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More on Major Scale: Every note in the keyboard
has a major scale associated to it. If you remember I told that scale depends
on the start note technically called as the “Root”. If the root is C then it
becomes a C Major, so we can calculate a major scale for every note on the
keyboard. Let us take the E note; E note is the third white note from C. So let us appl the formulae I gave (1/2 value to every key) 2 (tone) + 2 (tone) + 1
(semitone) + 2 (tone) + 2 (tone)+ 2 (tone)+ 1
(semitone) E + 2 = F#, now
get a black key as your second note, 3rd note and so on. So by
this you will understand how the scales are structured. It does not matter if is black or white, it
is the value from the root, which we are concerned about. E major scale will
be E, F#, G#, A, B, C#, D#, E. Try to form the F major scale, and A major
scale. Like Major scale Minor scale has all the 7 notes.
There is a slight change in the tone. There are 3 variants of this scale,
called a natural minor, the harmonic minor and the melodic minor. Let us first
learn the Natural Minor. A Natural Minor scale is made up of whole
note interval except for the degrees of 2 & 3 and 5 & 6, means taking
the note C as the root (the start
note) By adding 1 to it you get D note. Likewise keep doing this except for the
2 (D)(RE2) to 3(D#)(GA1) note, which increased by ½ value only. Same rule
applies when you move from 5th to 6th note, which is G
to G# (Only a ½ increase). C Natural
minor scale is C D Eb F G Ab Bb C When the 7th
note of a minor is raised by another ½, in the above explained C minor scale Bb or A# (7th
note) is raised to Natural B, which is C D Eb F G Ab B C. The major and
minor scales are very basic elements of a musical score. The musical
harmonics depends on this to a great extent. What
is Monophony ? In a Carnatic concert, the lead artist sings the melody phrases.
An accompanist usually a violinist will be just following the lead vocals.
The violinist almost plays identical notes in parallel with the lead singer.
The note interval is almost zero, meaning if the lead singer sings Sa the
violinist also backs him using a Sa note.
There is only one note played at a given instant of time. Polyphony
on the other hand means “many sounds” played simultaneously. There are
certain rules to play these multiple notes which coupled with the
improvisations from the composers, are played in Harmony’. Deviation from
this melodic behavior would amount to cacophonyJ.
Harmony is the most interesting aspect of Western music. What
is harmony? The reason I explained the scales earlier is because it will be
easy to understand harmony. Assume, we now ask a violinist to play just 1
note "C" at a preset tempo and duration, (tempo + note lengths -
let us call this as time signature for now). Next we ask another Cello player
to play the note "E" with the same time signature. They will play
the notes simultaneously. If you see the interval or the gap between notes
are now 2 whole notes. They are now said to in harmony. This is called as two-note or 2 part harmony (seconds), now we add
third instrument a viola player and we ask him to play the note G at same
time signature. Here again "G" is 2 notes away from
"E". (1 3 5), intervals are equal. Congratulations! You just learnt what a three-part harmony means. This is now a three-note or 3 part
harmony. It is not over yet.
Assume that we compose 3 melodies with the same time intervals. We ask
them to play it together. Remember:
the rule is they have the same note intervals among each part. This is
a simple western music arrangement. The
interesting aspect of western music is that the sound becomes different when
the interval sizes start to vary. With
some intervals, notes blend naturally (perfect Harmony) together to create a
pleasing or consonant sound. Some intervals create a more jarring or
dissonant sound, at times creates a thriller kind of feel. Like when we play
a G and G#, together we get a thriller tone. When you observe the background
score in movie “Poovi vizi vasalile” by Ilayaraja, you will hear these kinds
of tensed combinations.
In the last
part we saw what a major scale is all about.? I gave a method to calculate a major scale. Similarly there is method identify the Melakartha
number for a raga. In the first part I told how the number 72 was arrived. How ragas were divided into
72 melakarthas. Let us learn about a formulae to calculate the raga
number. This method is called in
Sanskrit as “KATAPAYADI SANKHYA”., How does it work?
Raga “Dheera
Sankarabharanam” the first 2 letters
of this raga is Dhee and Ra. Now find the sound Dhee (Ddha) (9 in the second row). Similarly fid Ra,
you will find it in the 2nd place in the 4th row. Now join them 9&2=92 just reverse them 29,
hence the melakartha number for this raga is 29. You can read see how all
ragas are numbered here (Courtesy: raaga.net).
Hindustani music has a scheme similar to melakartha called as “Thaat”.
End Note: I see people
discussing about how songs are made – whether a song is made out of a chords progression (we shall talk about it
soon) or a melody is made first and chords written successviely. Here is my
take on it. Everything depends on the composer and his/her artists. Composing
a melody and placing chords is an interesting task. Like wise setting a chord
progression and getting a nice melody line is also very creative. Composers
like MSV usually have a session called
“composing”. Apart from the Music director usually they have limited artists
(a Guitar/ a percussion guy), and few assistants who write down the notes.
The director with his crew is also present and the key person will also be
the lyric writer. They get out many tunes and lyrics for the director to pick
what he wants. Usually the chords and the background are created properly
just before the recording or sometime during the actual song recording.
Arrangements can change on the spot. There are many methods we can adapt; we can try all of them in one recording no harm. Last few years my strategy has changed a little as I have been working on pre-written lyrics. Myself and the singer(s) sit together without any detailed home work, we start from scratch (ING our head) with a simple rhythm structure then slowly build the song, we don’t care which comes first, I tell the singer to sing a basic tune, if he/she is experienced they will explore and give variations on the spot, which will inspire the composers. At times I try to change the backgrounds on the spot for the lead tune or get out a background completely then try around with the melody. Some singers sing well if they hear the bass guitar and some do well with a nice flow of chords. We can do anything which suits us. Please don’t restrict yourself to one. What ever comes first “chords” or “melody”, does not matter, and the final product “the complete song” should be the main focus. That has to sound good at the end of day.
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