Eternal India Encyclopedia

Eternal India encyclopedia

MUSIC

singer or solo instrumentalist create drama, for they tax to the full the alertness and skill of the accompanying percussionist. The de- lay creates suspense, and the precision of the arrival at the same after extended variations provides an explosive climax. Indian music has a very complicated tala structure. This is practically true of Kamatak music, which has in all 35 talas. This system was evolved by Purandaradasa (16th C.) prior to whom there existed an elaborate system of 108 talas. There is a marked difference in the struc- ture and treatment of rhythm and tala in the two forms of Indian music. There is a more precise and mathematical concept of rhythm in Kamatak music while a flowing move- ment is characteristic of Hindustani music. In Karnatak music the medium . tempo (, madhyama ) is precisely twice the speed of the slow ( vilamba ) and the fast (drut) twice that of the medium. In Hindustani music the tempo is gradually increased from very slow to very fast.

To understand the nature of rhythm in music one has to see how time is divided (in the first instance) for rhythm is but a particu- lar arrangement of bits of time. Though time is measured by breaking it up mentally, we do use outside adjuncts like clapping hands, beating together of sticks, striking a mental plate or playing on a drum. A very common way of dividing the flow of time familiar to all of us is the ticking of the clock or clapping hands. We shall represent such ticks or claps by ad infinitum. All the ticks are uniformly repeated and here we have the simplest breaking up of the stream of time. If instead of sounding the ticks in an identical manner, we clap on only every fourth and merely count the intervening ticks without a clap we have -

RHYTHM The most important element of Indian music after the raga is the system of musi- cal time which is the basis of Indian rhythm. The rhythm patterns set to different and complex beats of 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14 and 16 etc are called talas. These correspond to uniform measure of time. The poetic word- ings of a vocal rendering are composed within the frame work of a given'melodic theme and tala pattern. Thus the raga embodies the very synthesis of melody, poetry and rhythm. Indian rhythms are apt to be difficult for foreigners to grasp. This is because a single cycle of rhythm or bar can be built out of units of different duration. The total duration for the cycle can be divided in various ways. When the cycles are repeated in the continu- ous singing or playing, the pattern of accent- ing may vary even if the total duration of two rhythm schemes is the same, and the cycle itself may be long. But one clear punctuation for the listening ear is available in the first beat ( sam ) which is the most emphatic of all the beats in the cycle. The variations by the

(a) 123 123 123 123 123

x.. x.. x.. x.. x . . x . . ad

infinitum

Where every x is a clap. Again, we may arrange the claps in a slightly different pat- tern thus :

(b) 1 2 1 2 3 1 2 1 2 3 1 2 1 2 3

Identification of seven svaras and five interpolated

x . x . . x . x . . x . x . x . .

variants or vikrita svaras making up in all twelve notes to

ad infinitum

an octave. These have different names

in North Indian

(Hindustani) and South Indian (Kamatak) music,

as listed

Here, then, are two arrangements, as they divide time in different ways. In (a) there.are three counts (one with clap and two without) for every 'section' which may be written as a 3+3 pattern. The design in (b) can be called a 2+3 rhythm. The series of continuously grouped in- stants is simply a form of musical rhythm. This is the kind used in Western music. The divisions (or bars, as they are known) are played through in a composition. There is no further ordering of such groupings. Indian music takes these bars and creates the next order. This process leads to the concept of tala which is defined as a recur- ring arrangement of such patterns. The essential characteristic of tala is its cyclic or repetitive nature. That is, a set of rhythmic units are juxtaposed in a cycle and repeat themselves. This is easy to understand if we compare it to the flow of time and recurrence of week days. Time goes forward in a linear fashion; but superimposed on this stream are the days of the week; a Monday, for example, repeats itself making the week a cycle. Similarly musical time flows ahead; superimposed on it is the tala, each stroke appearing again and again in the cycle at regular intervals.

below:

Hindustani

Kamatak

Sol-fa

Tone

Ratio

Sruti

Symbol

Scale

of C

Doh

C

Shadja

Shadjam

Sa

C#,Db

Major

9/8

4

Komal rishabh

Suddha rishabham

ri

Re

D

Suddha rishabh

Ri

Chatussrutiri-

shabham

(Suddha gandharam)

Komal gandhar

Sadharana gan-

dharam

D#Eb

Minor

10/9

3

ga

(Shatsruti ri-

shabham)

Mi

E —

Suddha gandhar

Antaragan- dharam Suddha madhyamam

Fa

Semi

16/15

Suddha madhyam

Ga Ma

2

9/8

4

Teevra Madhyam

ma

Maj F# G _

Prati madhya-

mam

Sol

4

Pancham

Panchamam

Pa

G#,Ab-

Komal dhaivat

Suddha dhaivatam

Suddha dhaivat

dha

Chatussruti dhaivatam

(Suddha

La

A

Maj

9/8

4

nishadam)

Dha

A#,Bb,

Komal nishad

ni

Kaisikhi nisha-

dam(Shatsruti

dhaivatam)

Ti

B _

Min 'Semi

10/9 16/15

3 2

Suddha nishad

Kakali nishadam

Ni

Doh

Cl

(Tara shadja)

(Tara shadjam)

Sa'

Note : If all the shrutis are added from Sa to Sa they will total up to 22. And if all the ratios are multiplied by one another

they will give a product of 2. This is the measure of an octave or a Sthayi.