New member / question about terminology

Tālam & Layam related topics
Post Reply
shrooman777
Posts: 3
Joined: 11 Dec 2008, 23:53

Post by shrooman777 »

Namaskar All.

My name is Josh, and I'm from Cleveland, Ohio, USA. I'm a percussionist (at least by western standards!) and have also been studying tabla and Hindustani music under a Guru for about 4 years, so I am not yet even a beginner. But I'm very interested in rhythm theory, which brought me to the Carnatic system, which I have been studying informally and have just started taking lessons in several months ago. I am learning Carnatic music from 'Cleveland Balu', the director of the Cleveland Thyagaraja Aradhana Festival. He calls himself an amateur musician but he's a wonderful kanjira player and has much to teach. I've also been studying some dvd's on ghatam and konnakol by Shri Subash Chandran and Shri Selvaganesh Vinayakram.

I still have some questions about terminology and tala theory however, and was happy to find this forum and I'm hopeful that some generous soul might be able to answer some questions or point me in the right direction. I looked through some past posts for the answer to my questions, but as I'm not very learned with terminology, it's hard for me to find what I'm looking for, or sometimes even for me to understand what I'm looking at.

My first main question is about terminology. Are there specific terms for the playing of:

2 beats over 3 time units (as in TAkiTA taKIta ...in chatushri gati 1/2kalai)
3 beats over 2 time units (as in TAka taKA taka ...in tisra gati)
3 beats over 4 time units (as in TAkedhiMI takaJUna taKEdhimi ...in tisra gati)
4 beats over 3 time units (as in TAkita taKIta takiTA takita ...in tisra gati)
2 beats over 5 time units (as in TAkiTAkiTA taKAtaKIta ...in chatrushri gati 1/2kalai)
5 beats over 2 time units (as in TAki taki taKI taki taki ...in khanda gati)
3 beats over 5 time units (as in TAkitaKIta taKItakiTA takiTAkita ...in tisra gati)
5 beats over 3 time units (as in TAkita takiTA takita taKIta takita ...in khanda gati)
4 beats over 5 time units (as in TAkitakiTA takitaKIta takiTAkita taKItakita ...in chatushri gati)
5 beats over 4 time units (as in TAkadhime taKAdhime takaDHIme takadhiME takadhime ...in khanda)
2 beats over 7 time units
7 beats over 2 time units
3 beats over 7 time units
7 beats over 3 time units
4 beats over 7 time units
7 beats over 4 time units
5 beats over 7 time units
7 beats over 5 time units
6 beats over 7 time units
7 beats over 6 time units
etc, etc.

Basically, I am wondering if there is any terminology for expressing the different ways of playing when the BEAT SUBDIVISIONS are different than the NOTE GROUPINGS, and thus produce polyrythms if each grouping is counted as 1. It seemed like this might be covered by the principle of YATHI, (dhasaprana #9) which is described as groupings of syllables, but I didn't see any reference to keeping the yathi BOTH A)consistent and B)different than the gati. It only seems to mention inconsistent yathi patterns, like the mridanga, vedamadhyama, vishama, etc.

Thank you very much for any help in this area, or if anybody can point me to a previous post that deals with this, that would be great too.

Namaskar,
respectfully,
josh

iamkirinlemon
Posts: 31
Joined: 13 Jun 2008, 21:09

Post by iamkirinlemon »

If I understand your general question, the term you are looking for is gati bedam (bedam refers to modulation I believe, in this case, the groupings vs. subdivisons as you say)

Carnatic nomenclature here is a little sloppy. You may be familiar with the term 'nadai', which means the same thing as 'gati', except that it's Tamil ('gati' is a Sanskrit word). Since you require two numbers to define a gati bedam, there are instances of musicians saying "chatusra nadai in khanda gati" to express, for example, groupings of 4 with subdivisions of 5 (or, stated differently, 5 beats in 4 time units)
shrooman777 wrote: 4 beats over 3 time units (as in TAkita taKIta takiTA takita ...in chatusra gati)
This particular bedam of 4/3 (you had tisra gati in your original post, I think you meant chatusram) is called chatusra tisram and is very common - so common that it is used as a gati in its own right, and full thaniavarthanam sections are played in it. Note that powers of 2 are not distinguished by this terminology. So 2/3, 4/3, 8/3, 16/3, etc are all considered chatusra tisram. I have heard musicians extend this terminology to call 5/3, 10/3, etc khanda tisram, or 3/5, 6/5 tisra khandam, and so on. This incidentally would allow you to name all the entries in your list.
Last edited by iamkirinlemon on 10 Jan 2009, 12:32, edited 1 time in total.

shrooman777
Posts: 3
Joined: 11 Dec 2008, 23:53

Post by shrooman777 »

iamkirinlemon:

Thank you very much for your explanation! I really appreciate you taking the time to help a beginner student. And you're right, I mis-labeled the one that you caught (at least).

Thank you for informing me about both types of terminology, the nadai/gati method, and also the chatusra tisram, khand tisram, tisra khandam, etc.

I wonder if I start a separate thread if people would like to share some chatusra tisram compositional formats... if you, (or anyone) know any please check out the new thread and please do share!

Thanks again very much!!!
Namaskar,
josh

Post Reply