ETHN 100

[Raga Nat Bhairav on the mohan vina]Before Reading: This piece starts out with a simple strumming of the tonic on the drone instrument (presumably a tambura), and with the melodic instrument (a vina, also presumably) improvising over it. At first it travels down the scale from the tonic (albeit crookedly), before bending back up and reaching the tonic again. The strumming of the drone becomes faster as the melody reaches higher notes, although there is still no rhythmic accompaniment, or tangible tala. After much of this improvisation, a drum finally comes in (tabla, perhaps?). I can’t tell what tala the drum is in, but it’s definitely not Tintal. I can’t find a distinct pattern between stressed and unstressed beats in the drumming, but the entire piece speeds up exponentially as it continues, and the increased speed of the three instruments creates a frenzied feeling. The frenzy continues until the very last beat, when all three instruments stop playing together (the only unison movement in the entire piece.) Had I not been a student in this class, I would say the piece sounds mysterious and exotic, and reminds me of the 60s Beatle-hippie aesthetic, as these would be my only cultural references for Hindustani music. However, knowing what I know from previous classes, this Raga follows the patterns of a typical raga perfectly: it has a clear alap (slow, improvisational and drum-less beginning) followed by a gat (when the percussion enters and a rhythm is established.)After reading:Raga Bhairav is an early morning raga, meant to instill a sense of devotion in the listener. It accomplishes this through a concept similar to that of Tarab, from the Takht ensembles we discussed earlier; the melody starts out simple and clear, then becomes increasingly frantic and intricate as the soul of the listener is awakened. There are two major flaws in my assumptions about this Raga: The first is that the melodic instrument was a vina (though I assumed this from the title of the piece.) In fact, the melodic instrument is a guitar, something I did not know was utilized in Hindustani music (it was apparently popularized by one of Shankar’s disciples, Bhatt.) The second incorrect assumption I made was about the tala: This raga actually is in Tintal. I was completely wrong about the meter, proving just how difficult keeping tala is. There is also a Tihai at the end of the raga that I could not distinguish without the help of

Tihai #2Before reading:  This piece is clearly focused on rhythms. The singer uses different syllables (da, din, tin, teta, gadi etc.) to accent different beats. This occurs in two ways; the amount of syllables in the word, and the tone of the syllables. For the first four measures (assuming a measure is 4 beats), the first syllable of the measure has a lower resonance than the following three (DA din din da DA din din da), and the rhythm is simply one syllable per beat. After four measures of this, however, the rhythm changes, as more syllables are added to the “tongue twister.” There are 9 syllables total, now, spread out over 4 beats– this results in heavy syncopation and a sort of musical enjambment where the same phrase is repeated thrice, and by the third repetition, the last syllable falls on the final beat of the measure.After reading: Tala (the section this sound clip fell under) is the rhythm underlying Hindustani music, which explains why this piece was so monotonous and rhythmically focused. This particular clip is in Tintal, the Hindustani equivalent of 4/4 (a 16 beat cycle.) The syllables are used to help the listener ‘keep tala’ with the musician, or follow along in the beat cycle. Basic tintal always uses these syllables (dha, din, ta, tin), as the clip does in the first beat cycle. But the following cycles are called a Tihai– when a particular phrase is repeated three times, as a sort of climactic build up in the rhythm. A Tihai will always end on the last beat of the cycle (also the first of the next cycle- called ‘Sam’), so that the original rhythm of the beat cycle is restored evenly. This is exemplified perfectly in this Tihai #2, as the repetition of “teta Kata Ghdi Dhena Da” (sp?) happens three times, and then flows perfectly back into the original Tintal, “Da Dhin Dhin Da.”

Maira Clancy
February 24, 2009
Ethnomusicology 100 – Fraser

Listening Journal #3 – Responses to
1)“Rag Basant” The Raga Guide: A Survey of 74 Hindustani Ragas CD1 #8
2) Mohan Vina: “Raga Nat Bhairav,” Vishwa Mohan Bhatt
3) Sarod: “Rag Chandranandan,” Parts 1-5, Ali Akbar Khan

1) I love the feel of this song. The eerie flute sets the tone of a dark and mysterious atmosphere, alongside of the droning, starry tambura lines in the background. As soon as the tabla drums kick in, the song’s beat and rhythm are given a new pulse. Thus, the song receives a new sort of energy – that of a chase. I can imagine myself as a beautiful, tropical fish swimming in the Indian Ocean: at first cautious of predators, and in the blink of an eye be swimming away for my life. The flute definitely adds to this sensation that I personally feel from this song because of the strong association I have between flutes and fish from a segment of Walt Disney’s Fantasia (which, coincidentally, also is set to music of an Arabic/Indian influence, and so strengthens this association).
2) This song is absolutely gorgeous. I love how the sitarist (or sarodist) plays their instrument like a guitar. This song is extremely Western-influenced, or at least it appears that way to me, not only because of the guitar-sound quality of the Indian instrument. The scales used to create the melodies also sounded similar to the do-re-mi traditions of the Western world. This song also made me feel like I was in a resonant chamber by the timbre of the sitar. It was so warm and bright and pure-sounding as chords were imposed upon the beats.
3) The sitar confidently drives this song. The tabla parts are definitely very intricate and intriguing, however, the voices of the drums seem less layered and complex than the tabla parts in other songs. The fast, drum-rolling style of certain parts in this song only detracts from the versatility one could extract from this hand drum. A few parts in the middle of the song are a bit lagging in creativity to distinguish themselves amongst the rest (namely parts 2-4) but I think that this adds to the buildup at the end of the song, where a sort of musical orgasm takes place. The monotonous, droning middle of the song also serves as juxtaposition to the explosive ending.

fantasia clip – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDQmMwHIuq0

I’ve learned quite a bit about Carnatic and Hindustani music since my last listening journal, and several elements of this piece were instantly recognizable and familiar to me as things we discussed in class. The ascending and descending melody is clearly a raga. I noticed that the melody often made use of ornamentation. I could tell that some sort of tala was repeating in the background. I can’t fully discern either, but understanding that they are present changes to experience of listening. The piece as a whole seems much more structured. To me, this piece was similar in mood to the other Hindustani pieces we’ve been listening to: intense but controlled. I liked how the tabla came in and added another dimension to the piece. When the instrumentation is sparse as it is here, everything seems much more significant.

Maira Clancy
February 22, 2009
Ethnomusicology 100-01 Fraser
Assignment 3: Music and Religion

Throughout my entire life, religion has played a confusing role in my spiritual development. We were the family who would only show up to Catholic mass twice a year, on Christmas and Easter day, because my dad is non-believer. However, to please his Irish Catholic mother, my father enrolled my sisters and me in Sunday school classes (oh how guilt-ridden-Catholic of him!). And so, instead of praising God at Church, I learned how to fear Him from the propaganda that Nuns fed me for an hour every week (unless my sister Caitlin and I chose to skip Jesus class and go to the bagel shop around the corner).

When we were dragged to church – say in the instance that Grandma Clancy was visiting – I always found the music selections and sing-alongs to be somewhat terrifying. In the Catholic Church, the music is usually composed of an old Priest belting out ominous phrases, while an organ haunts the air with minor chords and the Congregation chants along (by the sound of it, I used to think that the audience was a bit tone deaf). It wasn’t pretty.

For centuries, the Catholic Church has been infamous for claiming members and maintaining their support by using fear tactics, which, over time, have seeped into the music written for their cause. This did not work on me. The threatening songs about how God was my only option only made me want to push away the concept of God that they were singing about. In elementary school, I was so afraid of being a slave to Jesus Christ and this Catholic God that I threw out a crucifix that hung on my bedroom wall (you know, the realistic, Catholic exhibitions of their dying Savior). Although I felt terrible for days and had nightmares about going to hell, I realized that I did not have to feed into their methodology and that if I did not agree, I wouldn’t pretend to out of terror.
When my grandmother died, we abandoned church altogether and I was slowly realizing where my spirit belonged: not in the realm of religion, but in the realm of music. I understood the love that Catholics felt for God; I only felt it for something completely different; the joy of an art form filled my heart. So in the end, the music of God (which should have been my most enjoyed church experience given I’ve always been a music lover) made me reject Him. I could see through the transparency of their lyrics.

To briefly compare these songs with the Islamic “music” (or the prayers in Muslim music that used instruments and voice to convey a message), both practices used music in similar ways to praise their respective Lords. They all sing about how their God is the only God and how their prophet is the only true prophet to believe in. However, the interactions between the audience and the performers are vastly different in these two cases. In the case of Islamic “music” in religion, the members experience a divine connection to God that leads to a feeling of elation and ecstasy. They dance and chant the words by heart, some even foam at the mouth from excitement, while the musicians improvise and play. In the Catholic Church, the sing-alongs are much more cold and calculated. The congregation reads right out of the song books, no one dances or claps, and the music is always played right out of a music book onto an organ. It is a much more formal process, and thus it implies a greater distance from the Catholics to their God.

The first thing I noticed about this piece was the first thing I heard: the drone characteristic of many Indian pieces. The initial melody seemed to a be a simple scale, but it quickly became a more complex series of phrases (raga?). Eventually a percussion instrument joined in and the melody intertwined with the rhythmic drumming. Despite the melody and drumming increasing in speed and intensity, the piece never felt hectic or out of control. This may be due in part to the sparse instrumentation. It was intense, but never jarring or surprising in any way. I enjoyed this piece, but I did catch my mind wandering off once or twice while listening to it. This is probably because the piece never changed significantly, but simply increased in speed.

I feel like this piece has more textural variety than Hindustani music that I’m familiar with; I would guess that the veena’s lack of sympathetic strings might account for this. Against the texture of the tambura, the veena’s tone seems clear, dry and well-articulated. I find that the way the rhythm and melody unfold–moving from fluid to more rigid time, the ornaments on both the veena and the mrdangam becoming more complex with time–draws me in quickly.

When I first listened to the kawala introduction, I tried to analyze it structurally; to my surprise, despite the intricacy of the ornamentations, the actual range employed in the recording isn’t very large. The characteristic phrase, played repeatedy by the kawala, only encompasses a major second(?)

After the introduction, the first mawwal, “Ya Rabbi Tihdi Fifus in-Nas wi Tihdini” begins. This is the entrance of the vocalist. Like the kawala intro, the rhythm is free. The text seems, for the most part, chanted rather than sung; I suppose this is more appropriate for recitation. After each line of text, the kawala replies with a phrase of its own. Although the human voice is obviously central in this performance, the interplay of the Shayk and the kawala player is almost conversational. The appearance of several percussion instruments and the transition from the liquescent, hypnotic quality of the introduction and recitation section to what sounds like dance music was a surprise.

“id-Dunya Bad’it b-’Ismi Lla wa Muhammad,” the second mawwal, continues in this vein. The vocals, which had dropped out shortly before the entrance of the rhythm section, returns; the vocalist’s delivery still floats somewhere between singing and speaking, but is now more rhythmically regular. The violinist at first plays a kind of ostinato, but plays more expansive phrases as time goes on. The vocalist also sings more ornately. These things gave me the feeling that the piece was somehow “blossoming.” The third mawwal  has the same instrumentation and a similar feel.

All the different sections are named according to the first like of their associated text. Given the religious nature of this music and value placed on the spoken word in Islam, I imagine that this reflects the primary importance of this piece’s text. The vocal delivery and the kawala’s oft-repeated motif reminded me of the tones used in the recitation of psalms during the Catholic Office. I wonder if the performers consider this music or not?

In trying to determine the mode of this piece, the closest thing I could compare it to is a Western major scale with flatted seventh. This fails to take into account the pitch modulations, which fall on the second, third, and seventh notes of the scale as well as on sustained notes. The performer seems less inclined to modulate the pitch on the first note as it ’sets the mode’ for the audience.

I was surprised that the drone through much of the piece was above rather than below the melody. It makes the piece feel less resonant and more lighthearted.

In contrast to Western drums providing a steady, unchanging beat, the mrdangam (?) in this piece lines up closely to the rhythm provided by the tambura, then provides complementary and varying rhythms.

Response to: 1 Hindustani music, Raga Purvi-Kalvan.mp3
2 Karnatak music, Sarasamadana.mp3
and “Raga, Ravi Shankar, and Intercultural Crossings in Indian Music” (reading)

I find the similarities between Hindustani music and Karnatak music to be pretty uncanny. Since I don’t have the trained ears of a professional ethnomusicologist or world musician, the differences are probably muted in my ears. Obviously, I have only listened to the two clips so far. I found the Ravi Shankar piece to be very beautiful and mellowed out, but I actually preferred the second clip of music (the Karnatak tradional music) because of how the Indian tabla drums picked up the mood of the song and energized it. I want to say another thing about the Indian tabla drum: I like the way it sounds much better than the Arabic tabla drum. It is much more versatile – if I was listening properly, I am pretty sure there was only one Indian tabla drum in the second clip, which is very impressive given how much range and emotion it can express. The makeup of the traditional bands seem fairly similar however, between the Hindustani and Karnatak musicians, being a trio of melody (singer), drone (chordophones), and rhythmic pulse (tabla drum).
Another interesting parallel I can draw here is between Indian music (in general) and Islamic music (or praise, depending on what the musician is intending – prayer versus song). Although each of the two cultures view “music” (I will call it that for all intensive purposes) in vastly different ways, they both use it to achieve similar experiences. They all believe music is a way to heighten the self and momentarily join with the Divine God(s) of their faith. They also cherish the sound of the human voice for their own particular reasons (religious beliefs/traditions) and often try to recreate the sound with instruments. Either way, they each hold a unique voice that has survived (though altered) for centuries. What I found most interesting about these different traditions of “music” was the way in which they interact. Music truly is a collective consciousness – and this is illustrated by the geographical and cultural impacts that the Islamic and Hindu communities exert upon each other.