Eternal India Encyclopedia

MUSIC.

Eternal India

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Fig. One cycle or avarta of ten units

(matras) divided as 2+3+2+3. This is Jhap tal

of Hindustani music. Emphatic beat on 1,

mild beats on 3 and 8, and a wave of hand.

on 6. Beat 1 is

sam

and 6 is

khali.

Let us take a circle of ten beats (Figure)

Careful scrutiny shows that this really is a

2+3+2+3 rhythm. Again, it is obvious that all

the beats are not of the same quality. No. 1

is very emphatic; 3, 8. less so, 6 is vacant. The

other beats are similar to one another. If you

actually beat the rhythm as follows, a good

idea of what this

tala

would sound like can

be got.

Give a strong beat on I, faint claps on

8 wave the hand on 6, and count mentally

the rest (2,4,5,7,9,10) naturally spacing the

beats uniformly. What you now counted was

one cycle of the

tala

known as

Jhap tal

Hindustani music. One such circle of

tala

called an

avarta,

meaning ' a cycle' or

'repetition'.

Thus the whole concept of

tala

has been

fitted into a scheme of temporal divisions.

This is rigorously followed in Karnatak mu-

sic; and while it is theoretically recognized

in Hindustani music, in practice there are

many deviations and exceptions.

The basic part of the scheme is the quan-

tification of time taken "to pierce with a pin

one hundred lotus leaves placed one above

another". 16384

ksanas

is one

anudruta

and

aksara,

the practical unit of musical time

and the brick out of which all further sections

are constructed. (An

anudruta

is obtained as

follows: 8

ksanas lava,

lavas -

kashta,

kashtas

= 1

nimisha,

= 1

kala,

kalas -

chaturbanga,

and 2

chaturbhagas

= 1

anudruta).

The further combinations of immediate

practical use to us are the druta (2

aksaras),

laghu (4

aksaras

) and guru (8

aksaras).

Now,

the aksara (and hence the other groupings)

have no objective time measure. That is one

cannot measure it in terms of a watch or a

metronome. It is purely subjective, though a

certain traditional habit has given it an ac-

cepted time length. Depending, therefore, on

its duration the

aksara

can have three de-

grees of tempo or

laya .

So, there are the

vilamba laya

(slow)

madhyama laya

(me-

dium) and

druta laya

(fast) and each is twice

as fast as the preceding one. Thus

madhyama

laya

is double (in speed) of

vilamba,

and

druta

double of

madhyama .

(In the parlance

of a Karnatak musician

laya

is often called

kala: vilamba laya

is, hence,

chowka kala.)

tala

is constructed out of a choice, of

three limbs or sections known as

anga.

These

are different in duration. The three

angas

are

anudruta, druta

and

laghu.

The first is of

one

aksara

and the

druta

of two. The third,

laghu, is of a variable duration of 3,4,5,7, or

aksaras.

Anudruta

is counted by a beat

druta

by a beat and a wave of the hand;

laghu

a beat and count of fingers: say, a

laghu

five units by a beat + counting of four fin-

gers. These three -

anudruta, druta,

and

laghu

have their signature thus.

Anudruta :

druta : 0 laghu: 1

Since the laghu is of five kinds

(jatis)

with varying numbers of aksaras, it is shown

as : 1

, 1

The five are given individual names :

Tisra laghu

aksaras)

Chaturasra laghu

aksaras)

Khanda laghu

aksaras)

Misra laghu

aksaras)

Sankeerna laghu

aksaras)

Rhythm,

like melody,

has been raised to

a high degree of sophistication.

Besides the

division and distribution of time in

tala

and

the art of drumming, the compositions and

their relation to

tala,

the cross rhythms and

syncopations in actual performance are fur-

ther facets of this fascinating but difficult art.

So it was said that the

first necessity in music

was the control of rhythm,

for otherwise "the

song (and dance) will go out of control, like

a wild elephant without the check of

ankusa

(the elephant driver's hook) and the knowl-

edge of Time is unlimited and even Siva has

not the capacity to cross over its Limitless-

ness".

One important adjective in the above list

(pg. T-3) is

suddha

which means 'pure'. A

Western musician would call this the 'natu-

ral'. The adjective qualifies the position of a

note in a scale considered as standard and in

terms of which other variants are compared.

We shall, therefore, call this the standard

note and avoid the word

suddha.

There is

another fact in the table which cannot escape

our notice; the position of the

suddha

standard

svara

in Hindustani and Karnatak

music. In the former all standard notes, except

madhyama,

are higher than the

vikrita

which

are qualified by the adjective

komal

(soft). In

the other system,

suddha

is the lowest position

and the variants are higher. However there

is one thing common, neither Sa (Doh) nor

Pa (sol) have any varieties; they are, there-

fore, called

achala

(immovable). So, writing

down the standard scales we have:

Hindustani

Sa Ri Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni Sa

(play the white

keys on the harmonium)

C D E F G A B C

This is roughly the major scale of the west

and is used in

raga Bilval.

Karnatak

Sa ri Ri Ma Pa dha Dha Sa

(play the keys

marked in fig.)

D F G

A C

Sa Ri Ma Pa Dha

The suddha svara-s of Karnatak music.

Raga Kanakangi

: In theory and in practice

and

Dha

are called

and

Ni.

South Indian musicians will still call

these as

Sa Ri Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni. Raga

Kanakangi

employs these notes.

Shruti:

The concept of

Shruti

is the most

significant but yet the most baffling aspect of

Indian music and there are as many opinions

as there are writers on the subject. For our

present purposes, we shall understand a

shruti

to be a unit of measurement of the relation

of notes in an octave. As a comparison, there

are the semitones in Western music, twelve

of them to an octave. Similarly, Indian music

'divides' a

saptaka

(Sa to s

) into twenty-two

intervals which are known as

shrutis .

(These

are not necessarily equal in size, in fact they

are not).

Shruti

intervals between consecu-

tive notes in a standard scale are shown in the

table on pg T-3 ; if all of them are added up

they will total up to 22.

In North India the major devotional forms

are

bhajan, keertan

of Bengal and

abhanga

of Maharashtra.

Bhajans

are sung through-

out the North. The subject is the praise of the

Lord: descriptions of the lives and deeds of

Rama, Krishna or Siva and beseeching Him

for grace. Some of the finest

bhajans

have