Semester at Sea 27:Carnatic (Hindu) Music in India: John Snellgrove, Guest Contributor 17, October 25, 2011 [Post 266]
67 commentsCarnatic (Hindu) Music in india: John Snellgrove, Guest Contributor 17, October 25, 2011 [Post 266]
I spent most my time in India studying under a Veena maestro in Chennai. I’m not exactly sure how I started with
lessons. An odd series of fortunate events involving a well-connected rickshaw
driver brought me and my guitar to the maestro’s front door. After waiting for
forty-five minutes in the office, the master soon came in and introduced
himself. “My name is Subramanian, but if you have trouble with pronunciation you
can just call me Superman,” he told me, and then he asked me what I wanted to
learn. I didn’t have much of an answer so I just replied, “Carnatic music”.
Subramanian chuckled then said, “Let’s start with a cup of tea.”
We
spent the first two hours of my lesson in conversation. Subramanian described
the ways of Hindu thought, how these philosophical ideas related to music, how
they related to life, to everybody and everything that surrounds us, and how
these ideas formed the basis of individuality. Every abstract thing, he
explained to me, is relative. The most important concepts exist in the
connections between everything and everyone. An individual is made an individual
by virtue of their relationship with the external world. A name and a body are
not distinct and cannot act as the defining features of an individual. An
individual is defined by the social connections he has with the people and
objects around him.
For two hours, Subramanian blasted my mind with
these and similarly intense philosophical concepts. I started noticing a pattern
in Indian ways of thought: they love to classify everything. The Carnatic scale
system, for instance, consists of seventy-two melas (scales) derived by
extrapolating every possible seven-note scale from a twelve-tone system. The
rhythmic structure is a collection of rhythmic cycles called tala. There are
seven tala, but any number of counts larger than two within any given tala can
be substituted with either a count of three, four, five, seven, or nine, thus
leading to a immense number of possible tala (interestingly enough, the most
common tala called Adi Tala is an eight beat count that goes 4+2+2. Why do most
cultures love 4/4 time so much?) Anyway, I wouldn’t recommend straining your
grey matter over this unless you really want to start learning how to play the
tabla drums. I’m just supporting my claim that Indian culture loves
classification. The Hindu set of deities, the Vedas, the cuisine, lovemaking
(karma sutra), music, the governmental system, and the ancient societal caste
system are all attempts to categorize and apply a structure to the chaos of
life. India’s intricate classifications amplify the mysticalness of Indian
culture. Classification is not unique to Indian culture, however. The magnitude
of classification sets India apart from other cultures’ attempts to make sense
of the world. Being a big fan of symbolic logic, I loved all the
classifications. There’s just so much to memorize, though.
After our
tea, Master Subramanian had me reflect and write about all the concepts he’d
just bombarded me with. I wrote feverishly, trying to transfer all the ideas to
paper before they slipped from my consciousness. Some got away, but not all. We
then went over the Indian solfège system (the same concept as do, re, me, fa,
sol, la, ti, do from the Sound of Music) for the next three hours of my lesson.
The Indian solfège still has seven syllables but they are named: sa, ri, ga, me,
pa, dah, ni, sa. We sang these and Subramanian used this as the basis for
teaching me the seventy-two scales. The next of the time I spent memorizing all
seventy-two scales. I now know the scales conceptually, so it’s just a matter of
getting each one into my ears and knowing them in a musical way.
For
the next four days, I returned to study with Master Subramanian for about six or
seven hours per day with a short lunch break halfway through the lesson. When I
finally became mentally exhausted, we’d have dinner.
Not until the second to
last day did we even play anything. It took a lot of theory and conceptualizing
to even get to playing music. The amount we covered in only four days was pretty
impressive, though. The way I imagine music, especially melody, has drastically
evolved. Indian classical music focuses more on the way you get from note to
note. Even these are categorized into ten (although the number is debated)
techniques called the gamakas. Transferring these gamakas to guitar has proved
the most challenging part of learning Carnatic music. The notes just don’t bend
far enough… But I’ll try, and eventually I’ll be able to at least approximate
the gamakas. There is still so much to learn. Master Subramanian’s daughter
attends school in Portland, so I have the feeling we
will meet up again in the future. I’m shrinking the world, one country at a
time, shrinking the world.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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Oops, for future reference there is only one L in Snelgrove. Cheerio Michael, and thanks for letting me contribute to your blog!
October 28, 2011 Hi Johnny. I thought that I had it correct. I will try again. Thanks for contributing to my blog. Waiting for more. Cheers. Michael
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