Improvisation Continued

Everyone can improvise in indian classical music. If taken by it's raw meaning, to be spontaneous, anyone can bang out one note after the other. The trick is to make it interesting which can only be done if there are certain rules that you must follow, or a pattern that you have to fit your improvised tunes in. What I do not understand is how to improvise a piece of music and not make it sound like a copy of something else, or just patterns after patterns put in some logical order. Either the thought behind  my harmonium playing is indiscernible, or it is so simple that I get bored with it. I want to learn to make the thought behind my playing to be distinguishable. I have observed that people put pauses between the phrases that they are playing, but when I try to do that, it sounds broken or incomplete. When improvising a raag, I find it hard to come up with tunes without having a base given to me.  

Prahar of a raag

Since I learned of the thing called prahar associated with each raag, I have been curious as to how this works. I googled it and came up with this page: http://ayurveda-foryou.com/music/raga_time.html, and http://www.ragopedia.com/raga/playtime.html . I learned that the 24 hour day is divided into 8 periods which are 3 hours each. Moreover, each time period has a mood associated with it, which is created by certain combinations of swars. I think that logically, shuddha swars should be sung starting at noon, and then gradually add komal and teevra swars as the time goes on. However, the raags are put together in a different logical order. It seems that there has been extensive study in the field of musicology as to what raag creates most emotion at what time. As a generalization, raags with the vadi in the poorvanga, are played in the evening, and the ones with the vadi in the uttaranga are played in the morning. So I was close, but not exactly right. 

My Observations of Dr Arwind Thatte

   I was watching this you tube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8RcSWLBJys&feature=relmfu.  I observed several things that I can implement in my own playing. First of all, this is a tappa, so It has fast taans, and is very loosely fit into the taal. The raag is khamaj
   Upon listening to the piece several times, I realized that all his notes are crystal clear, and do not overlap with any other notes like I have been doing. Also, there are pauses in playing, but there are no breaks in the taan. Unlike a vocal piece, he starts off with a fast and short tune, and then builds onto that. there is a general pattern of starting high and coming down to Sa. One more thing I observed was that he during the fast portion, he pumped the bellows, and stopped on a pause or teherav. the general effect made for lots o very short pieces put in logical order. I like this because it breaks the song down into individual ideas and still keeps them in conjunction. When he plays a taan in the song, he makes it very clear as to the difference in the taan and the main line. I am not sure how he dose this, but I think it is due to a little pause, not long enough to digress from the taal, but enough to be able to make a distinction. Also when he comes back to the main line, he plays a little louder. All of these practices seem simple in words but implementation is going to be much more difficult. Dr. Arvind Thatte's crisp note playing style differs from how I have been taught to slide between notes, but it is a technique worth learning. 

How to accompany on the harmonium

I play the harmonium when I accompany a singer. I asked my teacher several months ago as to what specifics to follow when accompanying.

He said for classical music, I should play exact note for note what the singer is singing. I had to also play right a the singer was singing, with no delay, as that would make it sound off key. I also had to refrain from playing ahead of the singer. All of this was difficult, because I seemed to have a habit of lagging behind if I didn't know the song, or playing too fast if I did. Through experience, I learned that I had to pump a lot of air into the bellows and play very loud so that the singer could hear over his own voice. I am still kind of confused as to how to do that and still be able to listen to what he is singing. 

For light music, My teacher taught me to use chords in the song as often as possible. This is difficult, because I have to remember the chord shape in time, and not play it too long such that the song had already progressed. I presume that that skill will come with experience. In general, accompaniment is easier for classical music.

The Uklele

Ukuleles are really fun instruments to play! I have one, and I figured out that it is extremely simple, with only four strings, and it has a light relaxing tonal quality. I was wondering how the ukulele come into existence. I checked out the site http://www.geocities.com/~ukulele/history.html, and I learned that the ukulele actually has it's origins in Portugal. The Portuguese that came to hawaii brought along with them, an instrument named the braguinha. The name ukulele means jumping flea, which was the reaction  of the hawaiians to the incredible speed at which the player's hands moved. I had the exact same reaction when I saw world famous Jake Shimabukuro play the ukulele. He is the one that has recently popularized the ukulele with his most famous song while my guitar gently weeps. 

Improvization

Accomplished musicians develop a technique called improvisation. I wondered how they could spontaneously come up with such tunes. After some thought, I concluded that improvisation is nothing more than fast composition; so to learn to improvise, one must learn to compose a tune. To compose, one must have many tunes or patterns in mind which can be arranged and modified. I thin the only way to learn such tunes  is to listen to a lot of music from many people. The accomplished musicians are able to improvise because they have had a lot of experience singing, and listening. I go to Harmonium class, and my teacher tells me that when improvising on aalaps or taans, or during vistar, knowing basic patterns helps. Another thought I had was that the musician must adhere to the raag and the emotion of the song. For example, singing a fast taan on slow woeful lyrics would not sound right

parts of indian classical music

Hindustani classical music has several components: The raga, the taal, and the lyrics. The raga is a specific set of notes grouped together. In total, there are around 150 ragas, and each of them is associated with a certain time of day in which they are meant to be sung. This time is called the prahar. In indian classical music, there are seven notes consisting of Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, and Ni. These notes correspond to the Do Re Mi Fa So La and Ti, of the western scale. Re, Ga, Pa, Dha, and Ni have a normal form and a komal form, meaning a half swar lower.  Ma has a teevra form, which is a half swar higher. Various combinations of these swars create a raag. For example, raag Bhoop is Sa Re Ga Pa and Dha, all in normal or shuddha form. The lyrics in indian classical music are not as important as the melody and variations. When a set of lyrics is set in a raag, it becomes a bandish. A bandish usually has a first stanza called the asthai emphasizing the lower part of the scale, and a second stanza called the  antara emphasizing the higher part. The taal of a Bandish is the rhythm applied to it. There are a many taals including some common ones such as teen taal, bhajan taal, and keherwa. The taals have emphases on certain beats called the sum and Khali, sum being most important, and khali being second. The taals dictate the tempo and rhythm of the bandish. 


Indian classical music is based on the Khyal, literally translated as thought. Due to this, the improvisation is key. The general format for a bandish begins with a raag vistar. This is purely improvized with only swars, and serves to create the mood of the raag. In the raag vistar, each swar in the raag is lowly introduced. Next comes the bandish, followed by a aalaps, or small patterns of swars to showcase the beauty of the raag. Then there are taans which are very fast aalaps, ment to thrill the listener. the bandish is ended with a tihai, or a repitition of the first line thrice to create a dramatic ending.

Hello. This post is an informational post about the harmonium. More specifically, the portable harmonium used most commonly in indian classical music. The harmonium is a piano-like reed instrument, in which the metal reeds vibrate when pressured air causes them to vibrate. The keys on the harmonium open the valves that allow that specific reed to vibrate. In the back of the instrument, are the bellows, which when pumped, create the air pressure that is used to play most reed instruments. another feature of the harmonium is that there are knobs in the front which when pulled, change the broadness of the sound. The resulting sound is similar to that of a reed organ. The first and most basic version of the portable harmonium was made in france, and then shipped to india and pakistan, where the basic concept was enhanced to include drone knobs, and a scale changing feature. These changes were made by Dwarknath Ghose of Kolkata. To give a brief overview of the western harmonium, it is a piano height instrument, and traditional playing style is like a piano (two hands). The bellows are filled using two foot pumps which are in the place of the modern day pedals of a piano. It operates on the same free reed system as the portable harmonium.