Transcript Carnatic Music India

Carnatic Music
Classical Music of South India
India
• Population: Over 1 billion
• Area 1/3 of United States
• 15 major languages and alphabets
–Many regional dialects
• 5,000 year history
Influenced and Unique
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Cut off from neighboring lands by ocean
Deserts
Impenetrable jungle
Major mountain ranges – highest in the
world
LONG History
• Stone Age Evidence Found
• 2500 BCE: Indus Valley Civilization
– Birth of high culture
• 1700 – 500 BCE: The Aryans
– Invaders from Central Asia
– Brought literature: The Vedas
– Prototypes of Gods
– Believed to be source of Indian classical music
KINGDOMS 500 BCE – 1400 CE
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Burgeoning of Hindiusm
Patronage of arts
Natya Sastra
Literature and sciences
Ramayana and Mahabarata written
Painting, sculpture, music (sound?)
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Saraswati: Hindu God
of music
(playing the veena)
The Moghuls 1527 - 1867
• Muslim traders and warlords from Central Asia
and Afghanistan
• General Babur – 1527 Created powerful
Moghul Dynasty which dominated until 1700s
• Muslim
• Lavish patrons of arts
• Great cultural mixing – ragas, hybrid
instruments
British Colonization 1600s-1947
• Economic Exploitation and inherent racism
• Also contributions:
– Railways, communications infrastructure,
universities (English)
– Imported their own music- i.e. pianos and bands
• Pax Britannica
Golden Age of Carnatic Music
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Flourished under British Rule (1700-1900)
1920s- recording industry in India
1930s movies with sound
Adapted European instruments into Carnatic
music – i.e. violin, harmonium (portable reed
organ) clarinet
Recent Carnatic Music History
• “Golden Age” – Late-18th and early-19th
century
• Three saint-poet-composers dominate
– Best-known is Tyagaraja (1767-1847)
– Very accessible songs
• Noted female composers
South India
• Encompasses states of Andhra Pradesh,
Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu
• Occupies 19.31% of area of India
Geography
• Very diverse
• Lies in peninsular Deccan Plateau
• Bounded by Arabian Sea (West), Indian Ocean
(South) and Bay of Bengal (East)
• Two mountain ranges – Western Ghats and
Eastern Ghats
• Major rivers: Godavari, Krishna …
Culture
• Very diverse culture
• Most speak one of five Dravidian Languages –
• A number of dynastic kingdoms ruled over
parts of South India
• Most recently colonized by the British
Carnatic Music
• Roots in distant past
–Courts, palaces, kingdoms, temples
• Vivid imagery from sculpture, murals and
miniature paintings
• Actual sound and style?
Oral Tradition
• Cannot be frozen in time by transcription
• Lives uniquely in each performance:
–Particular day, particular hour,
spontaneity of improvisation
• Effect of recording technology?
Dance
• Very similar to classical music is music for
South India’s dance traditions
• Particularly bharata natyam
• Nattavangam – chanted rhythmic
syllables
(with dance)
• Lyrics often repeated many times
2 BASIC CONCEPTS: RAGA AND TALA
Raga
• Melodic system/Musical personality
• “That which colors the mind.”
• No Western equivalent
Definition
• A collection of notes, a scale, intonation,
ornaments, resting tones. It has particular
musical characteristics and phrases that give it
a distinct recognizable identity.
More on Raga
• Each raga has its own rules
–Ornamentation
–Changing notes
• Learn a raga GRADUALLY. Over many
years.
• “Like getting to know a close friend.”
Raga Continued
• Connected with human emotions
• 9 traditional rasa – “flavors”
– Love, anger, sadness, fear, disgust, wonder,
heroism, laughter, religious devotion
(peacefulness)
• Can be very powerful- magical properties
– Causing rain, auspiciousness, charm snakes
• Can be associated with deities, seasons, time
of day
Raga-mala
• Genre of miniature paintings of raga
• Viewers of painting hear raga
• Listeners of raga imagine painting
• 1650?
• Scene?
Melakarta System
• All ragas relate to a melakarta – a basic parent
scale
• Each melakarta scale has seven notes:
– Sa, ri, ga, ma, pa, da ni
– Sa is tonal center. Never changes!
– Pa is the perfect fifth. Never changes!
• Five of the seven notes change to form 72
possible scales!
Hundreds of raga
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Hundreds of raga in use
Some are popular, some are rare
Some are “major” some are “minor”
Some are simple some are complicated
Some are very old some are recent inventions
• Raga are heart and soul of India’s music
Tala
• Organization of time in music
• Tala: regularly recurring metric cycle
• Spectrum of time in Indian thought
–Fraction of a second
–Yugahs – goelogical time periods
Tala Continued
• Theoretically there are hundreds of tala
• Four dominate today
• Most tala can be performed at a fast, medium
or slow tempo
• Differ from Western time signatures: accents
occur in uneven groupings
3 Functioning Layers
• Melodic Layer
• Drone
• Rhythm
–Associated with particular instruments
Melodic Layer
• Two Parts:
• Principal melodic soloist that dominates the
ensemble
– Usually voice. Can be violin, bamboo flute, veena..
• Melodic Accompanist who aids the soloist
– Plays with vocalist
– Echoes and supports improvisations
– Plays solo improvisations
Veena
Drone
• Holds one or two notes throughout a piece
• Specialized drone instruments
– Tambura: four-stringed plucked instrument tuned
to tonal center and fifth
• Purposeful Buzzing timbre
– Sruti Box: Played with bellows
– Today electronic synthesizer
Tambur
• Sruti Box
Rhythm/Percussion
• Bedrock of the ensemble
• Mridangam: principal percussion instrument
• Ghatam: large clay pot
• Kanjira: tambourine
• Morsang: jaw’s harp
Mridangam
Drummer’s Art
• Improvisatory style
• Based on hundreds of memorized rhythm
patterns and drum strokes
• Art centers on drum strokes
• Sollukattu – spoken syllables
• Drummer is crucial!
Gurukula System
• Apprenticeship with guru
• Very rigorous training
Concert Song Forms
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Start: Varnam
Continues: Kriti
Main Item: Often a Kriti
End: More relaxed atmosphere
– Devotional music
Kriti
• Made up of numerous sections
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– Alapana
– Tanam
– Kriti “Sarasiruha”
– Kalpana svaras 1 & 2
– Tani avartanam
– Kriti (return and close)
Alapana
• First section of a performance
• Free-flowing exposition and exploration of the
raga of the kriti
• Voice/instrument and drone background
• Nonmetrical (no regular beat/tala)
• Has general plan
– Slow, low  high, fast  slow, low
Tanam
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Highly-rhythmic exposition of the raga
Improvised
No tala cycles but strong sense of beat
Like Alapana trace from low to high in
graduated steps and back down again.
Kriti
• The major song form of the concert
• May be short or very long
• Very flexible structure
• Sung or not, the words influence the
performance
Kalpana Svaras
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Improvised section
At the end of or after a kriti
Singer sings names of notes!
Returns to phrase from kriti as home base
(idam)
• First short simple improvisations
• Then longer and more complex
Tani Avartanam
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Improvised and precomposed rhythmic solo
By mridangam
Conclusion of the main item in a concert
Can be 10/15 minutes or more
Displays his skills and imagination
• Ends on korvai – big pattern repeated three times
• Leads back into kriti phrase
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI9RJbljBL
w Rohan Krishnamurthy video
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLA58vTFI0&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=P
L91F824B8ECE3D33C Veena Master
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBwAV8ur
kvw Shruti Box
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxPwJ93a
WcI With Tampura