Music Alphabet

[wbmdubai]

Music is produced by production of sets of sound frequencies which are pleasant for the ears. These pleasant frequencies are already known and these increase in logarithmic fashion so that the first Swaram of a scale has double the frequency of the same Swaram of the previous scale. Thus we have many scales or octaves, but the same alphabet of Sa Ri Ga Ma Pa Da Ni to sing the doubling frequencies in advancing scales.

Sound of lowest frequency emanates from the throat at the vocal cords and move to the highest frequencies at the lips and nostrils. The middle frequencies are produced by the Sound Cavity between the throat, lips and nostrils. So scientifically, the Music Alphabet must start at the throat and end in the nostrils or lips. So instead of Sa to Ni, could it not have been better if it started at Ha, Gha, Ga, Kha, Ka, Dda, da, Tta, Ta, Nna, Dha, Dta, Tha, Tda, Na, Jha, Ja, Cjha, Cha, Nja, Bha, Ba, Pha, Pa, Ma, where in the letters progressively move from the throat to the lips increasing in frequency. That is about the Devnagari Lipi. Then using the vowels, these consonents can be amplified. So, basically, instead of having the same saptaswarams repeated in different Octaves, could there not be a new MUSIC ALPHABET, which has a different letter for each of the 49 swaras of say 7 Octaves? These letters of the Proposed Music Alphabet must have specific frequencies that could be standardised on a key board or Piano. That would make learning music lot easier.

Another non-standard set of fourier transforms are the Shrutis. Identifying a Shruti should not depend on the health of the hearing organs. There must have standard frequencies reproducible by an instrument. There must also be frequency meters that can record the fourier frequencies of a shruti, so that deviations can be instrumentally ascertained rather than depending on the ears of the judges.

Then we can say, we are treating music scientifically. Now what we do is treating it classically and students take decades to graduate and there are very few masters as yet.

[Nick H]

The Carnatic or Hindustani music fundamentals are still CLASSICAL and not SCIENTIFIC. We need to have standard instruments and fixed frequency fouriers for swarams and shrutis. Depending on the hearing capacity of judges and teachers misguides the singer.

If you wish to bring out your meters, music is as scientific as it gets. Perhaps it is the one art that can, should a person desire, be reduced to pure mathematics.

It is not a science: it is an ART. The names on the artist's paint tubes are, scientifically, meaningless; would you prefer to see them labelled by the frequency of light that they reflect? I do not believe it would make painting any easier.

Secondly, we need to have a music alphabet having say 49 alphabets to produce the 49 frequencies of 7 swaras x 7 scales. Repeating the same sapta swaras in different frequencies in different scales is totally confusing and unscientific. But that will be only a beginning. Enjoying music is not a universally standard phenomenon. Depending on the culture, up-bringing and personal tastes of the listener, the enjoyable wavelengths (frequencies) differ from person to person. But still we can have some scientific standards, so that learning could be made lot easier. Present classical system is so complicated and confusing that it takes decades to graduate to a middle level vocalist.

I dispute that "need". The system of seven notes, whether you call them Sa, Ri, ga; C, D, E; Doh, Re, Me, or any other terminology, is so common in the world we could almost (I guess there are exceptions) call it universal. It does very nicely, even though different cultures and systems have slightly varying musical scales.

Most musicians would probably say that music requires a lifetime's learning, but I have never heard of anyone taking decades to graduate, and if they did, I doubt that the nomenclature of the notes would be to blame.

I regret that your idea, although I do not doubt your sincerity, reminds me of something called the "Early Learning Alphabet", which was supposed to help English children learn to read and master the mere 26 letters in our language. It is true that English is very far from phonetic. Many now say that the reading abilities of a generation of English children were crippled by ELA.

There must have standard frequencies reproducible by an instrument.

Why?

So, basically, instead of having the same saptaswarams repeated in different Octaves, could there not be a new MUSIC ALPHABET, which has a different letter for each of the 49 swaras of say 7 Octaves? These letters of the Proposed Music Alphabet must have specific frequencies that could be standardised on a key board or Piano. That would make learning music lot easier.

How would it make anything easier? The current naming system tells us a lot about each sruti/note. It tells us how it relates to itself, and even how it relates to its neighbours. It is perfectly flexible (especially in Indian music, which lacks concept of standard pitch) for any person to sing any song in the register which suits them. Your idea would require a different notation for the same song sung by different people.

There must have standard frequencies reproducible by an instrument.

Why? Analyse the music, by all means, but do not inflict your numbers upon it.

I don't doubt that there will be developments in notation, but surely the underlying system of music must remain the same.

Let the Muthicians Mathematise; it is fascinating, and I only regret that I do not have the head for it. Let the rest of us enjoy the ART of music.

[wbmdubai]

Dear Mr. Nick,

Thanks for your views. I appreciate your commend that there is no other form of art which could be treated mathematically and by the laws of sound production and engineering than MUSIC. It is also true that if we treat art on purely scientific basis, the art loses its value. I only propounded a probable method to simplify the learning process.

It is also true that Classical Music principles have evolved over thousands of years into what it is now. So to change the fundamentals is extremely difficult. We can probably develop scientific methods to understand why it is as it is now and how could we modernise or simplify it. The sound engineering and mixing, the editing processes and boolean treatment of music waves have made possible new innovations and perfections. These became possible because of continuous effort to apply science to music.

So, I have not proposed anything abstract. It is just a different way of thinking.

Best regards

VENU

[vasanthakokilam]

Venu:

Interestingly, in a different thread, we discussed if phonemes have intrinsic musical value or not.

Your idea of 49 alphabets is along those lines, though you are talking about fundamental pitch of each consonant whereas in the prior discussion it was about harmonics and other sound production attributes.

Having said that, here are two observations.

1) The frequency ratios between the various consonants do not match with the frequency ratios of swaras in normal speech. ( I think it goes without further explanation )
2) The same consonanat or phoneme can be sounded at various frequencies. Like 'Ha', the lowest in your list can be sung at a high frequency swara. Like 'haRi' can be a 'D N S' of the middle octave.
Think about it, if that is not the case, composers will have a tough time putting words to music at different sections of the octave and across different octaves.

But one thing I have not thought through is if somehow consonants in the lower order of your list sound better if sung in lower octaves.

There is one more curious thing about consonants which I wrote about in yet another different thread. This has relevance to how music is set over a particular word to fit it into a rhythm. The harder consonants, the earlier ones in your list, Gha, Ga, Kha, Ka, Dda, da, Tta, Ta, when sounded in their short form without a vowel sound ( K as opposed to Ka ) are not voiced and hence can not be sung as an extension or kArvai where as the rest of the consonants can be sung that way even in their short form. In our current solfa system, 'ga' and 'pa', 'da' are such non-kArvaiyable short-form sounds.

[Nick H]

All thinking is good for analysis and understanding --- but I really doubt the practicality of such a scale.

But the mathematical analysts among us are far better qualified to comment than I am, especially the musicians.




EDIT: Somehow I missed seeing vasanthakokilam's post before posting this

[wbmdubai]

Dear Mr. Vasanthakokilam and Mr. Nick,

I appreciate your views and more so of Mr. VK (Vasanthakokilam). Basically, I have put forward a concept for thought. I took the Devnagari Lipi because it has the highest number of alphabets unlike the Tamil Alphabet, though Tamilians have been the greatest in Carnatic Music. I believe that the Devnagari Albhabet is not meant for Music. I took it only to illustrate a critical point of view, to debate whether we can have a comprehensive Music Alphabet or not.

I totally agree with the two points raised by Mr. VK. The Ha can be sung in 100 Hz and 800 Hz. But, well, the consonents as arranged by me could be logically considered as moving from throat to the air-exit from the sound cavities, be it the lips or nostrils. May be I am not giving an alphabet sequence for Music but I might be giving a Musical rearrangement of the Devnagari alphabet.

So in the absence of a Music alphabet, to start with, such treatment of the human anatomy from the point of view of sound engineering, it might help to augment the range and capability of a singer for production of various pre-determined frequencies and amplitudes. I believe that if we start a reformation process, it might take few hundred years to develop a modified scientific version of Music. But in this process, we might stumble upon, get a serendipity, of some THREADS, for some other reformation or understanding.

That is how science evolves. So what I proposed or said is nothing ABSTRACT. It is only a conceptual thought process, something different, which experts like you can develop into something totally simple. You know how the Zeros and Ones in Boolean Algbra now created a new world and we can interact because of that. So trying to understand Nature at a different wavelengths always paves the way for new worlds.

Best regards

Venu (wbm@emirates.net.ae)