert.
A typical concert lasts around three hours. And most concerts do not have a 'program' given out ahead of time. By and large, the audience does not know what song is going to be performed next, even though these days most musicians have become reasonably Westernized and 'announce' their next song and what Ragam and Talam they are set in and who composed the song.
The musician would start the concert with a fast paced Varnam. This not only serves as a warm up piece for the ensemble to synchronize, it also sets the mood for the concert. And of course, it allows the latecomers in the audience the time to find their seats and sit down before the heavy-duty songs are sung. Usually, the singers will also resort to some gimmicks in the Varnam itself - such as playing the Varnam in several speeds or adding their own Kalpana Swaram passages.
This will then be followed by a song about Vinayaka in the Ragam Hamsadhwani or Nattai. Given there are only so many songs in Hamsadhwani and Nattai about Vinayaka, you can almost predict what is coming. Then the singer performs a variety of songs - choosing them appropriately so that he has the right mix and order of Ragams, tempo and audience appeal. He would choose to express his creativity wherever by performing Alapanai or Neraval or Kalpana Swaram at the appropriate parts of the songs. Then eventually he will perform the Ragam, Tanam, Pallavi.
Tukkadas / Mangalam:
After the RTP, the concert winds down and tends to get 'light', where the musician plays several short, light numbers. Instrumentalists sometimes tune their instruments to a higher pitch, (That is, intentionally shift their basic octave higher) to give the concert an artificially bright mood (and also to wake up the sleeping members of the audience) These light pieces are usually called 'Tukkadas' (literally meaning 'pieces') They could be popular, recent numbers or 'trademark' songs of a particular performer or even movie songs. Many Tukkadas are set in light Ragams or rare ragams and some in Hindustani Ragams. They could be a Bhajan song, a folk song, song in an obscure language, a Tillana (which is basically a dance song, often set in high tempo, with a lot of dance steps set to syllables such as 'teem', 'takka timi', 'thaa thai' etc), or a Javali (a short, 'quick' composition) Toward the end of the concert, members of the audience usually request their choices - often honored by the musicians. Finally, the concert is officially ended by singing a brief number called 'Mangalam', usually in the Ragam Madhyamavati, but sometimes even in Ragams like Surati.
Chapter 4 - The exotic world of Carnatic Music
Copyright 2007, Dr. Nithin Nagaraj, National Institute of Advanced Studies
Kalpita / Manodharma:
Karnatic music - the hard core classical music, that is - is divided into two broad areas. The first one is the realm of pre-composed music and the second one is improvisation or creative music. In Indian terminology, the pre-existing compositions are called 'Kalpita' (literally meaning 'that which is taught') and the creative (improvisation) aspects are called 'Manodharma'. Every performing artiste learns both the aspects of classical music. He or she not only has a repertoire of several (sometimes hundreds) pieces of well known songs, but he or she also knows how to create music.
One easy way to improvise is to take an existing song and distort it ! Just look at the way the American national anthem is sung by various artistes in their own unique way ! But Karnatic music tradition has reasonably stringent guidelines on such 'liberties' and where to improvise.
Kalpita:
In the first ('kalpita') part, the pre-existing compositions range from the very simple to the very complicated pieces. There are Bhajan type songs, dance songs, love songs and songs with a lot of vocal gimmicks. Students of music start with such pre-existing compositions, train their voice, assimilate the 'moods' of Ragams, be comfortable with Talams and finally the training wheels come off and they move into the territory of improvisation, where they start making their own melodies as well. Some really talented musicians have whopping careers as pure 'composers' whose songs are performed by other musicians. By and large, most of the famous Karnatic musicians have left their marks not only as performers but also as creators.
3 parts of Karnatic Music:
Most compositions in Karnatic music have three parts to their body. The first two lines of the song (sometimes just one) is called Pallavi. Like 'Raghupathy Raghava Raja Ram...' or 'Roop Tera Mastana' they occur over and over, especially after each stanza. Usually, the Pallavi is followed by two more lines (sometimes just one more). 'Eeshwar Allah Tere Naam..' in Raghupathy Raghava Raja Ram is an example. This portion is called Anu Pallavi. This is sung at the beginning for sure, but sometimes even during the end of the song, but not necessarily after each stanza. The stanzas of a song are called 'Charanam'.
So, a song unfolds as follows:
Pallavi
Anu Pallavi
Charanam 1 followed by Pallavi
Charanam 2 followed by Pallavi
Charanam n followed by Pallavi
Pallavi
Anu Pallavi (optional)
Pallavi
end of song.
Typically, the Pallavi is set in lower tetrachord and in the lower octave (this is not a strict rule) and Anu Pallavi goes to the upper keys and to the next octave as well. Notice this in the song 'Raghupathi Raghava.'. The Anu Pallavi, 'Eeshwar Allah ..' goes to higher frequencies.
THE BEGINNING STUDENT
Learning the simple elements - the 'Kalpita' aspects)
If you are a Karnatic music lover and if a good teacher happens to be around, try to LEARN Karnatic music formally. Seriously. You may not be gifted like some other people and your voice might sound like a vacuum cleaner (many famous Karnatic musicians have lousy voices) - and you may think you are 'tone deaf' or have no musical aptitude. But none of these should come in the way of your attempting to learn music. If people can be trained to learn foreign languages or to ski or to become software programmers, they can be eqully well trained in Karnatic music. Even if you don't become a concert grade musician, you can learn enough to develop a deeper appreciation for music. Nothing like hands on experience.
In the olden ('Gurukulam' or 'Gharaana') days, music was handed down from generation to generation orally and the emphasis was heavily on memorizing and relentless practicing. (Even now practice is a major aspect of learning) These days, Karnatic music teaching has become more modern and streamlined and less painful for the students. Students are taught the theoretical and analytical techniques as well, instead of being forced to regurgitate what the Gurus teach.
The first thing that happens when you start to learn music is figuring out your characteristic octave. In Karnatic terminology this is referred to as 'finding out one's sruti - note that we are now using the word 'sruti' in a completely different sense. This is because, everybody has her or his signature octave which need not begin at 240 Hz. The student is asked to sing out Sa - Pa - and then the sa of the upper ('Tara') octave. From this, the teacher extracts the range of the student's octave.
SRUTHI:
After the octave is figured out, it is then 'captured' on a 'drone' instrument called 'Sruti box' or a 'tanpura'. By 'capturing' we mean that these instruments are tuned to produce those three notes at the appropriate frequencies. If the student's standard octave begins at 260 Hz, the sruti box will play the 'Sa' at 260 Hz, Pa at 367 Hz and the upper Sa at 520 Hz. Throughout the session, the 'drone' instrument will keep playing these notes. Although this may be quite annoying at the beginning, it is a necessary thing. Sometimes, after a lot of singing, people can 'lose' their 'srutis' and instead of producing the Sa at 260 Hz (or at whatever happens to be the person's sruti) they can go completely off their octave and scales. At times like these, you can tune yourself afresh using the drone sounds of the sruti box and come back to your octave. (By the way, for the purpose of writing I am assuming the student to be a male. It can very well be a woman student too. No sexism implied) Not only do beginning students tend to lose their 'sruti' - even experts, sometimes in the middle of a big concert can go completely off their sruti and octave and could sound quite miserable.
If you happen to have a sruti box or a tanpura, it is a lot of fun tuning it to your octave or someone else's. Try it. If you get an opportunity, jump on a concert stage and pluck away at a tanpura, especially if the musician happens to be a big shot. (Just remember not to fall asleep during the concert) The sruti box or the tanpura, by its constant droning also adds an element of harmony to the Karnatic music.
Mayamalavagoulai (Melakarta # 15):
The first bunch of music lessons concern with the production of 'notes' - much like Julie Andrews teaching the Sound of Music kids about Do re mi. (there are corresponding Indian movie songs as well about Sa ri ga ma pa) The emphasis here is for the student to stretch his voice to produce different frequencies and at will. A student-friendly scale like the Mayamalavagoulai (Melakarta # 15) is chosen where Keys 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, and 12 are the Sa, Ri, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni notes. The upper 'Sa' is always added. (Thus we produce EIGHT notes when we sing, although the Ragam has only SEVEN notes. Among other reasons, the eight-ness makes it easy to time this sequence in a binary, Adi Talam which has an eight beat cycle) This particular Ragam is chosen because the notes are 'spread out' across the octave, instead of subtly varying, so that a beginning student can reproduce them easily. The notes are drilled into a student in a variety of excruciating exercises, so that at the end of the lessons, when asked, the student can utter a 'dha' or a 'ri' at the exact frequency. (of course, in his signature octave) .
The initial lessons are purely on tone reproduction. Ragams and microtones come afterwards. Initially, the student only learns the solfege notation - a bunch of sa ri ga ma s - he is not taught any text or lyrics. There will be also exercises on keeping Talam.
Saahithyam:
Then the student graduates to the simple songs called Geetams - the nursery rhymes of Karnatic music. These are often set to mild Ragams - again, the facets of the Ragams are hardly emphasized at this point. The idea is to sing 'in tune' following the teacher. Usually the Geetams are only a few lines long and they do not adhere to the Pallavi-Anu Pallavi-Charanam structure always. The Solfege notes (Swarams) are taught and sung out first and then the lyrics (lyrics are called Sahityams in Karnatic music) are sung out afterwards.
The teacher might first go,
'Ma pa da sa sa ri'
and sing a line of text to fit it.
'Sreee Gana Naada'
(This can be fitted to a three beat cycle Roopakam, since there are six notes.) This is a Geetam in the Ragam Malahari, a derivative of Mayamalavagoulai and is usually the very first Geetam anyone learns.
Ways of Singing:
If you think about it, there are several ways to express or sing out a 'tune' (1) using the lyrics or text (2) humming using syllables like 'la la' or 'aaa' or 'whatever'. You will see that this forms the basis for what is called 'Alap' or 'Alapanai' and lastly (3) you can 'decompose' the tune into the corresponding notes and utter just the Solfege notation - this is called Swaram singing. This version of producing the tune is useful especially if you are learning to play an instrument where you don't care for lyrics anyway.
THE INTERMEDIATE STUDENT:
Once the basics like singing in-tune, keeping Talam etc are mastered, the student is then ready for the more serious compositions. At this point, in addition to learning a particular song, the student is also trained to think in terms of Ragams etc. Even at this point, improvisation is not introduced. Faithful following of the Master is strongly emphasized so that pre-existing songs are reproduced the way they were meant to be - tune, Talam and all. However tempting it may be and however nicer it may actually sound, it is a big no-no for the intermediate student to introduce his own 'stuff' and distort the song. You cannot improve on a perfection like a Beethoven Symphony or a Thyagaraja Composition. (What is your reaction to this?).
VARNAMS:
The student moves on to the next set of songs called 'Varnam's. A Varnam is a song with minimal amount of text. But most syllables will be stretched and twisted quite a bit and a lot of vocal acrobatics will take place. For example, a simple word like 'Swamy' might be stretched to several beats (in terms of time) and might go through several notes (in terms of frequency) and might actually sound like:
"Sw a a a a a a m e e e e e e .."
The idea here is to teach the student a little bit about the Ragam structure, its characteristic phrases, microtonal variations and so on and of course, to be able to train his vocal chords and reproduce such features of the Ragam. The Varnam is also an exercise in maintaining the Talam.
The Varnam consists of the Pallavi - Anu Pallavi - Charanam structure somewhat. Interspersed with this will be a lot of plain 'notes' or 'swarams' in the Solfege nonsense syllables. That is, there will be a lot of Sa, ri, ga, ma stuff sung out explicitly throughout the song. The structure of Varnam is approximately,
Pallavi
Anu Pallavi
Initial Swaram (called 'Muktayi Swaram')
Pallavi
Charanam 1
Swaram 1 Charanam 1 (These Swarams are called 'Chittaswarams')
Swaram 2 Charanam 1
Swaram n Charanam 1
There is only one 'stanza' (Charanam) so to speak. Even this stanza is usually only one line long. The basis for the introduction of Swaram in these songs is to teach the student the main phrases of the Ragam without obscuring the tune with lyrics. As the song progresses, from Swaram 1 to Swaram n, the Swarams get longer and more complicated. It takes longer for the student to learn the latter Swarams. All Varnams are pre-composed, including the Swarams.
Ragamalikai:
Another interesting purpose of singing 'Varnam' is to practice it in the basic, double and even quadruple speeds to get the hang of the Talam correctly. (and also to push the student to the limit of his learning curve) Varnams are usually very bright and lively pieces. There are also slow paced Varnams called Dance Varnams, essentially used in dance recitals. Instead of being in just one Ragam, some Varnams are composed as Ragamalikai, which means it is a song thats uses different Ragams for its various stanzas. (usually about three or four Ragams) .
Kritis or Keerthanas:
Then the student moves on to the mainstream Karnatic songs. These songs are called 'Kritis' or 'Keertanai's. There are subtle technical differences between the two terms, but we are not going to quibble. The Kritis follow the Pallavi - Anu Pallavi - Charanam structure. Usually, interestingly there will be just one Charanam or one stanza rendered in the Kriti. If 'Roop tera mastana ..' were a Karnatic music Kriti, you would only sing one stanza. Of course, there are exceptions. Also, there are songs or Kritis that do not adhere to the Pallavi - Anu - Charanam format. Kritis are usually ornamental and like movie songs, they are developments of a theme. Even though they are set to a Ragam, their purpose is not to bring out every aspect of the Ragam, but simply to produce a musical impact in a listener. So two Kritis set to the same Ragam might sound quite different, even though you might notice many similarities because they are set to the same Ragam. In fact, if you are not musically inclined you won't even notice that two 'kritis' are in the same Ragam.
Sangatis:
Sometimes, in a kriti, the first lines will be varied systematically as the singer repeats it over and over. (This happens even in some movie songs). That is, the Pallavi will be sung intentionally in different melodies as it gets repeated. The text of the line will be the same, but the music will be different. Such variations are called 'Sangatis'. These variations or Sangatis are intended by the original composer (or cleverly introduced by some other musician somewhere along the line) and are parts of the song. If you listen to a Kriti like 'Vatapi Ganapatim' in Ragam Hamsadhwani, you will notice that the singer spends a long time mulling over the first line itself. But if you paid close attention to details, the singer is in fact varying the melody of that line over and over - in other words, the singer is producing the various 'Sangati's. Sometimes, after all the variations are done, the final version of the Pallavi could sound totally different from what one started out with. In fact, usually, the final version of the Pallavi is what is the official version of the Pallavi from that point on - and this is the version that is sung after each stanza (charanam) subsequently. Even Anu pallavi can have associated Sangatis.
By the time a student starts to learn a lot of Kritis, he or she is already at a reasonable level of expertise. By this time, the student knows how to decompose any musical phrase into its constituent Swarams. They could easily tell you what notes make up 'Roop Tera Mastana'. At this point, the teacher no longer breaks down the lyrics (the text) into their constituent Swarams. (except when the musical phrases are very tricky) The teacher simply sings out the songs and the student tries to follow without making mistakes. It is no easy task, especially given that there could be subtle variations from Sangati to Sangati. The musical phrases, loaded with microtonal features, are simply reproduced without anyone trying to do too much analysis.
THE ADVANCED STUDENT - THE CREATIVE JUICES!
Manodharma:
After several Varnams and Kritis are learnt, it is time for the student to learn to improvise - remember the technical term for improvisation in Karnatic music is Manodharma. At this point, it is also apt to call the student a 'musician'!
Ways of improvisation:
In Karnatic music, improvisation is an 'add-on' to pre-existing music. In other words, you cannot distort a song like 'Roop Tera Mastana..', but you can ADD to it. There are several ways to improvise. Let us examine some of them such as (1) Alapanai (2) Neraval and (3) Kalpana Swaram.
1) Alapanai:
Alapanai is essentially a free format humming. The purpose of the Alapanai is to bring out the total character of a Ragam. Alapanai is sometimes simply called 'Ragam' singing or 'Raga Alapanai'. (It is unfortunate that we tend to use the same word to mean different things in music. If someone says Ragam, it could mean a scale like Shankarabharanam or it could refer to Alapanai. You have to know the context).
The Alapanai is a preamble to a kriti. For example, if the musician is going to perform a song in the Ragam Shankarabharanam, he or she would do an Alapanai just before the song. The musician would try to sing out as many characteristic phrases as possible to enunciate the features of Shankarabharanam. This is a place for him to show his creativity. He would use no texts or words; instead Karnatic musicians use nonsense phrases like 'Thadhari na' and so forth to hum out the tune. (Hindustani musicians use simple 'Aaaaaa') The Alapanai is not set to any Talam either. So there are no constraints on how long the musical phrases are. The Alapanai can be micro-mini, lasting just a couple of minutes and equally well, it can last nearly a half hour.
Sanchaaram:
Just how exactly does one go about doing the humming and bring out the essentials of a Ragam? There is no clear answer to this question. However there is a method to Alapanai singing, even though there is no prescribed algorithm to perform it. The artiste usually starts out in the lower part of the scale of the Ragam, constructing short melodies in that subset of the octave. Then as the Alapanai proceeds, he would meander into the higher notes (this meandering is technically called 'Sanchaaram') - even here he might use just a subset of the scale - and eventually reach even the higher octave. Then he would make up tough melodies, essentially in the very high end of the scale and then would come down in scale slowly and make more complex melodies in the lower part of the scale and would grind slowly to a halt. By the way, this need not be the case in every Alapanai.
Listen to an Alapanai and see if you can identify when the musician is making melodies in the lower part of the scale, when he moves to the higher notes, when he makes complex melodies and finally when he asymptotically comes to a stop. My view is that an Alapanai should be sung before EACH song. It is always nice to elaborate the Ragam to be performed. Also, in a concert situation, an Alapanai lets a musician transition from one song to the next smoothly. Imagine an intense musician performing Shankarabharanam. He cannot abruptly move on to the next song set in perhaps Desh. Here a little Alapanai in Desh could smooth him into the new Ragam.
Even though the Alapanai is an improvisation, very few musicians would walk to the stage cold and start thinking about the Alapanai. The odds are they would have practiced at least some part of the Alapanai leisurely at home or would have rendered them in some other previous occassion. In fact, if you followed a musician from concert to concert, and if he performed an Alapanai in Shankarabharanam in both the concerts, you will see that he actually repeats a lot of phrases. A musician is not graded on how impromptu and extempore his rendition is, but more on what beautiful melodic phrases he comes up with in the Alapanai segment and if some of them are truly 'out of the world' phrases.
2) Neraval:
Neraval is just a technical term given for improvised variation of a line in a song. Typically any one line of the song is chosen and its melody is varied intentionally over and over. Remember, this is exactly the definition for the term Sangati, except that the Sangatis are parts of the original song, introduced by the composer - and they also tend to occur only in the first couple of lines of the song, namely in the Pallavi and Anu Pallavi sections. In 'neraval' you typically choose a line from somewhere in the middle and park out there. For example, you can do a Neraval in the song 'Roop Tera Mastana..' by choosing a line somewhere in the middle - such as 'Ankhon se ankhen' - and endlessly vary the melody to bring out the features of the Ragam. Remember also that since neravals are variations of a line in the song, one must strictly adhere to the Talam structure and the improvised melodies should last appropriate time intervals.
3) Kalpana Swaram:
The third avenue for creativity is what is called Kalpana Swaram - or 'creative Solfege note sequence formation'. Here the musician makes up Swaram sequences (fitted to the Talam, of course) in the Ragam. Sometimes the sequences can be simply mathematical (like Sa ri ga, ri ga ma, ga ma pa...) and some other times very interesting complex patterns.
These 'Swaram passages' are made up typically near the end of a kriti. The musician usually launches into "Swaram singing" from a particular point in the song, usually at the Pallavi, after the entire song is sung. At the end of each Swaram passage, he would come back to the Pallavi. The 'landing' back to Pallavi should be smooth. For example, if the Swaram sequence ended in the note Ni and the Pallavi started in Ga, there is a perceptible discontinuity and such things are not allowed. The Swaram sequence should more appropriately end in a Ri or a Ma to be able to smoothly go into the Ga of the Pallavi. Also, at the end of each Swaram passage, it is not necessary to repeat the entire Pallavi line. Sometimes just a word or two of the Pallavi is sung.
Of course, it is not necessary to choose the Pallavi as the place to 'home in'. Other lines, especially in the middle of the stanza are often chosen as the launching points for Kalpana Swaram blitz. Even though the Kalpana Swaram sounds very constraining (in terms of sticking to the Talam or finishing the Swaram sequence at the appropriate 'note') several performers earn a name for themselves in building up incredibly creative Swaram sequences. There are enough freedoms - for example, the Swarams can be in single speed or in double speed or higher, adding an element of tempo-building to the performance. Sometimes, the musician might make up a 'structure' for the Kalpana Swaram. He might start off with a long Swaram passage and as he progresses in the Kalpana Swaram, he might shorten his sequences to smaller and smaller phrases - and might eventually end up in just single notes - at which point, he would conclude his Swaram singing by launching into a long, final, climactic Swaram passage lasting several Talam cycles. Somewhat like a cadence. Usually, after the Kalpana Swaram, the song is concluded.
So, to summarize, let us see the structure of a Karnatic song ('kriti'), in light of all the Manodharma or improvisation components.
Alapanai (optional and creative component)
Pallavi - Sangati 1
Pallavi - Sangati n
Pallavi - Final Sangati
Anu Pallavi and its Sangatis
Charanam
Neraval of a line in Charanam (optional and creative component)
Rest of the Charanam, followed by (final Sangati of the Pallavi)
Kalpana Swaram (optional and creative component)
Chapter 4 - The exotic world of Carnatic Music
Kalpita / Manodharma:
Karnatic music - the hard core classical music, that is - is divided into two broad areas. The first one is the realm of pre-composed music and the second one is improvisation or creative music. In Indian terminology, the pre-existing compositions are called 'Kalpita' (literally meaning 'that which is taught') and the creative (improvisation) aspects are called 'Manodharma'. Every performing artiste learns both the aspects of classical music. He or she not only has a repertoire of several (sometimes hundreds) pieces of well known songs, but he or she also knows how to create music.
One easy way to improvise is to take an existing song and distort it ! Just look at the way the American national anthem is sung by various artistes in their own unique way ! But Karnatic music tradition has reasonably stringent guidelines on such 'liberties' and where to improvise.
Kalpita:
In the first ('kalpita') part, the pre-existing compositions range from the very simple to the very complicated pieces. There are Bhajan type songs, dance songs, love songs and songs with a lot of vocal gimmicks. Students of music start with such pre-existing compositions, train their voice, assimilate the 'moods' of Ragams, be comfortable with Talams and finally the training wheels come off and they move into the territory of improvisation, where they start making their own melodies as well. Some really talented musicians have whopping careers as pure 'composers' whose songs are performed by other musicians. By and large, most of the famous Karnatic musicians have left their marks not only as performers but also as creators.
3 parts of Karnatic Music:
Most compositions in Karnatic music have three parts to their body. The first two lines of the song (sometimes just one) is called Pallavi. Like 'Raghupathy Raghava Raja Ram...' or 'Roop Tera Mastana' they occur over and over, especially after each stanza. Usually, the Pallavi is followed by two more lines (sometimes just one more). 'Eeshwar Allah Tere Naam..' in Raghupathy Raghava Raja Ram is an example. This portion is called Anu Pallavi. This is sung at the beginning for sure, but sometimes even during the end of the song, but not necessarily after each stanza. The stanzas of a song are called 'Charanam'.
So, a song unfolds as follows:
Pallavi
Anu Pallavi
Charanam 1 followed by Pallavi
Charanam 2 followed by Pallavi
Charanam n followed by Pallavi
Pallavi
Anu Pallavi (optional)
Pallavi
end of song.
Typically, the Pallavi is set in lower tetrachord and in the lower octave (this is not a strict rule) and Anu Pallavi goes to the upper keys and to the next octave as well. Notice this in the song 'Raghupathi Raghava.'. The Anu Pallavi, 'Eeshwar Allah ..' goes to higher frequencies.
THE BEGINNING STUDENT
Learning the simple elements - the 'Kalpita' aspects)
If you are a Karnatic music lover and if a good teacher happens to be around, try to LEARN Karnatic music formally. Seriously. You may not be gifted like some other people and your voice might sound like a vacuum cleaner (many famous Karnatic musicians have lousy voices) - and you may think you are 'tone deaf' or have no musical aptitude. But none of these should come in the way of your attempting to learn music. If people can be trained to learn foreign languages or to ski or to become software programmers, they can be eqully well trained in Karnatic music. Even if you don't become a concert grade musician, you can learn enough to develop a deeper appreciation for music. Nothing like hands on experience.
In the olden ('Gurukulam' or 'Gharaana') days, music was handed down from generation to generation orally and the emphasis was heavily on memorizing and relentless practicing. (Even now practice is a major aspect of learning) These days, Karnatic music teaching has become more modern and streamlined and less painful for the students. Students are taught the theoretical and analytical techniques as well, instead of being forced to regurgitate what the Gurus teach.
The first thing that happens when you start to learn music is figuring out your characteristic octave. In Karnatic terminology this is referred to as 'finding out one's sruti - note that we are now using the word 'sruti' in a completely different sense. This is because, everybody has her or his signature octave which need not begin at 240 Hz. The student is asked to sing out Sa - Pa - and then the sa of the upper ('Tara') octave. From this, the teacher extracts the range of the student's octave.
SRUTHI:
After the octave is figured out, it is then 'captured' on a 'drone' instrument called 'Sruti box' or a 'tanpura'. By 'capturing' we mean that these instruments are tuned to produce those three notes at the appropriate frequencies. If the student's standard octave begins at 260 Hz, the sruti box will play the 'Sa' at 260 Hz, Pa at 367 Hz and the upper Sa at 520 Hz. Throughout the session, the 'drone' instrument will keep playing these notes. Although this may be quite annoying at the beginning, it is a necessary thing. Sometimes, after a lot of singing, people can 'lose' their 'srutis' and instead of producing the Sa at 260 Hz (or at whatever happens to be the person's sruti) they can go completely off their octave and scales. At times like these, you can tune yourself afresh using the drone sounds of the sruti box and come back to your octave. (By the way, for the purpose of writing I am assuming the student to be a male. It can very well be a woman student too. No sexism implied) Not only do beginning students tend to lose their 'sruti' - even experts, sometimes in the middle of a big concert can go completely off their sruti and octave and could sound quite miserable.
If you happen to have a sruti box or a tanpura, it is a lot of fun tuning it to your octave or someone else's. Try it. If you get an opportunity, jump on a concert stage and pluck away at a tanpura, especially if the musician happens to be a big shot. (Just remember not to fall asleep during the concert) The sruti box or the tanpura, by its constant droning also adds an element of harmony to the Karnatic music.
Mayamalavagoulai (Melakarta # 15):
The first bunch of music lessons concern with the production of 'notes' - much like Julie Andrews teaching the Sound of Music kids about Do re mi. (there are corresponding Indian movie songs as well about Sa ri ga ma pa) The emphasis here is for the student to stretch his voice to produce different frequencies and at will. A student-friendly scale like the Mayamalavagoulai (Melakarta # 15) is chosen where Keys 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, and 12 are the Sa, Ri, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni notes. The upper 'Sa' is always added. (Thus we produce EIGHT notes when we sing, although the Ragam has only SEVEN notes. Among other reasons, the eight-ness makes it easy to time this sequence in a binary, Adi Talam which has an eight beat cycle) This particular Ragam is chosen because the notes are 'spread out' across the octave, instead of subtly varying, so that a beginning student can reproduce them easily. The notes are drilled into a student in a variety of excruciating exercises, so that at the end of the lessons, when asked, the student can utter a 'dha' or a 'ri' at the exact frequency. (of course, in his signature octave) .
The initial lessons are purely on tone reproduction. Ragams and microtones come afterwards. Initially, the student only learns the solfege notation - a bunch of sa ri ga ma s - he is not taught any text or lyrics. There will be also exercises on keeping Talam.
Saahithyam:
Then the student graduates to the simple songs called Geetams - the nursery rhymes of Karnatic music. These are often set to mild Ragams - again, the facets of the Ragams are hardly emphasized at this point. The idea is to sing 'in tune' following the teacher. Usually the Geetams are only a few lines long and they do not adhere to the Pallavi-Anu Pallavi-Charanam structure always. The Solfege notes (Swarams) are taught and sung out first and then the lyrics (lyrics are called Sahityams in Karnatic music) are sung out afterwards.
The teacher might first go,
'Ma pa da sa sa ri'
and sing a line of text to fit it.
'Sreee Gana Naada'
(This can be fitted to a three beat cycle Roopakam, since there are six notes.) This is a Geetam in the Ragam Malahari, a derivative of Mayamalavagoulai and is usually the very first Geetam anyone learns.
Ways of Singing:
If you think about it, there are several ways to express or sing out a 'tune' (1) using the lyrics or text (2) humming using syllables like 'la la' or 'aaa' or 'whatever'. You will see that this forms the basis for what is called 'Alap' or 'Alapanai' and lastly (3) you can 'decompose' the tune into the corresponding notes and utter just the Solfege notation - this is called Swaram singing. This version of producing the tune is useful especially if you are learning to play an instrument where you don't care for lyrics anyway.
THE INTERMEDIATE STUDENT:
Once the basics like singing in-tune, keeping Talam etc are mastered, the student is then ready for the more serious compositions. At this point, in addition to learning a particular song, the student is also trained to think in terms of Ragams etc. Even at this point, improvisation is not introduced. Faithful following of the Master is strongly emphasized so that pre-existing songs are reproduced the way they were meant to be - tune, Talam and all. However tempting it may be and however nicer it may actually sound, it is a big no-no for the intermediate student to introduce his own 'stuff' and distort the song. You cannot improve on a perfection like a Beethoven Symphony or a Thyagaraja Composition. (What is your reaction to this?).
VARNAMS:
The student moves on to the next set of songs called 'Varnam's. A Varnam is a song with minimal amount of text. But most syllables will be stretched and twisted quite a bit and a lot of vocal acrobatics will take place. For example, a simple word like 'Swamy' might be stretched to several beats (in terms of time) and might go through several notes (in terms of frequency) and might actually sound like:
"Sw a a a a a a m e e e e e e .."
The idea here is to teach the student a little bit about the Ragam structure, its characteristic phrases, microtonal variations and so on and of course, to be able to train his vocal chords and reproduce such features of the Ragam. The Varnam is also an exercise in maintaining the Talam.
The Varnam consists of the Pallavi - Anu Pallavi - Charanam structure somewhat. Interspersed with this will be a lot of plain 'notes' or 'swarams' in the Solfege nonsense syllables. That is, there will be a lot of Sa, ri, ga, ma stuff sung out explicitly throughout the song. The structure of Varnam is approximately,
Pallavi
Anu Pallavi
Initial Swaram (called 'Muktayi Swaram')
Pallavi
Charanam 1
Swaram 1 Charanam 1 (These Swarams are called 'Chittaswarams')
Swaram 2 Charanam 1
Swaram n Charanam 1
There is only one 'stanza' (Charanam) so to speak. Even this stanza is usually only one line long. The basis for the introduction of Swaram in these songs is to teach the student the main phrases of the Ragam without obscuring the tune with lyrics. As the song progresses, from Swaram 1 to Swaram n, the Swarams get longer and more complicated. It takes longer for the student to learn the latter Swarams. All Varnams are pre-composed, including the Swarams.
Ragamalikai:
Another interesting purpose of singing 'Varnam' is to practice it in the basic, double and even quadruple speeds to get the hang of the Talam correctly. (and also to push the student to the limit of his learning curve) Varnams are usually very bright and lively pieces. There are also slow paced Varnams called Dance Varnams, essentially used in dance recitals. Instead of being in just one Ragam, some Varnams are composed as Ragamalikai, which means it is a song thats uses different Ragams for its various stanzas. (usually about three or four Ragams) .
Kritis or Keerthanas:
Then the student moves on to the mainstream Karnatic songs. These songs are called 'Kritis' or 'Keertanai's. There are subtle technical differences between the two terms, but we are not going to quibble. The Kritis follow the Pallavi - Anu Pallavi - Charanam structure. Usually, interestingly there will be just one Charanam or one stanza rendered in the Kriti. If 'Roop tera mastana ..' were a Karnatic music Kriti, you would only sing one stanza. Of course, there are exceptions. Also, there are songs or Kritis that do not adhere to the Pallavi - Anu - Charanam format. Kritis are usually ornamental and like movie songs, they are developments of a theme. Even though they are set to a Ragam, their purpose is not to bring out every aspect of the Ragam, but simply to produce a musical impact in a listener. So two Kritis set to the same Ragam might sound quite different, even though you might notice many similarities because they are set to the same Ragam. In fact, if you are not musically inclined you won't even notice that two 'kritis' are in the same Ragam.
Sangatis:
Sometimes, in a kriti, the first lines will be varied systematically as the singer repeats it over and over. (This happens even in some movie songs). That is, the Pallavi will be sung intentionally in different melodies as it gets repeated. The text of the line will be the same, but the music will be different. Such variations are called 'Sangatis'. These variations or Sangatis are intended by the original composer (or cleverly introduced by some other musician somewhere along the line) and are parts of the song. If you listen to a Kriti like 'Vatapi Ganapatim' in Ragam Hamsadhwani, you will notice that the singer spends a long time mulling over the first line itself. But if you paid close attention to details, the singer is in fact varying the melody of that line over and over - in other words, the singer is producing the various 'Sangati's. Sometimes, after all the variations are done, the final version of the Pallavi could sound totally different from what one started out with. In fact, usually, the final version of the Pallavi is what is the official version of the Pallavi from that point on - and this is the version that is sung after each stanza (charanam) subsequently. Even Anu pallavi can have associated Sangatis.
By the time a student starts to learn a lot of Kritis, he or she is already at a reasonable level of expertise. By this time, the student knows how to decompose any musical phrase into its constituent Swarams. They could easily tell you what notes make up 'Roop Tera Mastana'. At this point, the teacher no longer breaks down the lyrics (the text) into their constituent Swarams. (except when the musical phrases are very tricky) The teacher simply sings out the songs and the student tries to follow without making mistakes. It is no easy task, especially given that there could be subtle variations from Sangati to Sangati. The musical phrases, loaded with microtonal features, are simply reproduced without anyone trying to do too much analysis.
THE ADVANCED STUDENT - THE CREATIVE JUICES!
Manodharma:
After several Varnams and Kritis are learnt, it is time for the student to learn to improvise - remember the technical term for improvisation in Karnatic music is Manodharma. At this point, it is also apt to call the student a 'musician'!
Ways of improvisation:
In Karnatic music, improvisation is an 'add-on' to pre-existing music. In other words, you cannot distort a song like 'Roop Tera Mastana..', but you can ADD to it. There are several ways to improvise. Let us examine some of them such as (1) Alapanai (2) Neraval and (3) Kalpana Swaram.
1) Alapanai:
Alapanai is essentially a free format humming. The purpose of the Alapanai is to bring out the total character of a Ragam. Alapanai is sometimes simply called 'Ragam' singing or 'Raga Alapanai'. (It is unfortunate that we tend to use the same word to mean different things in music. If someone says Ragam, it could mean a scale like Shankarabharanam or it could refer to Alapanai. You have to know the context).
The Alapanai is a preamble to a kriti. For example, if the musician is going to perform a song in the Ragam Shankarabharanam, he or she would do an Alapanai just before the song. The musician would try to sing out as many characteristic phrases as possible to enunciate the features of Shankarabharanam. This is a place for him to show his creativity. He would use no texts or words; instead Karnatic musicians use nonsense phrases like 'Thadhari na' and so forth to hum out the tune. (Hindustani musicians use simple 'Aaaaaa') The Alapanai is not set to any Talam either. So there are no constraints on how long the musical phrases are. The Alapanai can be micro-mini, lasting just a couple of minutes and equally well, it can last nearly a half hour.
Sanchaaram:
Just how exactly does one go about doing the humming and bring out the essentials of a Ragam? There is no clear answer to this question. However there is a method to Alapanai singing, even though there is no prescribed algorithm to perform it. The artiste usually starts out in the lower part of the scale of the Ragam, constructing short melodies in that subset of the octave. Then as the Alapanai proceeds, he would meander into the higher notes (this meandering is technically called 'Sanchaaram') - even here he might use just a subset of the scale - and eventually reach even the higher octave. Then he would make up tough melodies, essentially in the very high end of the scale and then would come down in scale slowly and make more complex melodies in the lower part of the scale and would grind slowly to a halt. By the way, this need not be the case in every Alapanai.
Listen to an Alapanai and see if you can identify when the musician is making melodies in the lower part of the scale, when he moves to the higher notes, when he makes complex melodies and finally when he asymptotically comes to a stop. My view is that an Alapanai should be sung before EACH song. It is always nice to elaborate the Ragam to be performed. Also, in a concert situation, an Alapanai lets a musician transition from one song to the next smoothly. Imagine an intense musician performing Shankarabharanam. He cannot abruptly move on to the next song set in perhaps Desh. Here a little Alapanai in Desh could smooth him into the new Ragam.
Even though the Alapanai is an improvisation, very few musicians would walk to the stage cold and start thinking about the Alapanai. The odds are they would have practiced at least some part of the Alapanai leisurely at home or would have rendered them in some other previous occassion. In fact, if you followed a musician from concert to concert, and if he performed an Alapanai in Shankarabharanam in both the concerts, you will see that he actually repeats a lot of phrases. A musician is not graded on how impromptu and extempore his rendition is, but more on what beautiful melodic phrases he comes up with in the Alapanai segment and if some of them are truly 'out of the world' phrases.
2) Neraval:
Neraval is just a technical term given for improvised variation of a line in a song. Typically any one line of the song is chosen and its melody is varied intentionally over and over. Remember, this is exactly the definition for the term Sangati, except that the Sangatis are parts of the original song, introduced by the composer - and they also tend to occur only in the first couple of lines of the song, namely in the Pallavi and Anu Pallavi sections. In 'neraval' you typically choose a line from somewhere in the middle and park out there. For example, you can do a Neraval in the song 'Roop Tera Mastana..' by choosing a line somewhere in the middle - such as 'Ankhon se ankhen' - and endlessly vary the melody to bring out the features of the Ragam. Remember also that since neravals are variations of a line in the song, one must strictly adhere to the Talam structure and the improvised melodies should last appropriate time intervals.
3) Kalpana Swaram:
The third avenue for creativity is what is called Kalpana Swaram - or 'creative Solfege note sequence formation'. Here the musician makes up Swaram sequences (fitted to the Talam, of course) in the Ragam. Sometimes the sequences can be simply mathematical (like Sa ri ga, ri ga ma, ga ma pa...) and some other times very interesting complex patterns.
These 'Swaram passages' are made up typically near the end of a kriti. The musician usually launches into "Swaram singing" from a particular point in the song, usually at the Pallavi, after the entire song is sung. At the end of each Swaram passage, he would come back to the Pallavi. The 'landing' back to Pallavi should be smooth. For example, if the Swaram sequence ended in the note Ni and the Pallavi started in Ga, there is a perceptible discontinuity and such things are not allowed. The Swaram sequence should more appropriately end in a Ri or a Ma to be able to smoothly go into the Ga of the Pallavi. Also, at the end of each Swaram passage, it is not necessary to repeat the entire Pallavi line. Sometimes just a word or two of the Pallavi is sung.
Of course, it is not necessary to choose the Pallavi as the place to 'home in'. Other lines, especially in the middle of the stanza are often chosen as the launching points for Kalpana Swaram blitz. Even though the Kalpana Swaram sounds very constraining (in terms of sticking to the Talam or finishing the Swaram sequence at the appropriate 'note') several performers earn a name for themselves in building up incredibly creative Swaram sequences. There are enough freedoms - for example, the Swarams can be in single speed or in double speed or higher, adding an element of tempo-building to the performance. Sometimes, the musician might make up a 'structure' for the Kalpana Swaram. He might start off with a long Swaram passage and as he progresses in the Kalpana Swaram, he might shorten his sequences to smaller and smaller phrases - and might eventually end up in just single notes - at which point, he would conclude his Swaram singing by launching into a long, final, climactic Swaram passage lasting several Talam cycles. Somewhat like a cadence. Usually, after the Kalpana Swaram, the song is concluded.
So, to summarize, let us see the structure of a Karnatic song ('kriti'), in light of all the Manodharma or improvisation components.
Alapanai (optional and creative component)
Pallavi - Sangati 1
Pallavi - Sangati n
Pallavi - Final Sangati
Anu Pallavi and its Sangatis
Charanam
Neraval of a line in Charanam (optional and creative component)
Rest of the Charanam, followed by (final Sangati of the Pallavi)
Kalpana Swaram (optional and creative component)
Chapter 3 - Taalam
Chapter 3 - Taalam
Copyright 2007, Nithin , National Institute of Adv. Sciences.
If frequency and related concepts like tone, scale and octaves form an important ingredient in music, the other equally important element is time and related items like speed, rhythm, meter etc. In fact, a musical piece is nothing but a source of sound emitting soundwaves as a function of time. If you looked into the Western system of musical notation, (the 'Staff notation') you would have noticed that frequency is notated on the Y axis and time is given in the horizontal axis.
Relative, not absolute:
However, in Karnatic music, we do not talk about ABSOLUTE speed - there is no connection to an external clock. This has often led to arbitrariness in speed when songs are performed. Some musicians become well-known for slow rendition of songs. And perhaps an equal number have become equally well-known for their fast rendition of perhaps the very same songs. History and tradition have been the guidelines for the 'speed' of a Karnatic piece
Adagio and Vilambit:
Adagio (one of the many Western music tempos) or Vilambit (a slow speed used in Hindustani music) on Karnatic compositions.
Kaalam = speed
Should be kept constant.
Rhythm :
Repetitive sound patterns.
Meter :
How many times did you 'beat' during the first lines of these pieces ? What you have been doing by tapping or patting is simply 'meter'ing the song to count how long each line lasted - sort of counting minutes.
Structure in a song:
They have lines, stanzas and melodic phrases, much like prose having paragraphs and sentences and words.
Beat Cycle etc:
Let us summarize our concept of beats and cycles and metering. At the beginning of each beat cycle, a new melody seems to emerge. (Melodic phrases emerge even in the middle of the cycle in both the songs; however, fresh phrases almost always begin with each new beat cycle) In fact, if 'baa baa black sheep' happened to be a Karnatic song, it is made up of nothing but melodies which are 7T (could even be 14T or 21T) long in time. In fact, the number 7T is some kind of a 'characteristic time constant' for this song. Therefore, we see that each song in Karnatic music is not only set to a Ragam, but is also composed of a series of melodies which are of specific duration to fit a beat cycle.
Basis for a Taalam:
So if you are a music composer, you should select a beat cycle too. Let us say you selected a five beat cycle - your melodies then are constrained to last 5T or 10T or 15T etc long, but not 3T or 7T. This is precisely the basis for Talam. A Talam is essentially a beat cycle. The seven beat cycle is a seven beat Talam and so forth.
(note: An advanced aside! - In general, a new melody NEED NOT begin JUST at the start of a Talam cycle. In fact, you can choose any point in the Talam cycle, (any beat, or even in between the beats) as the starting point to begin your new melodic phrase each time. This point in the Talam cycle is called 'Eduppu' in Tamil. )
ROOPAKA TAALAM:
The simplest cycle has only three beats per cycle - called Roopaka talam.
Some Rules:
By the way, we do not consider a simple TWO beat per cycle as a Talam. Even though Four beats per cycle is a legitimate Talam, Karnatic music does not consider it. Instead, the popular 'binary' talam is interestingly an eight beat cycle , called Adi Talam. You would have sung the entire first four lines of 'Roop tera..' by the time you completed one cycle of the Adi Talam. A version of the five beat Talam is called Khanda Chapu. There are six beat Talams although sometimes you may be able to get by with just two cycles of the Three beat talam, Roopakam. One version of the seven beat cycle, (which is appropriate for 'Baa baa black sheep') is called Misra Chapu.
CHAPU: cycle is not uniform !
Another quick aside: Misra Chapu and Khanda Chapu are quite popular in Karnatic music. 'Misra' in the context of Talam means seven and 'Khanda' means five and 'Chapu' denotes that the cycle is not uniform ! For example, Khanda Chapu goes one-two, one-two-three - here there is a subdivision of the cycle itself into two parts. The first part with two beats last for a different duration compared to the second part with three beats. So the duration is 2T1 plus 3T2 and not just 5T !
There are more complex Talams than what I have mentioned thus far. There are complexities either due to a large number of beats per cycle (such as eleven, thirteen, umpteen) or due to their internal structure with subdivisions (like the 'Chapu' Talams) Imagine composing musical melodies which perfectly last a time cycle of thirteen beats ! As improbable as it may sound, talented Karnatic musicians in fact choose to compose and perform in extremely complicated and long beat cycles of twenty plus beats per cycle. Legend has it that (of course, in ancient times when kings and queens had nothing to do but to get entertained) a musician sang in a 79 beat cycle and utterly humiliated a rival musician.
However, the vast majority of the compositions are in the simple Talams such as Roopakam and Adi. You can refer to erudite texts on the other less known Talams. In fact, the morphology of Talams rival that of the Melakarta scheme and one can get very sophisticated.
The Talams are 'put' or 'kept' (that is, the beats are counted) by various time-honored ways. Even though at first it might look funny, the familiar way still is to tap one's thighs and sweep with the right hand while squatted. Ask your musically inclined friend to teach you how to 'put' simple Talams like Adi and Roopakam. It is really a good idea to 'put' Talam when you listen to a song. You can not only learn 'keeping talam' in just a half an hour or so of trying, but also see that you are already a step above your friends who don't know about it. In fact, although it can be quite annoying at times, you will see that many, many people in the audience would 'put' Talam in a concert and 'participate' - such feedback is often expected and appreciated by the artistes. In real concerts, the rhythm is kept also simultaneously by percussion instruments like Mridangam or Ghatam.
Kinds of thala:
There are several kinds of thalams. They are Saptha (7) thala, 35 thala, 175 thala, 108 thala, Navasanthi thala etc. Each thala has different parts. We shall consider only Saptha and 35 thalams for elaboration here.
Parts of a thalam:
1) Anudrutham: consists of only one beat, denoted by half moon U. (Aksharakala =1)
2) Drutham: The sign is full moon O. It has 2 beats (Aksharakala =2). After beating by the hand, we continue by turning the hand. This is called Visarjitham.
3) Laghu: there are 5 jatis namely Tisrajati, Chaturasrajati, Khanda, Misra and Sankirna jati.
a. Tisrajati – 13
Aksharakala = 3, After beating, counting from little finger to ring finger.
b. Chaturasrajati – 14
Aksharakala = 4, After beating, counting from little finger to middle finger.
c. Khanda – 15
Aksharakala = 5, After beating, counting from little finger to fore finger.
d. Misra – 17
Aksharakala = 7, After beating, counting from little finger and back to little finger.
e. Sankirana – 19
Aksharakala = 9, After beating, counting from little finger and back to middle finger.
Saptha Thala (7 thala):
Dhruvam, Matyam, Rupakam, Jhampa, Triputa, Ata, Eka thalams. The description is as follows
Thala Defining equation
Dhruva 1 0 1 1
Matya 1 0 1
Rupaka 0 1
Jhampa 1 U 0
Triputa 1 0 0
Ata 1 1 0 0
Eka 1
Generally, each of the sapta thalas has laghu akshara as shown below:
Dhruva – Chaturasra jathi laghu – 14
Matya – Chaturasra jathi laghu – 14
Rupaka – Chaturasra jathi laghu – 14
Jhampa – Misra jathi laghu – 17
Triputa – Tisra jathi laghu – 13
Ata – Khanda jathi laghu – 15
Eka – Chaturasra jathi laghu – 14
Of these 7 talas, Dhruva, Matya and Ata alone have more than one laghu. Also in one thala, we cannot see two kinds of laghu jatis.
35 Thalas:
The 7 thalas by combining with the five jathis become 7 x 5 = 35 thalams. As an example,
Dhruva thalam has five jathis namely:
1) Tisra jathi dhruva thala 2) Chaturasra jathi dhruva thala 3) Khanda jathi dhruva thala 4) Misra jathi dhurva thala 5) Sankirana jathi dhruva thala.
Similarly the other 6 thalas combining with the five jathis result in a total of 35 thalas.
The famous ‘Adi thalam’ is nothing but ‘Chathurasra jathi Triputa thala’ (14 0 0)
Others:
As previously said, there are many other thalams which is not described here.
Copyright 2007, Nithin , National Institute of Adv. Sciences.
If frequency and related concepts like tone, scale and octaves form an important ingredient in music, the other equally important element is time and related items like speed, rhythm, meter etc. In fact, a musical piece is nothing but a source of sound emitting soundwaves as a function of time. If you looked into the Western system of musical notation, (the 'Staff notation') you would have noticed that frequency is notated on the Y axis and time is given in the horizontal axis.
Relative, not absolute:
However, in Karnatic music, we do not talk about ABSOLUTE speed - there is no connection to an external clock. This has often led to arbitrariness in speed when songs are performed. Some musicians become well-known for slow rendition of songs. And perhaps an equal number have become equally well-known for their fast rendition of perhaps the very same songs. History and tradition have been the guidelines for the 'speed' of a Karnatic piece
Adagio and Vilambit:
Adagio (one of the many Western music tempos) or Vilambit (a slow speed used in Hindustani music) on Karnatic compositions.
Kaalam = speed
Should be kept constant.
Rhythm :
Repetitive sound patterns.
Meter :
How many times did you 'beat' during the first lines of these pieces ? What you have been doing by tapping or patting is simply 'meter'ing the song to count how long each line lasted - sort of counting minutes.
Structure in a song:
They have lines, stanzas and melodic phrases, much like prose having paragraphs and sentences and words.
Beat Cycle etc:
Let us summarize our concept of beats and cycles and metering. At the beginning of each beat cycle, a new melody seems to emerge. (Melodic phrases emerge even in the middle of the cycle in both the songs; however, fresh phrases almost always begin with each new beat cycle) In fact, if 'baa baa black sheep' happened to be a Karnatic song, it is made up of nothing but melodies which are 7T (could even be 14T or 21T) long in time. In fact, the number 7T is some kind of a 'characteristic time constant' for this song. Therefore, we see that each song in Karnatic music is not only set to a Ragam, but is also composed of a series of melodies which are of specific duration to fit a beat cycle.
Basis for a Taalam:
So if you are a music composer, you should select a beat cycle too. Let us say you selected a five beat cycle - your melodies then are constrained to last 5T or 10T or 15T etc long, but not 3T or 7T. This is precisely the basis for Talam. A Talam is essentially a beat cycle. The seven beat cycle is a seven beat Talam and so forth.
(note: An advanced aside! - In general, a new melody NEED NOT begin JUST at the start of a Talam cycle. In fact, you can choose any point in the Talam cycle, (any beat, or even in between the beats) as the starting point to begin your new melodic phrase each time. This point in the Talam cycle is called 'Eduppu' in Tamil. )
ROOPAKA TAALAM:
The simplest cycle has only three beats per cycle - called Roopaka talam.
Some Rules:
By the way, we do not consider a simple TWO beat per cycle as a Talam. Even though Four beats per cycle is a legitimate Talam, Karnatic music does not consider it. Instead, the popular 'binary' talam is interestingly an eight beat cycle , called Adi Talam. You would have sung the entire first four lines of 'Roop tera..' by the time you completed one cycle of the Adi Talam. A version of the five beat Talam is called Khanda Chapu. There are six beat Talams although sometimes you may be able to get by with just two cycles of the Three beat talam, Roopakam. One version of the seven beat cycle, (which is appropriate for 'Baa baa black sheep') is called Misra Chapu.
CHAPU: cycle is not uniform !
Another quick aside: Misra Chapu and Khanda Chapu are quite popular in Karnatic music. 'Misra' in the context of Talam means seven and 'Khanda' means five and 'Chapu' denotes that the cycle is not uniform ! For example, Khanda Chapu goes one-two, one-two-three - here there is a subdivision of the cycle itself into two parts. The first part with two beats last for a different duration compared to the second part with three beats. So the duration is 2T1 plus 3T2 and not just 5T !
There are more complex Talams than what I have mentioned thus far. There are complexities either due to a large number of beats per cycle (such as eleven, thirteen, umpteen) or due to their internal structure with subdivisions (like the 'Chapu' Talams) Imagine composing musical melodies which perfectly last a time cycle of thirteen beats ! As improbable as it may sound, talented Karnatic musicians in fact choose to compose and perform in extremely complicated and long beat cycles of twenty plus beats per cycle. Legend has it that (of course, in ancient times when kings and queens had nothing to do but to get entertained) a musician sang in a 79 beat cycle and utterly humiliated a rival musician.
However, the vast majority of the compositions are in the simple Talams such as Roopakam and Adi. You can refer to erudite texts on the other less known Talams. In fact, the morphology of Talams rival that of the Melakarta scheme and one can get very sophisticated.
The Talams are 'put' or 'kept' (that is, the beats are counted) by various time-honored ways. Even though at first it might look funny, the familiar way still is to tap one's thighs and sweep with the right hand while squatted. Ask your musically inclined friend to teach you how to 'put' simple Talams like Adi and Roopakam. It is really a good idea to 'put' Talam when you listen to a song. You can not only learn 'keeping talam' in just a half an hour or so of trying, but also see that you are already a step above your friends who don't know about it. In fact, although it can be quite annoying at times, you will see that many, many people in the audience would 'put' Talam in a concert and 'participate' - such feedback is often expected and appreciated by the artistes. In real concerts, the rhythm is kept also simultaneously by percussion instruments like Mridangam or Ghatam.
Kinds of thala:
There are several kinds of thalams. They are Saptha (7) thala, 35 thala, 175 thala, 108 thala, Navasanthi thala etc. Each thala has different parts. We shall consider only Saptha and 35 thalams for elaboration here.
Parts of a thalam:
1) Anudrutham: consists of only one beat, denoted by half moon U. (Aksharakala =1)
2) Drutham: The sign is full moon O. It has 2 beats (Aksharakala =2). After beating by the hand, we continue by turning the hand. This is called Visarjitham.
3) Laghu: there are 5 jatis namely Tisrajati, Chaturasrajati, Khanda, Misra and Sankirna jati.
a. Tisrajati – 13
Aksharakala = 3, After beating, counting from little finger to ring finger.
b. Chaturasrajati – 14
Aksharakala = 4, After beating, counting from little finger to middle finger.
c. Khanda – 15
Aksharakala = 5, After beating, counting from little finger to fore finger.
d. Misra – 17
Aksharakala = 7, After beating, counting from little finger and back to little finger.
e. Sankirana – 19
Aksharakala = 9, After beating, counting from little finger and back to middle finger.
Saptha Thala (7 thala):
Dhruvam, Matyam, Rupakam, Jhampa, Triputa, Ata, Eka thalams. The description is as follows
Thala Defining equation
Dhruva 1 0 1 1
Matya 1 0 1
Rupaka 0 1
Jhampa 1 U 0
Triputa 1 0 0
Ata 1 1 0 0
Eka 1
Generally, each of the sapta thalas has laghu akshara as shown below:
Dhruva – Chaturasra jathi laghu – 14
Matya – Chaturasra jathi laghu – 14
Rupaka – Chaturasra jathi laghu – 14
Jhampa – Misra jathi laghu – 17
Triputa – Tisra jathi laghu – 13
Ata – Khanda jathi laghu – 15
Eka – Chaturasra jathi laghu – 14
Of these 7 talas, Dhruva, Matya and Ata alone have more than one laghu. Also in one thala, we cannot see two kinds of laghu jatis.
35 Thalas:
The 7 thalas by combining with the five jathis become 7 x 5 = 35 thalams. As an example,
Dhruva thalam has five jathis namely:
1) Tisra jathi dhruva thala 2) Chaturasra jathi dhruva thala 3) Khanda jathi dhruva thala 4) Misra jathi dhurva thala 5) Sankirana jathi dhruva thala.
Similarly the other 6 thalas combining with the five jathis result in a total of 35 thalas.
The famous ‘Adi thalam’ is nothing but ‘Chathurasra jathi Triputa thala’ (14 0 0)
Others:
As previously said, there are many other thalams which is not described here.
Chapter 2 - Raagam
Chapter 2 - Raagam
Copyright 2007, Nithin, National Institute of Advanced Studies
We have learnt about the keyboard, labeled the various keys under the Eastern and Western schemes and even quarreled about whether it should have 12 keys or 22 to an octave. We now know that these keys are like the alphabets in creating music. How then do we compose music?
TUNE/SCALE/RAAGAM:
Before we answer this question, let us see if we can say something about the structure of a 'tune' or the 'melody' itself. If we listen to any musical piece such as 'Jana gana mana' or 'Roop tera mastana', we notice that their second lines and subsequent lines are not just mindless imitation or repetition of the first lines. There is an elaboration of a theme as the song unfolds. You could listen to any line of 'Roop tera mastana' and feel that it is connected to the first line, in a musical sense. If someone played a musical phrase from the song at random, the odds are you would guess that it is from 'Roop tera mastana'. And it may sound trivial, but you also notice that 'Roop tera mastana' does not at all sound like 'Jana gana mana'. There is a character, a structure and an identity to the song, however vague the concept may sound. (note the pun on the word 'sound' !) If you have grasped this abstract concept, you have almost understood the concept of a 'Ragam' (or 'raga' or 'rag') because a Ragam is also an embodiment of a particular musical identity. For example, if you heard the song 'Vande maataram, Shujalaam shuphalaam...' you can tell that it has its own identity, which is different from the way 'Jana gana mana..' or 'Roop tera mastana ..' sound. This song is in fact, based on a Ragam called 'Desh'.
SUBSETS ?
How do we forge such special musical identities using a keyboard? The answer lies in choosing just a SUBSET of keys out of the twelve keys available in an octave (instead of all twelve) and sticking to just this subset of keys while making music. If you used all the keys in the keyboard to compose one song, you may not create anything with an identity. (You will see, as you understand more about music that this statement is strictly not true. There are nice-sounding musical compositions where almost all the keys are used)
Let us take an example. Let us choose just all the white keys in an octave - that is, use only seven out of the twelve keys. And let us play the keys in any order, even stay on one key for whatever length of time if we choose to do so. Let us allow ourselves to go to the white keys in the octaves below and above the standard octave as well. After a few minutes, you may sense an 'effect', a 'whole-ness' ('Gestalt'!) or a personality to the sound. If you don't believe me, have your friend play the keyboard with only the white keys. Now close your eyes and ask him (or her) to occassionally hit any black key. You can easily tell whenever the black keys are hit, because you are now sensitive to the 'structure' or 'character' produced by the seven white keys.
LSL and USL?
Is there a lower limit on how FEW keys we can choose in our subset and still get by? If we chose a subset of just three keys (say, the first three white keys) in an octave and limit ourselves to those keys, we see that we don't have much variety to the melodies we can produce. It may sound like a drum beating. But is devoid of any special melodic personality. In general, (note that this is not an absolute law) one chooses five or six or seven keys out of the twelve keys available in an octave. More about these selection rules later. Once these keys are selected, the corresponding keys in the other octaves are also automatically selected and used in melody making.
AROHANAM & AVAROHANAM
In the context of Indian music, one has an extra degree of freedom. One can choose one set of keys to go up in frequency in the octave and choose an entirely different set to come down the octave, if we so desire. The key sequence to go up is called 'Arohanam' and the key sequence which forms the descending order is called the 'Avarohanam'. More about it later as well ! Let us now stick to 'symmetric' choices while going up or down. At the risk of sounding repetitive, let me say that you can always decide to be a non-conformist and follow none of these so-called rules and conventions. Music is after all, a creative art and the final criterion is whether it sounds pleasing.
HOW TO CHOOSE THE SUBSET ?
How do we select the 'subset' of keys? Our ancestors have done quite a bit of research on such selection rules and have come up with algorithms. Let us look at the Western music first. The 'Major' Scale is a very typical selection algorithm. This helps you select seven keys in an octave. The rules are as follows:
First key - Choose ANY key in the octave.
Second key - Skip the adjacent key to the right, choose the one after that. In effect, you have moved a 'whole tone' from the first key. Remember the concept of 'whole tones' and 'semitones' from the previous chapter. And that the whole tone equals shifting two semitones.
Third key - Again, skip the adjacent key to the right, choose the second one (again, you have moved a 'whole tone')
Fourth key - select the adjacent key. (you have moved a 'half tone' or a semitone)
Fifth key - Skip the next key, but select the one after that. Once again, you have have moved a full tone.
Sixth key - Skip the next key and select the one after that.
Seventh key - Select the adjacent key.
In short, your frequency selection is:
Select a key and then move,
Whole tone - whole tone - half tone - whole tone - whole tone - whole tone - half tone
MAJOR SCALE/ WHAT IS A SCALE ?
If you started with the usual C key, the first white key, you will see that the 'C Major scale' is simply all white keys. This is a very 'major' scale, really, with a lot of popular compositions. And in the process of introducing this algorithm, we have also defined the term 'scale', which is simply a sequence of keys. Also, the algorithm 'wraps around itself'. That is, if you started out with the F key for example, and created the F Major Scale, you will spill over to the next octave. But that is okay, because you can fill up the rest of your scale by starting out with the F key of the PREVIOUS octave. That is, with this algorithm, you will always select seven keys in an octave. A question to ask is - will we get unique sequences using this algorithm every time we start off with a new key? Or is there a possibility of our sequence repeating itself for two different starting keys, i.e, is the C Major scale different from D Major and are there twelve unique Major scales? (I will leave this as an exercise for the very enthusiastic reader !)
MINOR SCALE:
Similarly, other algorithms can also be defined. One other choice is called the Minor scale - which is in reality a generic name for three different algorithms. One of them goes as
Whole - half - whole - whole - half - whole - whole (with the freedom to choose the first key)
UNIQUE SCALES:
I am not giving the selection rules for the other two 'Minor' algorithms. Again there are twelve keys we can select as our first key and therefore we can generate twelve sequences per Minor algorithm and there are three such 'Minor' algorithms, bringing a grand total of twelve times three, thirty six possible Minor scales. But we discover that many of the scales repeat themselves and in reality the number of unique 'scales' are fewer than thirty six Minor plus twelve Major scales.
SELECTION IN THE INDIAN SYSTEM:
Coming back to Indian system, even the ancient Tamil literary work, Silappadhikaram talks of an algorithm called 'Ilikramam', fascinating as it sounds. The rules of Ilikramam are quite similar to the selection of Major and Minor scales. It is really fun to work out this algorithm and derive a bunch of scales. (If you are more interested in this, refer to Prof. Ramanathan's book in the Reference section) In fact, nothing stops you at this point to go ahead and create your own selection rules to choose seven keys out of the twelve in the octave.
MELAKARTA SCHEME:
In Karnatic music, a very famous algorithm exists to select the keys in an octave, which forms the basis of important scales, which are called the 'Melakarta Scheme'. The Melakarta scheme selection algorithm is as follows: Please refer to Fig. 3 or Table II)
Rule 1: Always select the first white key ! The 'Sa'.
Rule 2: Always select the Pa key. This is a convenient midpoint of the octave, sort of.
Rule 3: Select one of the two Ma keys (Ma1 or Ma2 - note that one of them is black and the other one is white) Once selected, this key is your 'Ma'.
Rule 4: Select ANY two keys out of the four keys in the lower tetrachord. (From Keys 2, 3, 4 and 5) Once selected, the first of these two keys will be your 'Ri' and the second your 'ga'.
Rule 5: Select ANY two keys out of the four keys in the upper tetrachord. (From keys 9, 10, 11 and 12) Once selected, the first of the two keys will be your 'dha' and the second will be your 'ni'. This rule is exactly like Rule 4.
Once all the seven keys are chosen, you have your complete sa ri ga ma pa dha ni.
TOTAL NUMBER OF SCALES IN THE MELAKARTA SCHEME:
Let us see how many Melakartas or scales we can build this way. By Rule 4, you can choose two keys out of four in SIX different ways going by the elementary combination theory. Similary, going by Rule 5, we can choose two keys out of four in SIX different ways. By Rule 3, you can choose one key out of two in TWO different ways. So we get
SIX times SIX times TWO = Seventy Two Melakartas or Melakarta ragams.
And they are all unique.
SYMMETRY:
By definition, the Melakarta Ragams are symmetric with respect to going up in octave or down. Saying the same thing more technically, in Melakarta Ragams, the Arohanam and the Avarohanams are simply reversed. The sequence Sa ri ga ma pa dha ni is Arohanam. The reversed sequence Sa ni dha pa ma ga ri is Avarohanam. The Melakarta Ragams are also called 'Sampoorna ragams' or Complete ragams or ‘Janka Raagas’.
SHANKARABHARANAM:
Interestingly, even the Melakarta selection algorithm allows us to choose all seven white keys, the same as the Western C Major scale. In Karnatic music, we call the resulting Melakarta ragam as Shankarabharanam. (You may have even heard of this ragam) In Hindustani music, the set of all white keys is called the 'Bilaval thaat', one of the major building blocks of Hindustani musical system. ]
DUBIOUS “RI/GA” / “DHA/NI”:
Let us now go back to Table II and see why notation 1 makes sense. For example, you can pick up any two keys from the keys 2, 3, 4 and 5 and still call the first one of those as Ri and the second one as Ga. If you chose keys 2 and 5 then, you will sing out 'ri' when you strike key 2 and 'ga' when you strike key 5. On the other hand, if you chose keys 3 and 4 you will say 'ri' for key 3 and 'ga' for key 4. Finally if you chose keys 2 and 3, then key 3 will be a 'ga' (and not 'ri') in this situation. The rule is, the first key used among these four keys is a 'ri' and the second one is 'ga' no matter which absolute position the keys are located at. Keys 3 and 4 have the dubious honor of being a ri or a ga depending on the situation. These arguments are also valid in the upper tetrachord and in the choice of 'dha' and 'ni'. Now perhaps we can understand why three keys were designated as 'ri' or 'ga' or 'dha' or ni.
A COMPLETE RAAGAM !
A caveat. I am using the word 'Ragam' in a loose sense here. A Ragam is not just a scale or a bunch of keys - it is more than that. Remember, I told you over and over and over that microtones are everything in Indian classical music and keys in a keyboard are simply digitized approximations. The seven white keys alone are not enough to give the resulting music the flavor of ragam 'Shankarabharanam' - it is those seven keys PLUS all the associated microtones (I know, I am being vague, but there is no simple way to get around it !) which constitute the 'Shankarabharanam' ragam. In fact, you may hear shades of Shankarabharanam when someone plays the Western C Major or Hindustani Bilaval. But the 'shades' are different for C Major and Bilaval and Shankarabharanam. C Major does not have any gamakam, Bilaval has some and Shankarabharanam has another set of gamakams. It is important to listen to some music and figure out if you can identify an artiste go through gamakams. A simple rolling of the tongue, subtle jumps and modulation or vibrattos are all indicative of gamakams.
BOTH MA’s?
Also, if you are the type that questions authority, you may equally well question the Melakarta selection rules. Why should we include Pa always and why can't we include BOTH the Ma1 and Ma2 keys in the same scale ? In Hindustani music there are ragams which use both the Ma keys, although it is a no-no in Karnatic. (once you become more advanced you will see that even in Karnatic music some pieces use both the Mas)
FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CARNATIC AND WESTERN MUSIC SYSTEM:
Finally, we should notice a fundamental difference between the Western system of scale building compared to the Melakarta scheme. In the Western classical music, you started off on a specific key, used the algorithm to generate the next key, which in turn led you to the third key of the scale and so forth. You sequentially generated the keys one after another by just shifting a whole tone or half a tone. By a curious coincidence even the Ilikkramam algorithm in Silappadhikaram is a similar 'Mode shifting' or 'tone shifting' algorithm. By contrast, the Melakarta scheme is a brutally mathematical scheme where you selected 7 keys out of a possible 12 keys, subject to certain constraints - here you figured out the frequency relationship between the keys much later. One important consequence: In the Western scale system, the keys in a scale are not more than a 'whole tone' apart, i. e, in any Major or Minor scale, you 'skip' at the maximum just one key. Whereas in Melakarta scheme, you can choose Key 1, Key 2, Key 3, Key 7, key 8, key 11 and key 12 by the algorithm. (This corresponds to Ragam Raghupriya) Notice the big gap between key 3 and key 7 (between the 'ga' and 'ma') where we skipped over three keys (This amounts to skipping two whole tones or four semitones). Also, we skipped two keys between 'pa' and 'dha'. (keys 8 and 11) Such large 'Intervals' ('Interval' is yet another musical term !) can produce 'unpleasant' listening experience. And although Raghupriya is a legitimate Ragam, it is about as popular as rain during a picnic.
MORE FASCINATING STUDY OF THE MELAKARTA RAAGA SCHEME:
A scholar named Venkatamakhin invented the Melakarta scheme, way back in the seventeenth century. He was the first to comprehensively classify Ragams in a 'Periodic table' like arrangement. A complete list of the 72 Melakarta Ragams is given in Table IV with the corresponding scales. When Venkatamakhin devised his Table, only a few of the 72 Ragams were known. Using his schematization Venkatamakhin not only cataloged the existing Melakarta Ragams, but also filled in the 'gaps' by coming up with the key sequence for the rest of the Melakarta Ragams. Thus this scheme helped 'discover' new Melakarta Ragams, which in turn led to even newer derivative or child Ragams using those. Composers and performers lapped it up and made songs in the newer, hitherto unknown Ragams. In Table IV, the ragam number 29 is our friendly ragam, Shankarabharanam, although its less well-known official name DhheeraShankarabharanam is used in the table.
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Table IV
The 72 Melakarta Ragams and their scales
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# Name Ri ga Dha ni # Name Ri ga Dha ni
Suddha Madhyamam (M1) Prati Madhyamam (M2)
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1 Kanakanki R1 G1 D1 N1 37 Salagam R1 G1 D1 N1
2 Ratnangi R1 G1 D1 N2 38 Jalarnavam R1 G1 D1 N2
3 Ganamurti R1 G1 D1 N3 39 Jhalavarali R1 G1 D1 N3
4 Vanaspati R1 G1 D2 N2 40 Navaneetam R1 G1 D2 N2
5 Manavati R1 G1 D2 N3 41 Pavani R1 G1 D2 N3
6 Tanarupi R1 G1 D3 N3 42 Raghupriya R1 G1 D3 N3
7 Senavati R1 G2 D1 N1 43 Gavambodhi R1 G2 D1 N1
8 Hanumatodi R1 G2 D1 N2 44 Bhavapriya R1 G2 D1 N2
9 Dhenuka R1 G2 D1 N3 45 Subhapantuvarali R1 G2 D1 N3
10 Natakapriya R1 G2 D2 N2 46 Shadvigamargini R1 G2 D2 N2
11 Kokilapriya R1 G2 D2 N3 47 Suvarnangi R1 G2 D2 N3
12 Rupavati R1 G2 D3 N3 48 Divyamani R1 G2 D3 N3
13 Gayakapriya R1 G3 D1 N1 49 Dhavalambari R1 G3 D1 N1
14 Vakulabharanam R1 G3 D1 N2 50 Namanarayani R1 G3 D1 N2
15 Mayamalavagoulai R1 G3 D1 N3 51 Kamavardhini R1 G3 D1 N3
16 Chakravaham R1 G3 D2 N2 52 Ramapriya R1 G3 D2 N2
17 Suryakantam R1 G3 D2 N3 53 Gamanasrama R1 G3 D2 N3
18 Hatakambhari R1 G3 D3 N3 54 Viswambhari R1 G3 D3 N3
19 Jhankaradhwani R2 G2 D1 N1 55 Syamalangi R2 G2 D1 N1
20 Natabhairavi R2 G2 D1 N2 56 Shanmukhapriya R2 G2 D1 N2
21 Keeravani R2 G2 D1 N3 57 Simhendramadhyamam R2 G2 D1 N3
22 Kharaharapriya R2 G2 D2 N2 58 Hemavati R2 G2 D2 N2
23 Gourimanohari R2 G2 D2 N3 59 Dharamavai R2 G2 D2 N3
24 Varunapriya R2 G2 D3 N3 60 Nitimati R2 G2 D3 N3
25 Mararanjani R2 G3 D1 N1 61 Kantamani R2 G3 D1 N1
26 Charukesi R2 G3 D1 N2 62 Rishabhapriya R2 G3 D1 N2
27 Sarasangi R2 G3 D1 N3 63 Latangi R2 G3 D1 N3
28 Harikambhoji R2 G3 D2 N2 64 Vachaspati R2 G3 D2 N2
29 Dheerasankarabharanam R2 G3 D2 N3 65 Mechakalyani R2 G3 D2 N3
30 Naganandini R2 G3 D3 N3 66 Chitrambhari R2 G3 D3 N3
31 Yagapriya R3 G3 D1 N1 67 Sucharitra R3 G3 D1 N1
32 Ragavardhini R3 G3 D1 N2 68 Jyotiswarupini R3 G3 D1 N2
33 Gangeyabhusani R3 G3 D1 N3 69 Dhatuvardhini R3 G3 D1 N3
34 Vagadheeswari R3 G3 D2 N2 70 Nasikabhusani R3 G3 D2 N2
35 Sulini R3 G3 D2 N3 71 Kosalam R3 G3 D2 N3
36 Chalanattai R3 G3 D3 N3 72 Rasikapriya R3 G3 D3 N3
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This brings out another interesting aspect of the Melakarta Scheme. The names of the ragams are not arbitrary. The names contain mnemonics that spell out which keys are used in the ragam. From the name DhheeraShankarabharanam, we could figure out that it is all white keys ! (Venkatamakhin was lucky that most of the 72 ragams were not known then, so he could assign names to them or add a prefix to the existing ones. Imagine if all the ragams were to exist first and then you try to group them, you may not have such mnemonics possible) In fact, in Hindustani music, such schemes were not invented and now we have hundreds of ragams which are tough to classify using such simple mnemonics. Of course, the absence of such a comprehensive scheme is by no means a negative or a deficiency on the Hindustani musical system. In music, like in most things in life, we don't (and should not) want to make value judgements!
Let me now explain you the mnemonic or the Katayapadi System. (Thanks to R. Pichumani for the notes in this section) A look-up table is created, given in Table V that assigns syllables to numbers.
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Table V
Katayapadi system of naming the Melakarta ragams
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Number 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
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Syllable ka kha ga gha - cha chha ja jha
ta tta da dda - tha thha dha ddha
na pa pha ba bha ma
ya ra la va sha shha sa ha
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The above scheme works as follows:
(1) Assign numbers to the first two syllables of the Melakarta ragam. Example, Harikambhoji, the syllable 'Ha' is 8 and 'ra' is 2 and thus Hari is 82. The melakarta number of this ragam is obtained by simply interchanging the digits, i. e 82 becomes 28 and in fact, Harikambhoji is the 28 th melakarta ragam.
(2) A few more example, Kanakangi. Ka is 1 and Na is 0 and thus Kana is 10. Interchanging the digits we get 10 -- 01 and thus this is the first melakarta ragam.
DhheeraShankarabharanam, here Dhha is 9 and ra is 2 and thus Dhheera is 92, transposing which we get 29 which is the position of the ragam. You can see that Shankarabharanam probably existed before the scheme was invented and thus the author had to alias it to conform to his look-up table scheme. There are other such aliased ragams. The popular ragam Todi is aliased to become Hanumatodi and Kalyani is officially Mechakalyani, just so that they follow the Katayapadi naming scheme. Another example, Mayamalavagaulai, (used to be called just Malavagaulai) has Ma which is 5 and Ya which is 1 and thus yielding 51, which when inverted gives 15, which is the place in the order.
Take SimhendraMadhyamam. Sa is 7 and Ma is 5 and thus Simha is 75 and the melakarta number is 57. However you must notice that the second syllable, Mha is a compound syllable combining ma and ha. In these cases, we usually take the first of the two sounds. There are some exceptions too. In Ratnangi, Ra is 2 and we take the 'Na' part of 'Thna' and arrive at the destination 02. If you used 'Th' instead of 'Na', you will get the number 62 for this melakarta, which is firmly occupied by ragam Rishabhapriya
ADVANTAGES/DISADVANTAGES OF THIS SCHEME
What are the advantages of such mathematical and almost 'hackers' kind of scheme ?
(1) The melakarta scheme does not tell you if a given ragam is a melakarta or not. If you know it is a melakarta ragam, you can find out what number it has in the sequence. For example, you can try to see what number is ragam Poorvikalyani, which is not a melakarta. This would be 21 if you consider Pa ra. (or if you considered Pa and Va it is 41) However, it is not even a melakarta ragam and you cannot use the above look-up table.
(2) Incidentally, if you look up Table IV which lists all the melakarta ragam, you will see that the two very famous ragams Shankarabharanam (called DhheeraShankarabharanam) and Kalyani (called Mechakalyani) have almost identical notes except for the Ma. Shankarabharanam uses Ma1, which is called Shuddha Madhyamam, whereas Kalyani uses Ma2 which is called Prati Madhyamam. Thus the table is divided into two groups of 36 ragams each and the only difference between the ragam on the left and the one on the right is the Ma key used. The first 36 from Kanakangi to Chalanattai are called Suddha Madhyamam ragams and the other 36 are called Prati Madhyamam ragams. Melakartas which differ from each other by 36 (Such as Harikambhoji and Vachaspati, Keeravani and Simhendramadhyamam) have the same Arohanam and Avarohanam except for the Ma.
(3) How do we figure out the Arohanam and Avarohanam or which keys to use from the name of the melakarta ragam? If somebody tells you Keeravani, can you quickly locate the keys on a keyboard corresponding to the ragam ? You just have to look at the Table IV to see how cyclical the whole thing is. All melakarta ragams in the same group of six (i. e, 1 to 6, 7 to 12, 25 to 30 etc) have the same Sa ri ga ma. All ragams which differ from each other by six have the same Pa dha ni sa. (Karaharapriya(22), Harikambhoji(28), Hemavati(58), Nasikabhoosani(70) all have the same Pa dha ni sa, because they all leave a remainder of 4 when divided by 6)
Just to summarize:
(i) All Melakarta Ragams from 1 to 36 use Ma 1. Those from 37 to 72 use Ma 2.
(ii) The ri ga assignment is as follows:
Ri 1 - Ga 1 Melakartas 1 through 6, 37 through 42
Ri 1 - Ga 2 Melakartas 7 through 12, 43 through 48
Ri 1 - Ga 3 Melakartas 13 through 18, 49 through 54
Ri 2 - Ga 2 Melakartas 19 through 24, 55 through 60
Ri 2 - Ga 3 Melakartas 25 through 30, 61 through 66
Ri 3 - Ga 3 Melakartas 31 through 36, 67 through 72
(iii) The dha ni assignment is as follows:
Take the Melakarta number and divide it by six and look at the remainder.
Dha 1 - Ni 1 if the remainder is 1
Dha 1 - Ni 2 if the remainder is 2
Dha 1 - Ni 3 if the remainder is 3
Dha 2 - Ni 2 if the remainder is 4
Dha 2 - Ni 3 if the remainder is 5
Dha 3 - Ni 3 if the remainder is zero
So all you have to do is take a melakarta ragam. From its name determine its number in the scheme. From the number, figure out the Arohanam and Avarohanam. Simple enough !
WHY MAYAMAALAVAGAULAI FOR BEGINNERS ?
Again, among the 72 such major ragams, not all of them are equally popular. Some of them are quite obscure, especially the ones whose keys are not spread apart well throughout the octave. However, many musicians have composed in all 72 melakartas - Koteeswara Iyer for one. Musicians like M. S. Subbulakshmi and S. Balachandar have recorded all 72 melakartas. The Suddha Madhyamam (Suddha Madhyamam is just the official name for Ma 1) group of 36 ragams are by and large more popular than the Prati Madhyamam (Prati Madhyamam is the same as Ma 2) group. The Ma2 is supposed to be more 'negative' and 'sad' !! The more unpopular ragams are the ones like Kanakangi, which use closely spaced keys. The ragam Mayamalavagaulai on the other hand has a well spread out keys - Sa-ri1-space-ga2-ma1-space-pa-dha1-space-ni2-sa. This is the ragam all beginners are taught, essentially because such a dispersed set of notes is more easy for a beginner to learn.
CHILD RAAGAMS / JANYA RAAGAMS
From these complete ragams, you can derive 'child ragams' omitting a key here and a key there in the arohanam or avarohanam. Some melakartas are parents of a large number of popular 'child' or 'Janya' or 'derived' ragams - melakartas like Natabhairavi, Kharaharapriya, Harikambhoji for example. We will see this in the next section.
You may wonder how just one key makes a difference. I just told you that the ragams Kalyani and Shankarabharanam have identical arohanam and avarohanam, except for the key used to produce the 'ma' syllable. You have to listen to your keyboard. Play Kalyani and Shankarabharanam on the keyboard (and even though you don't produce the 'microtones' and even though you are playing an 'eqully tempered instrument') you can tell the two apart. The ma key makes a big difference and one has to simply listen to music a lot to train one's ears.
Since melakartas have the maximum allowed seven notes in a ragam, they have an enormous scope for melody making, compared to a derived ragam that may have less than seven notes. Thus melakarta ragams are very popular in concerts. Musicians choose them for the 'heavy' part of the concert and try to exhibit their mastery.
WHAT IS A RAAGAM ?
Now that we have studied the Melakarta scheme inside and out, let us go on to generate the secondary or 'janya' or derived Ragams (the rest of the Ragams, that is) based on some simple guidelines. These are only guidelines and are not hard and fast rules:
(1) A Ragam should use at least five keys in an octave and utmost seven keys in the Arohanam as well as the Avarohanam.
(2) The Arohanam or ascending order of the notes (or Avarohanam or descending order, for that matter) is obtained by simply taking a Melakarta scale and omitting none or one note or two notes. (Remember, the Melakarta scale has seven notes and so we can end up with seven or six or five notes in the derived scale)
For example, let us (yet again !) take Ragam Shankarabharanam. If we omit the keys 'Ma' and 'Ni' and use only the five white keys Sa, Ri, Ga, Pa, Dha then we obtain a famous Ragam called Mohanam. (Hindustani equivalent is Bhoop or Bhopali)
(Usually, the next octave's Sa is also included for completion and hence the Arohanam will be more correctly given as Sa-ri-ga-pa-dha-Sa. Similarly, the Avarohanam is given by Sa dha pa ga ri sa. You will notice that almost all ragams start with the key Sa. Also, from now on, we will omit saying 'Ri 1' or 'Ri 2' etc. IF THERE IS NO AMBIGUITY AS TO WHICH KEY WE ARE USING.
If we used Sa, Ri, Ga, Pa, Ni, Sa then we get Ragam Hamsadhwani.
If we used Sa, Ri, Ma, Pa, Dha, Sa then we get Ragam Suddha Saveri. (The Hindustani equivalent for this scale is Rag Durga)
If you have a keyboard try to play just these keys and see if you can get a feel for the identities of these Ragams. For example, in Mohanam, the jump from Ga to Pa or for that matter Dha to upper Sa is quite characteristic. Besides Karnatic and Hindustani music, a lot of Oriental tunes are based on the scale of Mohanam!
PENTATONIC (OUDAVA) RAAGAM AND SEXTATONIC (SHADVA) RAAGAM
(3) The five note scale, such as Mohanam, is called a Pentatonic Ragam. The Indian equivalent term is 'Oudava Ragam'. Similary, the six note Ragam is called Shadva Ragam in India or Sextatonic in Western terminology. And the seven note Ragam is called Septatonic or Sampoorna. While the Ragam Mohanam is pentatonic with an implicit assumption that Arohanam and Avarohanam are reverses of each other, other asymmetric possibilities are allowed.
ASYMETRIC COMBINATIONS
A ragam can have five notes on the way up (in Arohanam) and seven on the way down. (Avarohanam) For example, you can have a ragam that is exactly Mohanam in terms of Arohanam (Sa ri ga pa dha sa) but is Kalyani (Sa ni dha pa ma 2 ga ri sa) on the way down. This oudava - sampoorna Ragam is called Mohanakalyani. So you can have oudava-oudava, oudava-sampoorna, sampoorna-shadva etc. combinations. (Melakarta Ragams are of course, Sampoorna-Sampoorna) Also, the Avarohanam need not be the reverse of the Arohanam. For example, you can have a ragam that goes Sa-ri1-ma1-dha1-ni2-Sa (Arohanam) and Sa-ni1-dha2-pa-ma2-ga2-Sa. (Avarohanam) A good lot of ragams are however symmetric. (The same keys used to go up the octave or down the octave)
Once you have chosen the keys, you are restricted to play only those keys, however you can play them any way you want. You can compose a phrase that goes Sa-ma1-ma1-dha1-Sa-dha2-dha2-ga2. You can skip notes if you wish.
VAKRAM ?
(4) Some other ragams, instead of going up or down simply, can go up or down in a zig zag manner - such as Sa-ri1-ma1-ga2-pa-ni2-dha1-sa etc. That is, you cannot simply go up in scale by merely pressing the keys, but you should spiral to the top of the scale. There are not too many such ragams, but such a meandering structure is called 'Vakram', which literally means crooked. This is an additional constraint imposed on the Ragam, besides the key selection.
(5) In some other instances, it may not be easy to define uniquely the Arohanam and Avarohanam of a ragam. Many Arohanams and Avarohanams (i.e, definitions) can exist for one ragam itself. An example of such a Ragam is Ananda Bhairavi. Of course, those Arohanams and Avarohanams will be close to each other and won't be radically apart. This situation exists especially when we try to extract the Ragam equivalent of folk melodies or alien tunes.
AMBIGUOUS RAAGAMS
(6) And finally here is a confusing possibility. There can be two Ragams which have identical Arohanams and Avarohanams, but DIFFERENT MICROTONAL ASSOCIATIONS or Gamakams ! The only way to tell these two Ragams apart is to sensitize your ears to the differences to the Gamakams. Of course, you can never possibly play them on the keyboard as two different Ragams!
You can go ahead and create your own ragam by selecting your own five keys (or six or seven) following the above rules and name it after yourself. (But make sure it doesn't already exist !) However, if you created your own pentatonic-pentatonic ragam, you probably did not choose just the first five keys of the octave. You might have distributed the five keys such that they were spread out in the octave instead of being bunched together, just so that your ragam sounded better. In fact, such subjective criteria have given resulted in only a few Ragams being popular.
6000 RAAGAMS CATALOGED , ONLY 200 OR SO USED THESE DAYS!
Mathematically, there are many, many ragams possible. Choosing five, six or seven keys out of possible twelve keys gives rise to a huge number of combinations. Fortunately, many of the possibilities have been deemed 'boring to the ear' by musicians throughout history. Only about six thousand or so ragams have been even cataloged and of these, only about two hundred or so are even used these days. A ragam's popularity can go up and down, depending on people's taste and the existing political climate of the Karnatic music caucus. So, it is really not a tremendous task to learn about fifty or so of the more popular ragams and be good at identifying them, if at least to impress your friends.
It is always possible to break down any song, even the non-Karnatic music songs into its constituent Swarams and define a corresponding Ragam. Even 'Baa baa black sheep' can be broken into a Ragam. Musicians more clever than we are have done such things and created Ragams out of truly Dravidian folk melodies such as 'Aadu Pambey' (the snake song) or Kavadi Sindhu songs like 'Nandavanathil or aandi' and created ragams like Ananda Bhairavi or Kurunji. Sometimes, the ragam corresponding to songs like 'Baa baa black sheep' may not have enormous scope to create a lot of 'characteristic phrases' and thus limiting creating any more songs based on the ragam.
In general, if two songs sound strikingly similar, the odds are they are based on the same set of notes and thus in the same Ragam. Their basic Ragam is identified typically by pattern recognition, if you are not willing to do detailed decomposition into the constituent keys of their scale.
BASIS OF RAAGAMS: (MOOD)
The basis of Ragams is (1) the use of a restrictive number of keys in an octave (2) go up and down in the octave in a prescribed manner. (3) And yes, throw in the appropriate microtones. These generate specific melodious personalities. The term microtones presents a major difficulty in understanding the totality of the concept 'Ragam'. How exactly can one specify which microtones are involved ? What is the best way to 'notate' the millions of intermediate frequencies ? Instead of getting very analytical about 'microtones' Karnatic music just gets away by omitting a precise definition of a Ragam. In some sense, the 'Arohanam'-'Avarohanam' - this is the ascending sequence and this is the descending order defintion of a Ragam is only an 'operational definition' at best. Since the 'associated microtones' or 'Gamakam' cannot be defined numerically, it has also become fashionable to simply say that a Ragam is a 'Mood' or a feeling or an emotion, if you can even relate to such unmusical terms.
PAKADS OR CATCH PHRASES OF RAAGAMS:
Another way to define a Ragam is by analogy or how it should 'sound' like. And compare it with an established historical 'standard' or 'primitives'. It is always much easier to sing the 'Gamakams' associated with the Ragam - produce the basic patterns - rather than Fourier analyze it. A ragam is alternatively defined in terms of its 'characteristic musical phrases'. These characteristic phrases are called 'Pakads', (in Hindustani music) literally meaning 'catch' phrases.
All these lend a certain amount of mystery to the concept of Ragam. Like blind men trying to figure out an elephant, we are supposed to only know 'a part of the personality' of a ragam. Never its wholeness. We can only know so many 'characteristic phrases' of a ragam, not a complete set of them, even if there exists such a complete set. One song may have twenty of them. Another song in the same ragam might use just ten of them, but a ten other new ones. Musicians are always trying to create newer and newer 'characteristic phrases' to bring out newer and newer aspects of the ragam. One might have thought that they would have composed every possible phrase in the Ragam Shankarabharanam. But people are still making new melodies in this centuries old Ragam ! We will perhaps never run out of tunes in this Ragam.
The easiest way to identify a ragam then is by analogy and trying to figure out if there is a recurring characteristic phrase. Figuring out a Ragam has always been a natural thing for a Karnatic music enthusiast, especially if the Ragam happens to be an obscure one. It is almost like solving a crime. Some of the ragams can be so distinctive that you can recognize them when only two or three notes are played, thanks to the characteristic microtones.
MISRAFYING
Sometimes, life is not quite simple. Our definitions of the term Ragam may be violated. Some talented musicians might introduce extraneous notes occassionally into a well-defined ragam, for nice musical effect. Such a process is called 'Misra'fying. You can have a ragam Sivaranjani played pure - this is a pentatonic ragam. Or you can have Misra Sivaranjani where you occassionally introduce a sixth or seventh note not prescribed in the definition of the ragam. Note that this requires expertise. If you or I play Sivaranjani and try to Misra-fy it, we may go so far off the original ragam that we might sound horrible - resulting in 'besur' or 'Apaswaram'.
Equally incredibly, we have other violations as well. Ragams like Sindhu Bhairavi and Kapi are often played with many more notes than just the traditional maximum of seven. On the low side, people have laid claims to Ragams with just four notes. Again, let your ears be the judge.
Play some classical sounding music and try to see if any particular Ragam thrills you. Anything that turns you off completely? Play instrumental or light classical music at first before embarking on a heavy-duty vocal piece. Is there a piece that moves you? Puts you in a sublime mood? Helps you drive your car ? Goes well in the background when you cook?
The reason for asking these questions is to figure out a little bit about the psychoacoustics. While I do not believe that a particular Ragam could inherently be an 'Angry' Ragam or a Midnight Ragam or bring the rains or tame an elephant, Ragams could very well produce individual psycho-acoustical effects.
Copyright 2007, Nithin, National Institute of Advanced Studies
We have learnt about the keyboard, labeled the various keys under the Eastern and Western schemes and even quarreled about whether it should have 12 keys or 22 to an octave. We now know that these keys are like the alphabets in creating music. How then do we compose music?
TUNE/SCALE/RAAGAM:
Before we answer this question, let us see if we can say something about the structure of a 'tune' or the 'melody' itself. If we listen to any musical piece such as 'Jana gana mana' or 'Roop tera mastana', we notice that their second lines and subsequent lines are not just mindless imitation or repetition of the first lines. There is an elaboration of a theme as the song unfolds. You could listen to any line of 'Roop tera mastana' and feel that it is connected to the first line, in a musical sense. If someone played a musical phrase from the song at random, the odds are you would guess that it is from 'Roop tera mastana'. And it may sound trivial, but you also notice that 'Roop tera mastana' does not at all sound like 'Jana gana mana'. There is a character, a structure and an identity to the song, however vague the concept may sound. (note the pun on the word 'sound' !) If you have grasped this abstract concept, you have almost understood the concept of a 'Ragam' (or 'raga' or 'rag') because a Ragam is also an embodiment of a particular musical identity. For example, if you heard the song 'Vande maataram, Shujalaam shuphalaam...' you can tell that it has its own identity, which is different from the way 'Jana gana mana..' or 'Roop tera mastana ..' sound. This song is in fact, based on a Ragam called 'Desh'.
SUBSETS ?
How do we forge such special musical identities using a keyboard? The answer lies in choosing just a SUBSET of keys out of the twelve keys available in an octave (instead of all twelve) and sticking to just this subset of keys while making music. If you used all the keys in the keyboard to compose one song, you may not create anything with an identity. (You will see, as you understand more about music that this statement is strictly not true. There are nice-sounding musical compositions where almost all the keys are used)
Let us take an example. Let us choose just all the white keys in an octave - that is, use only seven out of the twelve keys. And let us play the keys in any order, even stay on one key for whatever length of time if we choose to do so. Let us allow ourselves to go to the white keys in the octaves below and above the standard octave as well. After a few minutes, you may sense an 'effect', a 'whole-ness' ('Gestalt'!) or a personality to the sound. If you don't believe me, have your friend play the keyboard with only the white keys. Now close your eyes and ask him (or her) to occassionally hit any black key. You can easily tell whenever the black keys are hit, because you are now sensitive to the 'structure' or 'character' produced by the seven white keys.
LSL and USL?
Is there a lower limit on how FEW keys we can choose in our subset and still get by? If we chose a subset of just three keys (say, the first three white keys) in an octave and limit ourselves to those keys, we see that we don't have much variety to the melodies we can produce. It may sound like a drum beating. But is devoid of any special melodic personality. In general, (note that this is not an absolute law) one chooses five or six or seven keys out of the twelve keys available in an octave. More about these selection rules later. Once these keys are selected, the corresponding keys in the other octaves are also automatically selected and used in melody making.
AROHANAM & AVAROHANAM
In the context of Indian music, one has an extra degree of freedom. One can choose one set of keys to go up in frequency in the octave and choose an entirely different set to come down the octave, if we so desire. The key sequence to go up is called 'Arohanam' and the key sequence which forms the descending order is called the 'Avarohanam'. More about it later as well ! Let us now stick to 'symmetric' choices while going up or down. At the risk of sounding repetitive, let me say that you can always decide to be a non-conformist and follow none of these so-called rules and conventions. Music is after all, a creative art and the final criterion is whether it sounds pleasing.
HOW TO CHOOSE THE SUBSET ?
How do we select the 'subset' of keys? Our ancestors have done quite a bit of research on such selection rules and have come up with algorithms. Let us look at the Western music first. The 'Major' Scale is a very typical selection algorithm. This helps you select seven keys in an octave. The rules are as follows:
First key - Choose ANY key in the octave.
Second key - Skip the adjacent key to the right, choose the one after that. In effect, you have moved a 'whole tone' from the first key. Remember the concept of 'whole tones' and 'semitones' from the previous chapter. And that the whole tone equals shifting two semitones.
Third key - Again, skip the adjacent key to the right, choose the second one (again, you have moved a 'whole tone')
Fourth key - select the adjacent key. (you have moved a 'half tone' or a semitone)
Fifth key - Skip the next key, but select the one after that. Once again, you have have moved a full tone.
Sixth key - Skip the next key and select the one after that.
Seventh key - Select the adjacent key.
In short, your frequency selection is:
Select a key and then move,
Whole tone - whole tone - half tone - whole tone - whole tone - whole tone - half tone
MAJOR SCALE/ WHAT IS A SCALE ?
If you started with the usual C key, the first white key, you will see that the 'C Major scale' is simply all white keys. This is a very 'major' scale, really, with a lot of popular compositions. And in the process of introducing this algorithm, we have also defined the term 'scale', which is simply a sequence of keys. Also, the algorithm 'wraps around itself'. That is, if you started out with the F key for example, and created the F Major Scale, you will spill over to the next octave. But that is okay, because you can fill up the rest of your scale by starting out with the F key of the PREVIOUS octave. That is, with this algorithm, you will always select seven keys in an octave. A question to ask is - will we get unique sequences using this algorithm every time we start off with a new key? Or is there a possibility of our sequence repeating itself for two different starting keys, i.e, is the C Major scale different from D Major and are there twelve unique Major scales? (I will leave this as an exercise for the very enthusiastic reader !)
MINOR SCALE:
Similarly, other algorithms can also be defined. One other choice is called the Minor scale - which is in reality a generic name for three different algorithms. One of them goes as
Whole - half - whole - whole - half - whole - whole (with the freedom to choose the first key)
UNIQUE SCALES:
I am not giving the selection rules for the other two 'Minor' algorithms. Again there are twelve keys we can select as our first key and therefore we can generate twelve sequences per Minor algorithm and there are three such 'Minor' algorithms, bringing a grand total of twelve times three, thirty six possible Minor scales. But we discover that many of the scales repeat themselves and in reality the number of unique 'scales' are fewer than thirty six Minor plus twelve Major scales.
SELECTION IN THE INDIAN SYSTEM:
Coming back to Indian system, even the ancient Tamil literary work, Silappadhikaram talks of an algorithm called 'Ilikramam', fascinating as it sounds. The rules of Ilikramam are quite similar to the selection of Major and Minor scales. It is really fun to work out this algorithm and derive a bunch of scales. (If you are more interested in this, refer to Prof. Ramanathan's book in the Reference section) In fact, nothing stops you at this point to go ahead and create your own selection rules to choose seven keys out of the twelve in the octave.
MELAKARTA SCHEME:
In Karnatic music, a very famous algorithm exists to select the keys in an octave, which forms the basis of important scales, which are called the 'Melakarta Scheme'. The Melakarta scheme selection algorithm is as follows: Please refer to Fig. 3 or Table II)
Rule 1: Always select the first white key ! The 'Sa'.
Rule 2: Always select the Pa key. This is a convenient midpoint of the octave, sort of.
Rule 3: Select one of the two Ma keys (Ma1 or Ma2 - note that one of them is black and the other one is white) Once selected, this key is your 'Ma'.
Rule 4: Select ANY two keys out of the four keys in the lower tetrachord. (From Keys 2, 3, 4 and 5) Once selected, the first of these two keys will be your 'Ri' and the second your 'ga'.
Rule 5: Select ANY two keys out of the four keys in the upper tetrachord. (From keys 9, 10, 11 and 12) Once selected, the first of the two keys will be your 'dha' and the second will be your 'ni'. This rule is exactly like Rule 4.
Once all the seven keys are chosen, you have your complete sa ri ga ma pa dha ni.
TOTAL NUMBER OF SCALES IN THE MELAKARTA SCHEME:
Let us see how many Melakartas or scales we can build this way. By Rule 4, you can choose two keys out of four in SIX different ways going by the elementary combination theory. Similary, going by Rule 5, we can choose two keys out of four in SIX different ways. By Rule 3, you can choose one key out of two in TWO different ways. So we get
SIX times SIX times TWO = Seventy Two Melakartas or Melakarta ragams.
And they are all unique.
SYMMETRY:
By definition, the Melakarta Ragams are symmetric with respect to going up in octave or down. Saying the same thing more technically, in Melakarta Ragams, the Arohanam and the Avarohanams are simply reversed. The sequence Sa ri ga ma pa dha ni is Arohanam. The reversed sequence Sa ni dha pa ma ga ri is Avarohanam. The Melakarta Ragams are also called 'Sampoorna ragams' or Complete ragams or ‘Janka Raagas’.
SHANKARABHARANAM:
Interestingly, even the Melakarta selection algorithm allows us to choose all seven white keys, the same as the Western C Major scale. In Karnatic music, we call the resulting Melakarta ragam as Shankarabharanam. (You may have even heard of this ragam) In Hindustani music, the set of all white keys is called the 'Bilaval thaat', one of the major building blocks of Hindustani musical system. ]
DUBIOUS “RI/GA” / “DHA/NI”:
Let us now go back to Table II and see why notation 1 makes sense. For example, you can pick up any two keys from the keys 2, 3, 4 and 5 and still call the first one of those as Ri and the second one as Ga. If you chose keys 2 and 5 then, you will sing out 'ri' when you strike key 2 and 'ga' when you strike key 5. On the other hand, if you chose keys 3 and 4 you will say 'ri' for key 3 and 'ga' for key 4. Finally if you chose keys 2 and 3, then key 3 will be a 'ga' (and not 'ri') in this situation. The rule is, the first key used among these four keys is a 'ri' and the second one is 'ga' no matter which absolute position the keys are located at. Keys 3 and 4 have the dubious honor of being a ri or a ga depending on the situation. These arguments are also valid in the upper tetrachord and in the choice of 'dha' and 'ni'. Now perhaps we can understand why three keys were designated as 'ri' or 'ga' or 'dha' or ni.
A COMPLETE RAAGAM !
A caveat. I am using the word 'Ragam' in a loose sense here. A Ragam is not just a scale or a bunch of keys - it is more than that. Remember, I told you over and over and over that microtones are everything in Indian classical music and keys in a keyboard are simply digitized approximations. The seven white keys alone are not enough to give the resulting music the flavor of ragam 'Shankarabharanam' - it is those seven keys PLUS all the associated microtones (I know, I am being vague, but there is no simple way to get around it !) which constitute the 'Shankarabharanam' ragam. In fact, you may hear shades of Shankarabharanam when someone plays the Western C Major or Hindustani Bilaval. But the 'shades' are different for C Major and Bilaval and Shankarabharanam. C Major does not have any gamakam, Bilaval has some and Shankarabharanam has another set of gamakams. It is important to listen to some music and figure out if you can identify an artiste go through gamakams. A simple rolling of the tongue, subtle jumps and modulation or vibrattos are all indicative of gamakams.
BOTH MA’s?
Also, if you are the type that questions authority, you may equally well question the Melakarta selection rules. Why should we include Pa always and why can't we include BOTH the Ma1 and Ma2 keys in the same scale ? In Hindustani music there are ragams which use both the Ma keys, although it is a no-no in Karnatic. (once you become more advanced you will see that even in Karnatic music some pieces use both the Mas)
FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CARNATIC AND WESTERN MUSIC SYSTEM:
Finally, we should notice a fundamental difference between the Western system of scale building compared to the Melakarta scheme. In the Western classical music, you started off on a specific key, used the algorithm to generate the next key, which in turn led you to the third key of the scale and so forth. You sequentially generated the keys one after another by just shifting a whole tone or half a tone. By a curious coincidence even the Ilikkramam algorithm in Silappadhikaram is a similar 'Mode shifting' or 'tone shifting' algorithm. By contrast, the Melakarta scheme is a brutally mathematical scheme where you selected 7 keys out of a possible 12 keys, subject to certain constraints - here you figured out the frequency relationship between the keys much later. One important consequence: In the Western scale system, the keys in a scale are not more than a 'whole tone' apart, i. e, in any Major or Minor scale, you 'skip' at the maximum just one key. Whereas in Melakarta scheme, you can choose Key 1, Key 2, Key 3, Key 7, key 8, key 11 and key 12 by the algorithm. (This corresponds to Ragam Raghupriya) Notice the big gap between key 3 and key 7 (between the 'ga' and 'ma') where we skipped over three keys (This amounts to skipping two whole tones or four semitones). Also, we skipped two keys between 'pa' and 'dha'. (keys 8 and 11) Such large 'Intervals' ('Interval' is yet another musical term !) can produce 'unpleasant' listening experience. And although Raghupriya is a legitimate Ragam, it is about as popular as rain during a picnic.
MORE FASCINATING STUDY OF THE MELAKARTA RAAGA SCHEME:
A scholar named Venkatamakhin invented the Melakarta scheme, way back in the seventeenth century. He was the first to comprehensively classify Ragams in a 'Periodic table' like arrangement. A complete list of the 72 Melakarta Ragams is given in Table IV with the corresponding scales. When Venkatamakhin devised his Table, only a few of the 72 Ragams were known. Using his schematization Venkatamakhin not only cataloged the existing Melakarta Ragams, but also filled in the 'gaps' by coming up with the key sequence for the rest of the Melakarta Ragams. Thus this scheme helped 'discover' new Melakarta Ragams, which in turn led to even newer derivative or child Ragams using those. Composers and performers lapped it up and made songs in the newer, hitherto unknown Ragams. In Table IV, the ragam number 29 is our friendly ragam, Shankarabharanam, although its less well-known official name DhheeraShankarabharanam is used in the table.
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Table IV
The 72 Melakarta Ragams and their scales
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# Name Ri ga Dha ni # Name Ri ga Dha ni
Suddha Madhyamam (M1) Prati Madhyamam (M2)
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1 Kanakanki R1 G1 D1 N1 37 Salagam R1 G1 D1 N1
2 Ratnangi R1 G1 D1 N2 38 Jalarnavam R1 G1 D1 N2
3 Ganamurti R1 G1 D1 N3 39 Jhalavarali R1 G1 D1 N3
4 Vanaspati R1 G1 D2 N2 40 Navaneetam R1 G1 D2 N2
5 Manavati R1 G1 D2 N3 41 Pavani R1 G1 D2 N3
6 Tanarupi R1 G1 D3 N3 42 Raghupriya R1 G1 D3 N3
7 Senavati R1 G2 D1 N1 43 Gavambodhi R1 G2 D1 N1
8 Hanumatodi R1 G2 D1 N2 44 Bhavapriya R1 G2 D1 N2
9 Dhenuka R1 G2 D1 N3 45 Subhapantuvarali R1 G2 D1 N3
10 Natakapriya R1 G2 D2 N2 46 Shadvigamargini R1 G2 D2 N2
11 Kokilapriya R1 G2 D2 N3 47 Suvarnangi R1 G2 D2 N3
12 Rupavati R1 G2 D3 N3 48 Divyamani R1 G2 D3 N3
13 Gayakapriya R1 G3 D1 N1 49 Dhavalambari R1 G3 D1 N1
14 Vakulabharanam R1 G3 D1 N2 50 Namanarayani R1 G3 D1 N2
15 Mayamalavagoulai R1 G3 D1 N3 51 Kamavardhini R1 G3 D1 N3
16 Chakravaham R1 G3 D2 N2 52 Ramapriya R1 G3 D2 N2
17 Suryakantam R1 G3 D2 N3 53 Gamanasrama R1 G3 D2 N3
18 Hatakambhari R1 G3 D3 N3 54 Viswambhari R1 G3 D3 N3
19 Jhankaradhwani R2 G2 D1 N1 55 Syamalangi R2 G2 D1 N1
20 Natabhairavi R2 G2 D1 N2 56 Shanmukhapriya R2 G2 D1 N2
21 Keeravani R2 G2 D1 N3 57 Simhendramadhyamam R2 G2 D1 N3
22 Kharaharapriya R2 G2 D2 N2 58 Hemavati R2 G2 D2 N2
23 Gourimanohari R2 G2 D2 N3 59 Dharamavai R2 G2 D2 N3
24 Varunapriya R2 G2 D3 N3 60 Nitimati R2 G2 D3 N3
25 Mararanjani R2 G3 D1 N1 61 Kantamani R2 G3 D1 N1
26 Charukesi R2 G3 D1 N2 62 Rishabhapriya R2 G3 D1 N2
27 Sarasangi R2 G3 D1 N3 63 Latangi R2 G3 D1 N3
28 Harikambhoji R2 G3 D2 N2 64 Vachaspati R2 G3 D2 N2
29 Dheerasankarabharanam R2 G3 D2 N3 65 Mechakalyani R2 G3 D2 N3
30 Naganandini R2 G3 D3 N3 66 Chitrambhari R2 G3 D3 N3
31 Yagapriya R3 G3 D1 N1 67 Sucharitra R3 G3 D1 N1
32 Ragavardhini R3 G3 D1 N2 68 Jyotiswarupini R3 G3 D1 N2
33 Gangeyabhusani R3 G3 D1 N3 69 Dhatuvardhini R3 G3 D1 N3
34 Vagadheeswari R3 G3 D2 N2 70 Nasikabhusani R3 G3 D2 N2
35 Sulini R3 G3 D2 N3 71 Kosalam R3 G3 D2 N3
36 Chalanattai R3 G3 D3 N3 72 Rasikapriya R3 G3 D3 N3
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This brings out another interesting aspect of the Melakarta Scheme. The names of the ragams are not arbitrary. The names contain mnemonics that spell out which keys are used in the ragam. From the name DhheeraShankarabharanam, we could figure out that it is all white keys ! (Venkatamakhin was lucky that most of the 72 ragams were not known then, so he could assign names to them or add a prefix to the existing ones. Imagine if all the ragams were to exist first and then you try to group them, you may not have such mnemonics possible) In fact, in Hindustani music, such schemes were not invented and now we have hundreds of ragams which are tough to classify using such simple mnemonics. Of course, the absence of such a comprehensive scheme is by no means a negative or a deficiency on the Hindustani musical system. In music, like in most things in life, we don't (and should not) want to make value judgements!
Let me now explain you the mnemonic or the Katayapadi System. (Thanks to R. Pichumani for the notes in this section) A look-up table is created, given in Table V that assigns syllables to numbers.
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Table V
Katayapadi system of naming the Melakarta ragams
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Number 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
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Syllable ka kha ga gha - cha chha ja jha
ta tta da dda - tha thha dha ddha
na pa pha ba bha ma
ya ra la va sha shha sa ha
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The above scheme works as follows:
(1) Assign numbers to the first two syllables of the Melakarta ragam. Example, Harikambhoji, the syllable 'Ha' is 8 and 'ra' is 2 and thus Hari is 82. The melakarta number of this ragam is obtained by simply interchanging the digits, i. e 82 becomes 28 and in fact, Harikambhoji is the 28 th melakarta ragam.
(2) A few more example, Kanakangi. Ka is 1 and Na is 0 and thus Kana is 10. Interchanging the digits we get 10 -- 01 and thus this is the first melakarta ragam.
DhheeraShankarabharanam, here Dhha is 9 and ra is 2 and thus Dhheera is 92, transposing which we get 29 which is the position of the ragam. You can see that Shankarabharanam probably existed before the scheme was invented and thus the author had to alias it to conform to his look-up table scheme. There are other such aliased ragams. The popular ragam Todi is aliased to become Hanumatodi and Kalyani is officially Mechakalyani, just so that they follow the Katayapadi naming scheme. Another example, Mayamalavagaulai, (used to be called just Malavagaulai) has Ma which is 5 and Ya which is 1 and thus yielding 51, which when inverted gives 15, which is the place in the order.
Take SimhendraMadhyamam. Sa is 7 and Ma is 5 and thus Simha is 75 and the melakarta number is 57. However you must notice that the second syllable, Mha is a compound syllable combining ma and ha. In these cases, we usually take the first of the two sounds. There are some exceptions too. In Ratnangi, Ra is 2 and we take the 'Na' part of 'Thna' and arrive at the destination 02. If you used 'Th' instead of 'Na', you will get the number 62 for this melakarta, which is firmly occupied by ragam Rishabhapriya
ADVANTAGES/DISADVANTAGES OF THIS SCHEME
What are the advantages of such mathematical and almost 'hackers' kind of scheme ?
(1) The melakarta scheme does not tell you if a given ragam is a melakarta or not. If you know it is a melakarta ragam, you can find out what number it has in the sequence. For example, you can try to see what number is ragam Poorvikalyani, which is not a melakarta. This would be 21 if you consider Pa ra. (or if you considered Pa and Va it is 41) However, it is not even a melakarta ragam and you cannot use the above look-up table.
(2) Incidentally, if you look up Table IV which lists all the melakarta ragam, you will see that the two very famous ragams Shankarabharanam (called DhheeraShankarabharanam) and Kalyani (called Mechakalyani) have almost identical notes except for the Ma. Shankarabharanam uses Ma1, which is called Shuddha Madhyamam, whereas Kalyani uses Ma2 which is called Prati Madhyamam. Thus the table is divided into two groups of 36 ragams each and the only difference between the ragam on the left and the one on the right is the Ma key used. The first 36 from Kanakangi to Chalanattai are called Suddha Madhyamam ragams and the other 36 are called Prati Madhyamam ragams. Melakartas which differ from each other by 36 (Such as Harikambhoji and Vachaspati, Keeravani and Simhendramadhyamam) have the same Arohanam and Avarohanam except for the Ma.
(3) How do we figure out the Arohanam and Avarohanam or which keys to use from the name of the melakarta ragam? If somebody tells you Keeravani, can you quickly locate the keys on a keyboard corresponding to the ragam ? You just have to look at the Table IV to see how cyclical the whole thing is. All melakarta ragams in the same group of six (i. e, 1 to 6, 7 to 12, 25 to 30 etc) have the same Sa ri ga ma. All ragams which differ from each other by six have the same Pa dha ni sa. (Karaharapriya(22), Harikambhoji(28), Hemavati(58), Nasikabhoosani(70) all have the same Pa dha ni sa, because they all leave a remainder of 4 when divided by 6)
Just to summarize:
(i) All Melakarta Ragams from 1 to 36 use Ma 1. Those from 37 to 72 use Ma 2.
(ii) The ri ga assignment is as follows:
Ri 1 - Ga 1 Melakartas 1 through 6, 37 through 42
Ri 1 - Ga 2 Melakartas 7 through 12, 43 through 48
Ri 1 - Ga 3 Melakartas 13 through 18, 49 through 54
Ri 2 - Ga 2 Melakartas 19 through 24, 55 through 60
Ri 2 - Ga 3 Melakartas 25 through 30, 61 through 66
Ri 3 - Ga 3 Melakartas 31 through 36, 67 through 72
(iii) The dha ni assignment is as follows:
Take the Melakarta number and divide it by six and look at the remainder.
Dha 1 - Ni 1 if the remainder is 1
Dha 1 - Ni 2 if the remainder is 2
Dha 1 - Ni 3 if the remainder is 3
Dha 2 - Ni 2 if the remainder is 4
Dha 2 - Ni 3 if the remainder is 5
Dha 3 - Ni 3 if the remainder is zero
So all you have to do is take a melakarta ragam. From its name determine its number in the scheme. From the number, figure out the Arohanam and Avarohanam. Simple enough !
WHY MAYAMAALAVAGAULAI FOR BEGINNERS ?
Again, among the 72 such major ragams, not all of them are equally popular. Some of them are quite obscure, especially the ones whose keys are not spread apart well throughout the octave. However, many musicians have composed in all 72 melakartas - Koteeswara Iyer for one. Musicians like M. S. Subbulakshmi and S. Balachandar have recorded all 72 melakartas. The Suddha Madhyamam (Suddha Madhyamam is just the official name for Ma 1) group of 36 ragams are by and large more popular than the Prati Madhyamam (Prati Madhyamam is the same as Ma 2) group. The Ma2 is supposed to be more 'negative' and 'sad' !! The more unpopular ragams are the ones like Kanakangi, which use closely spaced keys. The ragam Mayamalavagaulai on the other hand has a well spread out keys - Sa-ri1-space-ga2-ma1-space-pa-dha1-space-ni2-sa. This is the ragam all beginners are taught, essentially because such a dispersed set of notes is more easy for a beginner to learn.
CHILD RAAGAMS / JANYA RAAGAMS
From these complete ragams, you can derive 'child ragams' omitting a key here and a key there in the arohanam or avarohanam. Some melakartas are parents of a large number of popular 'child' or 'Janya' or 'derived' ragams - melakartas like Natabhairavi, Kharaharapriya, Harikambhoji for example. We will see this in the next section.
You may wonder how just one key makes a difference. I just told you that the ragams Kalyani and Shankarabharanam have identical arohanam and avarohanam, except for the key used to produce the 'ma' syllable. You have to listen to your keyboard. Play Kalyani and Shankarabharanam on the keyboard (and even though you don't produce the 'microtones' and even though you are playing an 'eqully tempered instrument') you can tell the two apart. The ma key makes a big difference and one has to simply listen to music a lot to train one's ears.
Since melakartas have the maximum allowed seven notes in a ragam, they have an enormous scope for melody making, compared to a derived ragam that may have less than seven notes. Thus melakarta ragams are very popular in concerts. Musicians choose them for the 'heavy' part of the concert and try to exhibit their mastery.
WHAT IS A RAAGAM ?
Now that we have studied the Melakarta scheme inside and out, let us go on to generate the secondary or 'janya' or derived Ragams (the rest of the Ragams, that is) based on some simple guidelines. These are only guidelines and are not hard and fast rules:
(1) A Ragam should use at least five keys in an octave and utmost seven keys in the Arohanam as well as the Avarohanam.
(2) The Arohanam or ascending order of the notes (or Avarohanam or descending order, for that matter) is obtained by simply taking a Melakarta scale and omitting none or one note or two notes. (Remember, the Melakarta scale has seven notes and so we can end up with seven or six or five notes in the derived scale)
For example, let us (yet again !) take Ragam Shankarabharanam. If we omit the keys 'Ma' and 'Ni' and use only the five white keys Sa, Ri, Ga, Pa, Dha then we obtain a famous Ragam called Mohanam. (Hindustani equivalent is Bhoop or Bhopali)
(Usually, the next octave's Sa is also included for completion and hence the Arohanam will be more correctly given as Sa-ri-ga-pa-dha-Sa. Similarly, the Avarohanam is given by Sa dha pa ga ri sa. You will notice that almost all ragams start with the key Sa. Also, from now on, we will omit saying 'Ri 1' or 'Ri 2' etc. IF THERE IS NO AMBIGUITY AS TO WHICH KEY WE ARE USING.
If we used Sa, Ri, Ga, Pa, Ni, Sa then we get Ragam Hamsadhwani.
If we used Sa, Ri, Ma, Pa, Dha, Sa then we get Ragam Suddha Saveri. (The Hindustani equivalent for this scale is Rag Durga)
If you have a keyboard try to play just these keys and see if you can get a feel for the identities of these Ragams. For example, in Mohanam, the jump from Ga to Pa or for that matter Dha to upper Sa is quite characteristic. Besides Karnatic and Hindustani music, a lot of Oriental tunes are based on the scale of Mohanam!
PENTATONIC (OUDAVA) RAAGAM AND SEXTATONIC (SHADVA) RAAGAM
(3) The five note scale, such as Mohanam, is called a Pentatonic Ragam. The Indian equivalent term is 'Oudava Ragam'. Similary, the six note Ragam is called Shadva Ragam in India or Sextatonic in Western terminology. And the seven note Ragam is called Septatonic or Sampoorna. While the Ragam Mohanam is pentatonic with an implicit assumption that Arohanam and Avarohanam are reverses of each other, other asymmetric possibilities are allowed.
ASYMETRIC COMBINATIONS
A ragam can have five notes on the way up (in Arohanam) and seven on the way down. (Avarohanam) For example, you can have a ragam that is exactly Mohanam in terms of Arohanam (Sa ri ga pa dha sa) but is Kalyani (Sa ni dha pa ma 2 ga ri sa) on the way down. This oudava - sampoorna Ragam is called Mohanakalyani. So you can have oudava-oudava, oudava-sampoorna, sampoorna-shadva etc. combinations. (Melakarta Ragams are of course, Sampoorna-Sampoorna) Also, the Avarohanam need not be the reverse of the Arohanam. For example, you can have a ragam that goes Sa-ri1-ma1-dha1-ni2-Sa (Arohanam) and Sa-ni1-dha2-pa-ma2-ga2-Sa. (Avarohanam) A good lot of ragams are however symmetric. (The same keys used to go up the octave or down the octave)
Once you have chosen the keys, you are restricted to play only those keys, however you can play them any way you want. You can compose a phrase that goes Sa-ma1-ma1-dha1-Sa-dha2-dha2-ga2. You can skip notes if you wish.
VAKRAM ?
(4) Some other ragams, instead of going up or down simply, can go up or down in a zig zag manner - such as Sa-ri1-ma1-ga2-pa-ni2-dha1-sa etc. That is, you cannot simply go up in scale by merely pressing the keys, but you should spiral to the top of the scale. There are not too many such ragams, but such a meandering structure is called 'Vakram', which literally means crooked. This is an additional constraint imposed on the Ragam, besides the key selection.
(5) In some other instances, it may not be easy to define uniquely the Arohanam and Avarohanam of a ragam. Many Arohanams and Avarohanams (i.e, definitions) can exist for one ragam itself. An example of such a Ragam is Ananda Bhairavi. Of course, those Arohanams and Avarohanams will be close to each other and won't be radically apart. This situation exists especially when we try to extract the Ragam equivalent of folk melodies or alien tunes.
AMBIGUOUS RAAGAMS
(6) And finally here is a confusing possibility. There can be two Ragams which have identical Arohanams and Avarohanams, but DIFFERENT MICROTONAL ASSOCIATIONS or Gamakams ! The only way to tell these two Ragams apart is to sensitize your ears to the differences to the Gamakams. Of course, you can never possibly play them on the keyboard as two different Ragams!
You can go ahead and create your own ragam by selecting your own five keys (or six or seven) following the above rules and name it after yourself. (But make sure it doesn't already exist !) However, if you created your own pentatonic-pentatonic ragam, you probably did not choose just the first five keys of the octave. You might have distributed the five keys such that they were spread out in the octave instead of being bunched together, just so that your ragam sounded better. In fact, such subjective criteria have given resulted in only a few Ragams being popular.
6000 RAAGAMS CATALOGED , ONLY 200 OR SO USED THESE DAYS!
Mathematically, there are many, many ragams possible. Choosing five, six or seven keys out of possible twelve keys gives rise to a huge number of combinations. Fortunately, many of the possibilities have been deemed 'boring to the ear' by musicians throughout history. Only about six thousand or so ragams have been even cataloged and of these, only about two hundred or so are even used these days. A ragam's popularity can go up and down, depending on people's taste and the existing political climate of the Karnatic music caucus. So, it is really not a tremendous task to learn about fifty or so of the more popular ragams and be good at identifying them, if at least to impress your friends.
It is always possible to break down any song, even the non-Karnatic music songs into its constituent Swarams and define a corresponding Ragam. Even 'Baa baa black sheep' can be broken into a Ragam. Musicians more clever than we are have done such things and created Ragams out of truly Dravidian folk melodies such as 'Aadu Pambey' (the snake song) or Kavadi Sindhu songs like 'Nandavanathil or aandi' and created ragams like Ananda Bhairavi or Kurunji. Sometimes, the ragam corresponding to songs like 'Baa baa black sheep' may not have enormous scope to create a lot of 'characteristic phrases' and thus limiting creating any more songs based on the ragam.
In general, if two songs sound strikingly similar, the odds are they are based on the same set of notes and thus in the same Ragam. Their basic Ragam is identified typically by pattern recognition, if you are not willing to do detailed decomposition into the constituent keys of their scale.
BASIS OF RAAGAMS: (MOOD)
The basis of Ragams is (1) the use of a restrictive number of keys in an octave (2) go up and down in the octave in a prescribed manner. (3) And yes, throw in the appropriate microtones. These generate specific melodious personalities. The term microtones presents a major difficulty in understanding the totality of the concept 'Ragam'. How exactly can one specify which microtones are involved ? What is the best way to 'notate' the millions of intermediate frequencies ? Instead of getting very analytical about 'microtones' Karnatic music just gets away by omitting a precise definition of a Ragam. In some sense, the 'Arohanam'-'Avarohanam' - this is the ascending sequence and this is the descending order defintion of a Ragam is only an 'operational definition' at best. Since the 'associated microtones' or 'Gamakam' cannot be defined numerically, it has also become fashionable to simply say that a Ragam is a 'Mood' or a feeling or an emotion, if you can even relate to such unmusical terms.
PAKADS OR CATCH PHRASES OF RAAGAMS:
Another way to define a Ragam is by analogy or how it should 'sound' like. And compare it with an established historical 'standard' or 'primitives'. It is always much easier to sing the 'Gamakams' associated with the Ragam - produce the basic patterns - rather than Fourier analyze it. A ragam is alternatively defined in terms of its 'characteristic musical phrases'. These characteristic phrases are called 'Pakads', (in Hindustani music) literally meaning 'catch' phrases.
All these lend a certain amount of mystery to the concept of Ragam. Like blind men trying to figure out an elephant, we are supposed to only know 'a part of the personality' of a ragam. Never its wholeness. We can only know so many 'characteristic phrases' of a ragam, not a complete set of them, even if there exists such a complete set. One song may have twenty of them. Another song in the same ragam might use just ten of them, but a ten other new ones. Musicians are always trying to create newer and newer 'characteristic phrases' to bring out newer and newer aspects of the ragam. One might have thought that they would have composed every possible phrase in the Ragam Shankarabharanam. But people are still making new melodies in this centuries old Ragam ! We will perhaps never run out of tunes in this Ragam.
The easiest way to identify a ragam then is by analogy and trying to figure out if there is a recurring characteristic phrase. Figuring out a Ragam has always been a natural thing for a Karnatic music enthusiast, especially if the Ragam happens to be an obscure one. It is almost like solving a crime. Some of the ragams can be so distinctive that you can recognize them when only two or three notes are played, thanks to the characteristic microtones.
MISRAFYING
Sometimes, life is not quite simple. Our definitions of the term Ragam may be violated. Some talented musicians might introduce extraneous notes occassionally into a well-defined ragam, for nice musical effect. Such a process is called 'Misra'fying. You can have a ragam Sivaranjani played pure - this is a pentatonic ragam. Or you can have Misra Sivaranjani where you occassionally introduce a sixth or seventh note not prescribed in the definition of the ragam. Note that this requires expertise. If you or I play Sivaranjani and try to Misra-fy it, we may go so far off the original ragam that we might sound horrible - resulting in 'besur' or 'Apaswaram'.
Equally incredibly, we have other violations as well. Ragams like Sindhu Bhairavi and Kapi are often played with many more notes than just the traditional maximum of seven. On the low side, people have laid claims to Ragams with just four notes. Again, let your ears be the judge.
Play some classical sounding music and try to see if any particular Ragam thrills you. Anything that turns you off completely? Play instrumental or light classical music at first before embarking on a heavy-duty vocal piece. Is there a piece that moves you? Puts you in a sublime mood? Helps you drive your car ? Goes well in the background when you cook?
The reason for asking these questions is to figure out a little bit about the psychoacoustics. While I do not believe that a particular Ragam could inherently be an 'Angry' Ragam or a Midnight Ragam or bring the rains or tame an elephant, Ragams could very well produce individual psycho-acoustical effects.
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