Which shruti do you tune to?

Miscellaneous topics on Carnatic music
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What's your shruti?

1 or 1.5
6
25%
2
2
8%
2.5
3
13%
3
5
21%
4
2
8%
4.5
0
No votes
5 or 5.5
4
17%
6
0
No votes
6.5
2
8%
7
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 24

raguanu
Posts: 94
Joined: 12 Oct 2008, 11:48

Which shruti do you tune to?

Post by raguanu »

I'm curious to know the shrutis instrumentalists and singers tune themselves to. I have a vague idea about the common shrutis -- kattais -- used for male, female vocals, and some instruments when they play solo. However, I believe a discussion and poll here would dig out some interesting news.

I could list only upto 10 options for the poll, so I had to combine some shrutis (1 or 1.5, 5 or 5.5)

In the reply do describe your instrument or voice, the shruti(s) you tune to, and any problems/challenges/tricks involved.

raguanu
Posts: 94
Joined: 12 Oct 2008, 11:48

Re: Which shruti do you tune to?

Post by raguanu »

I tune my violin to 2.5 kattai, and I sing in a low 6.5 kattai

At 2.5 kattai, the normal violin strings set are at optimal tension for my style of playing. I like the violin sound at this range, however, I do like to experiment with strings of different brands, thickness, tension to see how they sound.

The bass 6.5 may be a bit low for male voice, but that's where I can comfortably hit both mandra sthayi ma/pa till tara sthayi ga/ma/pa.

The problem I face is that my voice and violin shrutis are so far apart that singing along while playing is difficult. Tuning the violin to 6.5 is a challenge. With thinner strings you can tune it to high 6.5, which is too bright for my taste, and you need the thickest strings at very low tension to tune the violin to bass 6.5 and it doesn't sound great :-(

ganesh_mourthy
Posts: 1371
Joined: 02 Sep 2007, 23:08

Re: Which shruti do you tune to?

Post by ganesh_mourthy »

comfortable at 1.5 to 2 and hence I like to tune the violin to 2.

In fact, I think this comfort has a wiggle room to enjoy , directly influenced by our teacher, or the person you admire. In fact I wanted to open another thread for it but would later do seeing how this develops.
Most professional young men upto 45 sing at 2 and then it goes down with age which is natural . Pattammal and MDR were unusually low pitched for female and male voices.

People try to imitate not just the style of their teachers, but also the pitch and the tonal quality and often the voice seems confusing.

Let us try to list down the pitches of popular singers too and if there are changes, if any , over time. We can arrive at an average and see how age takes a toll on ones pitch.

I see that TMK , Sanjay , et all sing at 2 , and interestingly Sanjay seemed to have changed from 1.5 to 2 as recommended by Semmangudi .

GM

ganesh_mourthy
Posts: 1371
Joined: 02 Sep 2007, 23:08

Re: Which shruti do you tune to?

Post by ganesh_mourthy »

Raguanu, you have to have one for 2 for vocal male and female . And another for insturments. Lumping them all together could be confusing. Besides, it is normal for people to lower their picture as they age, which means that they probably would have sung at 2 and now at 6.5

So something like this would be better
Male - age 18 to 45 , 45 to 60, 60 to 80, and 80 +

raguanu
Posts: 94
Joined: 12 Oct 2008, 11:48

Re: Which shruti do you tune to?

Post by raguanu »

ganesh_mourthy wrote:Raguanu, you have to have one for 2 for vocal male and female . And another for insturments. Lumping them all together could be confusing.
You are right, we should have different polls for each category.

Ananth
Posts: 133
Joined: 14 Feb 2006, 14:04

Re: Which shruti do you tune to?

Post by Ananth »

Vocal 1 or 1.5
Violin 2.5

ganesh_mourthy
Posts: 1371
Joined: 02 Sep 2007, 23:08

Re: Which shruti do you tune to?

Post by ganesh_mourthy »

We can have male and female voices and then age group . So we know the approximate pitch for different age group. By this way, we can get closer to knowing the most prevalent pitches.

raguanu
Posts: 94
Joined: 12 Oct 2008, 11:48

Re: Which shruti do you tune to?

Post by raguanu »

Forum's embedded poll system doesn't allow such sophisticated polls. If we need, we should create a poll somewhere else and share a link here.

Let's try this one for now and spawn a new one if needed. Users can give the details about their voice/instrument, age group (if they prefer) and changes in their shruti over time (not the shruti changes within a rendition ;-)) in their reply.

srikant1987
Posts: 2246
Joined: 10 Jun 2007, 12:23

Re: Which shruti do you tune to?

Post by srikant1987 »

Sing at 2 or so, play violin at 4.

vasanthakokilam
Posts: 10956
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01

Re: Which shruti do you tune to?

Post by vasanthakokilam »

5 is the flute I like to play. This may also be due to the fact that my guru, a disciple of mAli always played at 5 because that is what mAli used to do.

One odd thing I do is to play the 5 kattai flute with the 'pa' as the 'sa'. This is mainly so I can get good gamakas on the 'ma1' to 'ga3' smooth transitions like in Sahana. That is one heck of a difficult thing to do with the regular 'Sa' but easy and that much more joyous if I shift the sa to pa

bilahari
Posts: 2631
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 09:02

Re: Which shruti do you tune to?

Post by bilahari »

Sing at 2. Violin at 4, although I like 2.5 sometimes. I actually prefer to play some ragas in a lower vs. higher shruti depending on how much E string (tara stayi) I want to use.

Ragamusic
Posts: 1
Joined: 16 May 2016, 17:38

Re: Which shruti do you tune to?

Post by Ragamusic »

Hi, new member here. Could someone clarify whether it is acceptable for a male voice to use the lower A to lower G (below the normal C) as their tonic Sa? I have been using C or C+ previously, but I find my voice struggling beyond high Sa. My natural range is from lower C+ lowest C at a pinch) to higher D. Just a little more than 2 octaves... do you think it's enough for Hindustani?

SrinathK
Posts: 2477
Joined: 13 Jan 2013, 16:10

Re: Which shruti do you tune to?

Post by SrinathK »

I tune my violin to E (3 kattai) and sing in C (1 kattai) though I see scope to raise it to C#.

Earlier I tried tuning my violin to D#, but I wasn't getting enough tension in some strings. Then my teacher advised me to play in E and I had much better results.

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