kalai vs kalam and gathi vs nadai

Tālam & Layam related topics
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niyer
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Joined: 17 Oct 2007, 13:21

Post by niyer »

What is the difference between kalai and kalam. Is there a specific relation between a Vilamba kalam krithi and the number of kalais it uses? Similarly for Madhyama kalam and Duritha kalam

How do u define a kalai?

Are gathi and nadai synonymous?

Please advice.

vasanthakokilam
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Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01

Post by vasanthakokilam »

I think the simplest answer is: The notation says so. ;) But it is unsatisfactory.

Here is an attempt at a consistent definition of all these concepts. ( this turned out to be a long post. Please don't be discouraged from reading it. It is all fairly simple stuff and my idea is to remove inconsitencies in definition and to put these concepts on a rigorous platform )

Assume there is a metronome beating at N beats/minute. This metronome beat and the thala beat are separate entities and are related to each other numerically.
A thala beat consists of thala sub-beats. There are no metronome sub-beats for our purposes here.

It does not matter whether such a metronome physically exists or not. (Of course in concerts they do not.) Here it is used more as a mechanism to tie all these varied concepts together in a consistent fashion. For a song, this metronome beat is constant. Its value defines the tempo. It is a critical component of the framework.

(I blast you with some math initially, but if your eyes glaze over, don't despair, lengthy explanations follow. )

There are basically three concepts, five quantities and two simple equations.

Concepts:

kAlam - The metronome beat interval, indicator of tempo ( vilambita, madhya, duritha etc. ). Held constant for a song.
kaLai - The number of metronome beats in a thala beat
gathi/naDai - The number of sub-beats in a thala beat

(For another use of the word kAlam in the gathi context, see below.)

Let

M - Metronome beat interval.
T - Thala beat interval
S - Thala Subbeat interval
K - KaLai indicator: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc
G - Gathi/naDai indicator: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

T = K x M
S = T / G

kaLai is defined by relating the thala beat to the metronome beat and gathi is defined by relating the thala beat to the thala sub-beats. So they are different concepts

Values of G are categorized this way.

1, 2, 4, 8 - Chathusra gathi
3, 6, 9 - Tisra gathi
5, 10 - khanda gathi
7 - misra gathi
9 - sankeerna gathi

G value of 11 and greater are mathematically possible but not usually heard in practise.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For those who are mathmatically inclined, here is a more rigorous but dry definition of (G)athi . Others can safely skip this over.

G = o x p

where o is any odd number representing the gathi: 1 (chathusram), 3 ( tisram ), 5 ( khandam ), 7 ( misram ), 9 ( sankeernam ), etc.

and

p = 2 raised to the power n
where n = 0, 1, 2, 3 ,4,5,6,7,etc.
n is the speed indicator.

when n = 0, p = 1, it is caled first speed ( 1st kAlam )
when n = 1, p = 2, it is called second speed ( 2nd kAlam or mEl kAlam )
when n = 2, p = 4, it is called third speed ( 3rd kAlam )
when n = 3, p = 8, it is called fourth speed ( 4th kAlam )
etc.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


gathi/naDai: ( these are treated here synonymously )

This refers to the number of sub-beats(swaras) one packs into a thala beat. If the sub-beats are 1, 2, 4 or 8, they are called chathusra gathi,
3 and 6 is tisra gathi, 5 and 10 is khanda gathi, 7 is misra gathi and 9 is sankeerna gathi.

Hence S = T/G

As the sub-beat count goes up, the perceived speed of singing goes up and as this number goes down, the preceived speed of singing goes down.
The thala beat does not change, the metronome beat does not change and hence the tempo does not change but the perceived speed changes.

We have to note that the word kAlam is used in this context as well ( and causing confusion ). For example, the various sub-beat counts of
chathusra gathi (1, 2, 4 or 8 ) are often termed 1st kAlam, 2nd kAlam, 3rd kAlam and 4th kAam to refer to the 1st speed, 2nd speed, 3rd speed and 4th speed.
Similarly, 3 sub-beats is tisra gathi and 6 sub-beats is tisra gathi mEl kAlam and so on.

------

kaLai:

It is an orthogonal concept to gathi. Here is how I choose to define it. You all, please try to poke holes in this definition.

The metronome beats/minute remains constant for all kaLais.

1-kaLai thala beat consists of 1 metronome beat, 2-kaLai thaLa beat consists of 2 metronome beats, 3 kaLai thala beat consists of 3 metronome beats. etc.

Hence T = K x M

The metronome beat is normally given a stress/emphasis in the music itself, so one can sense it. So it is not purely theoretical. Normally, that stress is lower in intensity than the thala beat stress.

And there are some other features that are normally seen in compositions and especially pallavis.
One can consider them conventions and it is part of parcel of CM as we know it.

Take a thalam, for example Adi. The padagarba is on the 5th thala beat. The words, stress points and eduppu are balanced with respect to this 5th beat. So this point acts as the anchor, pivot and fulcrum. Different thalas have different padagarbha points. But for a given thala, irrespective of kaLai, the padagarbha is on the same thala beat. The corollary is, for a given thala, for differnt kaLais, the padagarbha is on different metronome beats.

So, for Adi, in 1-kaLai, the pada garbha occurs on the 5th metronome beat, for 2-kaLai it happens on the 9th metronome beat, for 3-kaLai on the 13th metronome beat, for the 4-kaLai on the 17th metronome beat, for the 5-kaLai on the 21st metronome beat etc.

The reason I chose to describe kaLai this way is, there is then a good answer to the thorny question 'Why can't I treat one avarthanam of a 2-KaLai krithi as 2 avartanams at 1-kaLai' The answer is obvious from the above definition of kaLai itself. Such naive unwinding of kaLai will destroy the padagarbha and stress points distribution that has been worked in by the composer keeping a certain kaLai in mind.

Though in general 2-kaLai krithis give you the impression of grand and slow gait, it need not be that way. There are songs that are sung in brisk pace that are in two kaLai. E.g Elavathara in Mukhari.
M is the determinant of tempo and S is the determinant of perceived speed.

---------

Gathi shift and kaLai shift and combinations of these two.

kaLai is defined by relating the thala beat to the metronome beat and gathi is defined by relating the thala beat to the thala sub-beats.
So they are different concepts. But kaLai and gathi can be combined in any creative fashion, they are not mutually exclusive. That is why I called them orthogonal concepts.
(Such creative combinations may be constrained by audience acceptance and tolerance, and currently prevailing kutcheri norms.)

Some such combinations that one can see in RTPs are this: Take a 2 KaLai krithi. The thala beat duration is two metronome beats.
Divide that thala interval into 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 sub-beats. Now we are doing gathi/naDai variation in a 2 kaLai krithi.

Just to keep things simple and sane, artists may implement it the following way.

Divide each of the constituent metronome beats into 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 sub-beats.

1-kaLai you will have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 sub-beats per thala beat.
For 2-kaLai you will have 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14 sub-beats per thala beat.
For 3-kaLai you will have 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21 sub-beats per thala beat

In one naDai pallavi demonstration by maNakkAl Rangarajan, he adopts this method.

The artists do not have to do it this way. For example, even for 5-kaLai, they can take the thala interval consisting of 5 metronome beats and
divide that into 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7 sub-beats. I have not heard an RTP ( non 2-kaLai naDai pallavi ) done this way. It will be quite interesting to
hear a demonstrative recording. If someone can find a link, that will be great.

---------

Note 1: kAlam.

As we have seen, there are two uses of the word kAlam: As a measure of tempo (M) and as a measure of speed of a given gathi (S). Context determines which usage is meant.

A krithi that is normally sung quite briskly can be sung in medium speed or in slow speed. People term that 'duritha kAlam', 'madhya kAlam and 'viilambita kAlam'. (as in, TMK sang that song in viilambita kAlam even though normally it is sung in madhya kAlam ). Here what is being refered to is the number of beats/minute of the metronome, in other words the size of the metronome beat interval M. The internal organization and balance of words ( padagarba, arudhi etc. ) and stress points are still kept the same. One just stretches swaras and words to the new metronome beats/minute. In our equation, M represents this meaning of kAlam.

In the gathi context, kAlam refers to doubling, tripling etc. of the number of sub-beats of a particular gathi.
It may not be thought of this way normally but in a given krithi in chathusra gathi, speed variations of 1, 2, 4, or 8 happens quite frequently
and in some cases, almost continously thus providing for the dynamism we perceive in krithis ( compared to say a Geetham ).
The tools of the trade that composers employ for this are: kArvai, silence and straight multiplication and division of number of swaras per beat.
This can vary from one thala beat to the next or even within the same thala beat. The laya you find in Thyagaraja's sangathis are built this way, among other things.

Note 2: gathi and kaLai shift.

An artists can shift from one gathi or kaLai to another gathi or kaLai. For a given song, this framwork stipuates the constancy of the metronome beat. As long as that is obeyed, shifts to gathi and kaLai can be accomodated. All we need to remember is, gathi shift involves change in number of thala sub-beats and kaLai shift involves change in number of metronome beats. You can shift one by keeping the other unchanged. The adventurous types can change both parameters together ( though rare ). (It should be noted that some people believe that change in kaLai is equivalent to changing the thala and so they fall in the category of thalamalika. )

Shifts where you keep one constant and vary the other are seen in concerts, especially in RTPs, varnams and in kalpanaswarams of krithis.

When the artist shifts the gathi from Chathusram to Khandam, we perceive it as an increase in speed because there are now 5 sub-beats per beat instead of 4.
When the artist shifts kaLai from chatusram to khandam ( from 4-kaLai to 5-kaLai ), we preceive it as slowing down of things.

From this we can observe that gathi shift and kaLai shift give us opposite aesthetic perceptions of speed/tempo

Please note that artists normally do not shift from 4-kaLai to 5-kaLai, so the above example is for illustrative purposes.
One instance of kaLai shift we see is in RTP when the artist shifts from 2 kaLai to 1 kaLai.

Note 3: Special case of gathi and kaLai shift

There are some multi-stanza songs where a stanza in the middle of the song is sung with a shift from chathusram to khandam.
Here the sub-beat interval does not change. Is it gathi shift or kaLai shift? It is actually both.
First, The kaLai is shifted to 1.25 metronome beats per thala beat and simultaneously gathi is shifted to Khandam on the new thala beat interval.

Note 4: Practises like Chathusra Thisram

What about concepts like chathsra thisram etc. It is a way of creating syncopation. There is no bEdam of any kind. M, T and S do not change.

View the entire thala avarthana as consisting of sub-beats. The thala beat boundary is temporarily withdrawn. Now combine the sub-beats into 2, 3, 4, 5,6,7,8 and 9 to create various syncopated artificial beat patterns ( called poly-rhythms and cross rhythms). This temporary grouping boundary would not match the thala beat boundary and that creates the syncopation and the necessary tension in music.

VK RAMAN
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Post by VK RAMAN »

VK - I am impressed how lucidly you explained. Probably arunk can add!

vasanthakokilam
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Post by vasanthakokilam »

Thanks VKR.

The verbosity of my above post may overwhelm some people. Even after several tries the word count did not come down, it kept increasing!

Let me just copy and paste the math portion. Remember this even if all the words are forgotten ;)

M - It is a constant for a song. Its value defines the slow, medium or fast tempo of the song. This is referred to as kAlam.
T - Thala beat interval
S - Thala Subbeat interval
K - KaLai indicator: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc
G - Gathi/naDai indicator: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

T = K x M
S = T / G

Values of G are categorized this way.

1, 2, 4, 8 - Chathusra gathi
3, 6, 9 - Tisra gathi
5, 10 - khanda gathi
7 - misra gathi
9 - sankeerna gathi

G value of 11 and greater are mathematically possible but not usually heard in practise.

For those who are mathmatically inclined, here is a more rigorous definition.

G = o x p

where o is any odd number representing the gathi category: 1 (chathusram), 3 ( tisram ), 5 ( khandam ), 7 ( misram ), 9 ( sankeernam ), etc.

and

p = 2 raised to the power n
where n = 0, 1, 2, 3 ,4,5,6,7, etc.
n is the speed indicator.

when n = 0, p = 1, it is caled first speed ( 1st kAlam )
when n = 1, p = 2, it is called second speed ( 2nd kAlam or mEl kAlam )
when n = 2, p = 4, it is called third speed ( 3rd kAlam )
when n = 3, p = 8, it is called fourth speed ( 4th kAlam )
etc.

mohan
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Post by mohan »

VK - I am a bit confused when you say kAlam is the same as nadai and gathi. I have heard of a song being set to say Tisra Nadai or Tisra Gathi but never Tisra kAlam. My understaning of kAlam is as being the tempo for a krithi, eg madhyama kAlam or viilambita kAlam - just like you have mentioned in your note.

bilahari
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Post by bilahari »

I too am confused by kAlam being equated with naDai/ gathi. I thought it was simply the speed as well. But thank you for clarifying that there's no meaningful difference between naDai and gathi, since that has been bothering me for a while. And thank you also for the nice explanation of kaLai (I usually know a composition is 2 kaLai if the artiste taps each finger twice ;) ) , which has been doubt for me.

vasanthakokilam
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Post by vasanthakokilam »

Mohan, Bilahari: Yes, people's use of the word kAlam is confusing and I was actually attempting to un-confuse things ;)

It has two meanings.

Consider the usage of the word kAlam to mean 'speed' in the sub-beat context The common references are, 'onnAngAlam, 'rendAngAlam' 'mUNangAlam' etc. What is refered to here is the sub-beats. Also there is this usage mEl kAlam. 6 is tisra gathi mEl kAlam, 10 is khanda gathi mEl kAlam.

I should be proper about it and characterize 1, 2, 4 and 8 as chathusra gathi in various kAlams, 3 and 6 as tisra gathi in two of its kAlams, 5 and 10 as kanda gathi in two of its kAlams, 7 as misra gathi and 9 as sankeerna gathi. And they are all "perceived" speed indicators since they are all about sub-beats of the thala beat. So this usage of kAlam is in the gathi/naDai context.

I also agree that the word kAlam as in my note 1 above is about the constant tempo of the song as measured by the metronome beat and that is another usage. Let us just call it the tempo context, even though people use tempo and speed interchangeably.

I have edited my above posts to reflect all this. Thanks Mohan and Bilahari.

Please let me know if it is clearer now.

BTW, when people refer to MD's madhyama kAla or duritha kAla passages, they are using the word 'kAlam' in the gathi context and not in the tempo context, right?

niyer
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Post by niyer »

Dear vasanthakokilam

Thank you very much for the detailed and clear explanation. This confusion has been haunting me for a while . I think Ive understood the points though Ive a long way to go in the laya quest

However, I will make an observation and experts please pardon my ignorance on this . This observation is related to shruti and laya based on the understanding of laya from the above

Just the way shruti tends to have the following aspects

a. a set of shrutis which the human ear can perceive and differentiate ( eg the 22 shrutis)
b. the octave dimension where two parallel notes give a similar sound even though different in frequency
c. if we divide the shrutis beyond a large number , say 100 instead of 22, human ear finds it might be impossible to perceive the differences

does laya also possess similar charecteristics eg:

a) a set of tala angas and subdivisions which give varying rhythmic feel to the human ear. Subdivisions of 3,5,7 etc give a distinctly different feel

b ) vary the number of sub beats in a thala by a factor of 2 and we have kalams giving us the same rhythmic feel wrt tempo

c ) make too many subdivisions in a beat and it is imperceivable to the human ear

very similar patterns seem to exist in the shruti and laya space

bilahari
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Post by bilahari »

VK, although this has been another source of confusion for me, in all the Dikshithar krithis I was taught, the tala speed (and length of a beat) stayed the same for madhyama kala passages and I was taught to cram twice as many swaras into each beat... so that would be gathi right?

vasanthakokilam
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Post by vasanthakokilam »

niyer: That is an interesting parallel you draw between melody and rhythm in a numerical way. Not sure what to make of it musically. I will get back if any ideas arise in that context.

bilahari: I checked the SSP for a few MD krithis and the way you wrote it is how it is notated. So, as I suspected, the use of kAlam in that context is about gathi and not tempo.

It is confusing when the same word is used to mean two different things. In addition to the common usage with respect to MD's duritha kAla amd madhya kAla passages, it is used
in the gathi context quite extensively in other sceanarios. Like 'KVN sang niraval initially in vilamba kala and then switched to madhya and duritha kala', 'the artist's madhya kAla thanam was incredible' etc.
All this are meant in the sub-division context and hence in the domain of gathi.

One of the reasons for my write up above is to clarify these things. Hope I got it right.

bilahari
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Post by bilahari »

VK, thanks for the clarification.

I have another doubt:
Is there any particular reason for 3, 4, 5, 7, 9 for gathi/naDai? Certainly, 3, 4, 5, and 7 are prime numbers and each has a distinct feel, but why 9 (which is just a multiple of 3)? Why not 6 or 8?

srikant1987
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Post by srikant1987 »

@ bilahari

Usually kaLais are like 2-kaLai, 4-kaLai, 8-kaLai and so on. 6 will be 2-kaLai tiSra naDai and 8 will be 2-kaLai chaturashra naDai.

But 9 is 3(?!)-kaLai tishra naDai which is not available. :)

---
Also, some people make one gesture only once while counting for 2-kaLai. (It's more fashionable too. :) I do that until there are "shifted" swarams and "shifted" tani. By "shifted" I mean accent on the second half of a gesture time, rather than its beginning.) Usually you can tell if it's 2-kaLai by seeing how many notes are coming between one gesture and the next in the fast neravals and swarams, or in the faster sangatis, including kArvais.
Last edited by srikant1987 on 26 May 2009, 08:40, edited 1 time in total.

vasanthakokilam
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Post by vasanthakokilam »

bilahari, mathematically there is a good reason. Just to be sure, we are talking gathi/naDai here and not kaLai.

>Why not 6 or 8?

6 is thisram second speed, 8 is chathusram Nth speed ( if you consider 1 as 1st speed, 2 as 2nd speed, 4 as 3rd speed, then 8 is the 4th speed, but not sure if this is what it is commony called )

>why 9.

Because you can not arrive at 9, by muliplying ( 1, 3, 5, 7 etc. ) by the speed multiplier which is a power of 2 ( 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 etc. )

Let us lay it out mathematically ( without any concern for realization in musical terms ;) ).

1, 2, 4, 8, 16 - Chathusram in various speeds
3, 6, 12, 24 - thisram in various speeds
5, 10, 20, 40 - khandam in various speeds
7, 14, 28, 56 - misram in various speeds
9, 18, 36, 72 - sankeernam in various speeds
11, 22, 44, 88 - 11 in various speeds
13, 26, 52, 104 - 13 in various speeds
15, 30, 60, 120 - 15 in various speeds
17, 34, 68, 136 - 17 in various speeds
19, 38, 76, 152 - 19 in various speeds
etc..

So the base gathi number is not about primes but about odd numbers.

bilahari
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Post by bilahari »

Srikant and VK, got it. Thank you very much. Sometimes I think the greatest hindrance to understanding laya is all the terminology. Sigh.

srinivasrgvn
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Post by srinivasrgvn »

vasanthakokilam, are you a musical scientist or a scientific musician? =)

srikant1987
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Post by srikant1987 »

Sometimes when lazily putting tALam (some of those peevish about language should disregard this) with Tyagaraja kritis especially, I notice that my fingers are not agreeing with the innate sense of rhythm present in those kritis. And whenever this happens, for the innate sense of rhythm happens to be the correct one!

This is usually with kritis, I think exclusively Tyagaraja's. This doesn't happen with manOdharmam, either because I'm never lazy when putting tALam for them, or because they don't really go with the "normal" rhythm. :)

vganesh
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Post by vganesh »

vasanthakokilam, are you a musical scientist or a scientific musician?
Usually what I have observed about scientists [those who are exceptionally brilliant in their academics] are generally able to pick anything which comes on their way. Theire brains are like trunk of an elephant. Can pick small as well as big. I think VK sir is no exception.

vasanthakokilam
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Post by vasanthakokilam »

srinivasrgvn, vganesh: You two are very kind but I am neither a scientist nor a musician officially. A dabbler in these matters just trying to understand these things with some clarity and consistency. In past discussions on such laya topics, I had probably caused confusion than clarity, so this time I tried to be a bit more rigorous but no promises if all this will withstand scrutiny by others.

bilahari, srikant, just to be clear, I am not sure if srikant and I are saying the same thing. My answer to Bilahari's question is purely in gathi terms without involving kaLai. Srikant, I am confused as to why you say there is no 3-kaLai or 5-kaLai. There is a 5-kaLai pallavi recording of maNamkkAl RangarAjan somewhere in sangeethapriya. In my framework above, I even accomodate fractional kaLai ;)

bilahari
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Post by bilahari »

I thought Srikant meant kaLai in the spirit you had mentioned, VK (speed multiplier)... Now any more discussing semantics will drop me back into confusion :)

vasanthakokilam
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Post by vasanthakokilam »

bilahari, I thought you read my writeup fully. ;) I do differentiate strongly kaLai from gathi/naDai.

bilahari
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Post by bilahari »

No, no, what I meant was that I thought Srikant's explanation was equivalent to your subsequent description in terms of content and not definitions. I read his post after yours, so I thought he too was getting at the fact that you cannot multiply the speed in triples but only doubles. Since your first line said you were referring to gathi only and not kaLai, I didn't pay attention to his use of the word in his post. I will now proceed to reread your post carefully because I want to be sure I'm sure about all this, and laya jargon is still less confusing than reading Genet's plays, which is my only other work for this evening. :)

srikant1987
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Post by srikant1987 »

You were asking why we have specific naDais for 3, 4, 5, 7 and 9, but not for 6 and 8.

We can probably understand that they believed 11, 13, 17 and so on to be extremely large. :|

I said we can realise a theoretical 6-naDai tALam as a corresponding 2-kaLai tiSranaDai tALam, and an 8-naDai tALam as a corresponding 2-kaLai caturashranaDai tALam.

6-naDai is basically supposed to provide 6 stress points between two gestures, allowing for upto 6 notes between two gestures. But a 2-kaLai tishra naDai (compositions like shankari shankuru or rAmA nI vAdukoNTivO?) which are set to 2-kaLai tishra Adi also allow for 6 notes between gestures.

Many people use very complicated song notations with all anuswarams, but you can take manodharmam that can be applied to these songs instead.

vasanthakokilam
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Post by vasanthakokilam »

>6-naDai is basically supposed to provide 6 stress points between two gestures, allowing for upto 6 notes between two gestures. But a 2-kaLai tishra naDai (compositions like shankari shankuru or >rAmA nI vAdukoNTivO?) which are set to 2-kaLai tishra Adi also allow for 6 notes between gestures.

Yes, but musically they are not the same.

If you want 6-naDai for a 1-kaLai song, you can have it. Just double the speed of tisra nadai.

arunk
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Post by arunk »

mathematically - I could define naDai/gati as the set

{ m*2^n }

for n = 0, 1, 2, 3 ...

Here, 2^n=> 2 raised to the power of n

For catusra: m = 2, tiSra: m = 3, khaNDa: m = 5, miSra: m = 7 and sankIrna: m = 9

This means
2,4,8,16,32,..... are all catusra naDai based
3,6,12,24,.... etc. are all tisra.
5,10,20,40,... etc. are all khanda
7,14,28,.... are all miSra
9,18,36 etc. are all sankIrna based

So tiSra does not mean just patterns of strict 3. Thus the original definition S = T / G perhaps doesnt convey everything as it seems to as such imply that there is a set/fixed sub-beat interval for a certain gati.

Arun

vasanthakokilam
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Post by vasanthakokilam »

Arun, Exactly and I agree. I was trying to get at the same thing in post #13.

I agree that S= T / G needs to be fortfied by defining G rigorously. I am thinking about how to introduce that without too much math right away.

I think I can do that in the description section. Let me work on editing my write up.

Before I do that, a few questions:

Q1: I need to characterize G = 1 properly. I want to call it chathusram, then it all fits together nicely. I wonder if some people may quibble that at G = 1, gathi is a 'don't care'.

Q2: Does this generalization sound right?: Gathi category ( tisram, chathusram etc. ) are odd numbers. We can then say, only 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 are used in practise.

arunk
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Joined: 07 Feb 2010, 21:41

Post by arunk »

Yes one could could go with G = 1 for catuSra and say one note per beat of tala is always catuSra gati. But I lean towards "1" being more like applicable to all gatis.

Arun

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

Post by vasanthakokilam »

Arun, I have incorporated this in posts 2 and 4. Please review.

I assume you are fine with the generalization that odd numbers indicate the gathi category like thisram and chathusram. It is probably a trivial observation/generalization but want to make sure there are no exceptions no matter what that odd number is ( musical impossibility is a separate concern ).

VK RAMAN
Posts: 5009
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:29

Post by VK RAMAN »

arunk - thanks for pitching in.

cmlover
Posts: 11498
Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 22:36

Post by cmlover »

arun/vk
Could you kindly explain sarvalaghu? Why there is no kaNakku in it?

arunk
Posts: 3424
Joined: 07 Feb 2010, 21:41

Post by arunk »

vk - the odd number sounds good, although psychologically an odd number assignment to "what seems like natural" catuSram seems .... ODD :)!!

cml - A forewarning; I am not 100% sure about what all exactly constitutes sarvalaghu (i.e. more importantly what is not) so cannot give a reliable answer.

I think in general with sarvalaghu, the stress points are usually always "in line" with the tala beat and thus perhaps less syncopation (say take a pattern that explicitly stress every 3/4th of a beat rather than 2/4 (i.e. 1/2) or exactly on the beat may not be part of it). The upside (to some) is that it is always catchy and rhythmic that it is perhaps easy and natural to enjoy it - besides mrdangam, SSI's kalpanaswaras are very attractive because of this. The downside (to some) is that it supposedly isnt intellectually challenging enough.

Arun

cmlover
Posts: 11498
Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 22:36

Post by cmlover »

Shall we please discuss sarvalaghu and kaNakku in a separate thread
http://rasikas.org/forums/post121199.html#p121199
Thanks!

Sundar Krishnan
Posts: 496
Joined: 19 Feb 2008, 18:50

Re: kalai vs kalam and gathi vs nadai

Post by Sundar Krishnan »

30/3/12

Very good explanation of kaLai, gati / nadai, the 2 kAlams etc by vasnathakokilam in Post # 2.

1) A small point :

Post # 2 by VK says : G = 3, 6, 9 for Tishra Gati.
How can we get G = o * p = 9 = 3 * 2^(What Integer) ??

Formula given by arunk in Post # 24 seems more correct : G = m * 2^n.
Also, as stated in Post # 26, “1” is probably applicable to each Gati.

Post 27 says the correction is done in Post 2 & 4. But still, it indicates G = o * p ??

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2) Increasing kAlam (by increasing M interval) vs increasing kaLai = no of TALams / M :
How will we perceive the slowing down of speed in both cases ?
Corollary : Based on such a perceived sound, how will the listener discern which one of the above 2 is the current case ? ie, is it an increase in the M interval ? or is it an increase in the kaLai ?

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3) Wrt Note 3 : Both kaLai shift to 1.25 M and Gati Shift from 4 to 5, so that :
Earlier 1 x 4 = Now : (1/1.25) x 5 = Still 4 is retained
Mathematically OK.
But, how does the listener identify this change in real time ?
What is it that gives away ?

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4) A CM Music-lover (let us call him XYZ for now) told me :
"A Mishra ChApu song in Music Notation, will have 7 x 4 = 28 Counts for each Aavartana (Cycle); That's Pallavi Line, Anu Pallavi Line and CharaNa - Each will have 28 Counts."

My Q - on this multiplication by 4 above :
So, is Mishra ChApu supposed to be a ViLamba KAlam TALam by default, which is why, we multiply by 4 ? Could this be the reason why many of SS’s Songs (which are in slow pace) are in Mishra ChApu TALam ?
This slowing down - does it come under the slowing of M category ie, increasing M per min for a higher kAlam ?

However, in http://www.rasikas.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=10006, Post 7 states that M Chp is at a higher speed :
"Mishra ChApu does not follow the Laghu, Dhritam type scheme. It is more a Stutter-Step Pattern 3-2-2 . Though it looks like a Tishra Triputa Structure with a 3 beat Laghu and two 2 beat Dhritam, it’s feel is different because those 7 beats usually occur at double the speed. So it is really 1.5-1-1."

How do we explain these 2 seemingly opposite interpretations for M Chp - one implying that it is slower, and the other implying that it is faster ?

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PS : It may be preferable to read this Post together with my foll Posts, also being sent today in :
- 1006 - Excel Table for Sapta TALams
on the Excel Table for Sapta TALams.

- MC vs TT TALams
on MC vs TT TALams.

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Thanks in Advance (TIA).

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