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The first in the
series of articles for advanced level can be found @ Chords,
carnatic and film music-1 Let us first
understand the keyboard. Remember you should know to identify each note on the
keyboard. The keyboard, when you look at all the 48 keys, you might be
wondering which is what? And How to remember all of them? This can be over
whelming when you look at it. It is
very easy. First we shall understand
what an octave is. octave. Look at the keyboard and find the black
keys. There should be groups of two and groups of three. Locate the group that has 2 black keys, the
white key found on the left of the first black key from the left in this
group is a C note. (See fig)
Your octave
starts here. Now locate the group that
has 3 black keys, note that is below and to the right of the 3rd
black key is the B note. The next
note is a C. An Octave starts with
a C and ends in an upper C. The other
notes are given both in the table and the figure.
You many note
that all black keys have a “#” sign added. Like in Carnatic music these keys
have different names. You can see the D-sharp(D#) is
also called as E-Flat (Eb). Next, I am going to assign a value of ˝ to
each key starting from C. I am going to call this ˝ value as an interval
(1/2 step). Distances between
notes are called ˝ steps (Semi-Tone).
When you add ˝ to C it should give you C#.
When you add ˝ to C# it gives a D and so on. Remember this distance from a C note to D
Note is a whole step or called as “Tone”. Scales Scales
are subsets of an octave. They are a collection of notes in an octave derived
from a root. There are various kinds
of scales, which we will learn very soon. First let us take up the most
common scale in western music – “The major scale”
Major scale is made up of whole note
interval except for the degrees of 4 & 5 and 7 & 1. What does it
mean? Let us take the note C as the
root (the start note). First Note is “C”
by adding 1 to it you get D note. Likewise keep doing this except for the 4
(F)( or MA) to 5(G)( or PA) note which increased by
˝ value only. Same rule applies to B to C (higher C) also. Hence by this
rule, The “C” major Scale is Technically: CDEFGABC i.e., 2
(tone) + 2 (tone) + 1 (semitone) + 2 (tone) + 2
(tone)+ 2 (tone)+ 1 (semitone), Simply: All white keys
in the octave. Remember: the
reason we call this as C-major is because we started to calculate from a C
Note. We can similarly construct
G-major scale by starting with the G note. Last time if you
remember I was talking about raga (Dheera)Sankarabaranam. By all means
this raga has the same notes of a Major Scale. It is quite easy to play a major scale.
However when we start to play it as “Sankarabaranam”
you need to remember many rules. Notes that give life to this raga are GA,
Ma, Pa, Ni (E, F, G B) called as “Jeeva” Swaras. If
anyone has heard the song “doh a dear” from Sound
of music, you will see traces of this raga in the score,
however you also will hear few notes out of the scale towards the end of the
score. “ennavendru solvadhamma” by Ilayaraja can
be considered as Sankarabaranam. Please note that
identifying a raga comes by practice. Your ears are
well trained to know the difference between a temple bell and a calling bell
quite clearly. Likewise you need to
match the raga “sayal’ to identify the raga of a
song. You can achieve it by hearing more Carnatic music. Timing Before we get into
playing mode, let us understand the little more basics on Length or Duration
of a note. This is very vital to good music.
Take your snooze alarm for example. It plays (an annoying) sound with
a length and an interval to make it a beep. Hence it is the time and duration
that decides if the sound is music or not. In western and Indian classical
music or any form of music “Time”
is the most important aspect.
In this section
we saw, how to calculate a major scales, time structures etc. Soon we will
get some more details of timing structures in Western music and Carnatic music.
Carnatic music is a great intellectual art
that is been growing in spite of technological distractions. Recently I met
couple of jazz musicians in here in Dc. I went there to learn some of their
techniques. These guys simply breathe jazz. It was small band of oldies. They
asked me about Indian music etc, Pt. Ravi Shankar was only popular Indian classical musician they
knew. I told about them about Carnatic
music and I requested them to hear another superior form of Indian music that
is not harmony based. I played a few
concerts of Shri. Sanjay Subramaniam
and Shri Kadri Gopalnath. The
notes, their placements, the melody etc attracted them so much later that
evening we jammed the raga Charukesi for about 2
hrs, it was really an exciting experience.
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Dhool.com & Tfmpage.com 2003 |
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