Fleeting Shruti-Bhedam - ritigowla and nattaikurunji

uday_shankar · Post by **uday_shankar** » 20 Mar 2009, 23:59

This is directed to forum member sureshvv. Others are welcome to listen to it too

.

Listen to this first...

http://www.sendspace.com/file/cl1x5g

After a while, listen to this...

http://www.sendspace.com/file/psvihk

I played the flute only once, so both clips are exactly the same. The only difference is I mixed in different tampura settings.

Disclaimer:
I really wouldn't play either raga this way

. This is only for fun. In ritigowla, the chatushruti rishabam should be played open only rarely and certainly not in a pidi like this...it should only be a sort of anuswara of sadharana gandharam. Ditto for chatushruti dhaivatam (should be a sort of anuswara of kaishiki nishadam in this pidi). If I did both of these, nattai kurunji wouldn't have been possible

.

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 21 Mar 2009, 00:15

excellent

I got the fleeting bedham.

Arun

sureshvv · Post by **sureshvv** » 21 Mar 2009, 01:20

Hi Uday:

Thanks for taking my venting seriously and the legwork you have put in for helping me sort things out. I listened to both clips

I am convinced that the raga is reethigowlai. The raga really begins only around the 10th second. Up until then there are some notes played - kinda like clearing the throat. Between the 10th and 13th second the raga shows itself and it seems to be Reethgowlai very clearly.

I am able to convince myself that the 2nd clip starts with MGS. But it goes off whack pretty soon and does not continue to be Nattaikurinji.

Not being recalcitrant here - may be it is just my fixation

uday_shankar · Post by **uday_shankar** » 22 Mar 2009, 15:47

suresh, I didn't do much "leg work" just a little finger work. Now forget about this for a few days and then play the second clip (NK-MIX1.WAV) to yourself as well as others you might know and ask them to guess the raga. If they say ritigowlai the experiment is a failure.

The raga really begins only around the 10th second.

I don't know what you mean by this. In my dictionary, every note is related to the raga. Perhaps your awareness to music is limited to Carnatic music, that too fast-paced vocal music. In Hindustani music, the alaap starts slowly with one or two notes for several minutes. So a phrase like MGS would be part and parcel of the raga and go on for several minutes.

vainika · Post by **vainika** » 25 Mar 2009, 14:21

Uday - convincing demo, and nice idea to vary the tambura shruti for the same clip! Two more listener requests from me: valaji/AbhOgi (S->P transform) and bilahari/yamunA kalyANI (S->M transform - caution handle b_D2=yk_M1 and b_M1=yk_S with care) thanks!

venkatpv · Post by **venkatpv** » 25 Mar 2009, 23:26

second the bilahari-yamuna kalyani request!

tribute · Post by **tribute** » 26 Mar 2009, 08:14

Really superb!! This is something new!!!
I absolutely recognized the ragas Uday!!!
The first one was reethigowla and the second nattakuranji!!
Quite clear!!!
Congratulations, your fleeting shruti bedham is a success.
With your permission, can I show these clips and your observations to my guru??
And I definitely think you should go on with vainika's requests. I want to hear more of your new concepts!! So, please explore!!

uday_shankar · Post by **uday_shankar** » 26 Mar 2009, 10:17

OK, tomorrow when I get more time

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vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 26 Mar 2009, 10:35

This is how my experience went.

The very first time I heard RG in the first slip. As suggested by Uday, I waited for some time and I heard the second slip. I did sense NK, especially in that starting M G S.
But repated listening back to back spoils the effect. ( to be expected, I suppose ).

Took a few days break and listened to the NK clip first. Again, the beginning was NK. The subsequent phrases were indeterminate, the penultimate one played hide and seek between NK and RG and last little bit sounded like RG.

As we discussed in another thread on sruthibedham, this effect is the aural equivalent of the visual effect where depending on the focus, either background or foreground, different image emerges.

Does this mean that the concept of raga is more a psychological and perceptive principle rather than a separate identity existing out there by itself within the swaras?

uday_shankar · Post by **uday_shankar** » 26 Mar 2009, 10:42

Can somebody suggest a (preferably free!) downloadable .wav to .mp3 converter ? My audacity requires some plug in which I was not able to download.

vk,
I think ragas are both "absolute" AND "psychological". If you're driven by a strong initial bias based on the shruti reference like perhaps Arun, vainika and tribute, you may cut some slack for loss of hard-core raga swaroopa. The nattai kurinji awareness in the second clip was set in motion by the shruti and the MGS phrase and continued with some marginal NK stuff. For example, what happens later may then be interpreted as MG(R)GMGS,, NDN~,N~, ,, NSR..CUT ! Remember, the last phrase before the cut may have been completed as NSR~,S, - a very legitimate NK phrase.

On the other hand, if you rAga awareness is driven on a moment to moment quest forf hard-core raga swaroopa, as perhaps suresh and yourself are, then it is hard to get fooled. Especially if you know a priori that it is a different raga

. Now, if I had only played the second clip without any mention of ritigowlai at all to suresh and yourself, perhaps your reaction might have been "natta kurinji daan, ana yenna mo sari illai" (it is natta kurunji but something is wrong).

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 26 Mar 2009, 11:06

Uday, see if this lame package ( lame-3.96.1 ) works for you. This is what I use with audacity: http://www.sendspace.com/file/wemcwx

You are probably right with your final conclusion as applied to me. It is more like 'natta kurinji daan, ana slighta idikkudu'

vijay · Post by **vijay** » 26 Mar 2009, 15:28

I got a strong whiff of N-Kurinji not only in the second but also in the first! Upto MGS/NDM - NDN-GRG, it is almost perfect - but somehow NSR doesn't sound as great for N-K as GMP does for R-G

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 26 Mar 2009, 17:07

I think NSR..S..N`D` is quite valid in NK - almost maps to the GMP..M..GR of ritigowla. The P in G M P need not be flat - it can have a little nokku and thus like for R in SR.

Although, I may be wrong but I think if one ends in sa in RG as in GMP..M..GRS...... (common in RG) - then the equivalent NSR..S...N`D` P.... wouldnt be kosher in NK (?) - I mean I can see NSRSN`D`M....

Uday - if you have iTunes, it can do it for you too. If you dont have iTunes, then it is free but it is a long download.

Arun

vainika · Post by **vainika** » 26 Mar 2009, 18:42

Uday_Shankar wrote:If you're driven by a strong initial bias based on the shruti reference like perhaps Arun, vainika and tribute, you may cut some slack for loss of hard-core raga swaroopa.

Just wondering if there are instrumentalist vs. vocalist biases explaining the degree to which people rely on shruti coordinates to aid in rAga identification.

Working hypothesis (a.k.a. data-free speculation) - vocalists are more likely to look for rAga svarUpa independent of shruti anchor. Instrumentalists tend to associate rAgas with svaras in relation to tonic.

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 26 Mar 2009, 19:31

and for arai-korais - we can go either way depending on the day

vainika · Post by **vainika** » 26 Mar 2009, 21:35

Arun trust you to throw a spanner in my tidy 'hypothesis', and queer the pitch, so to speak

uday_shankar · Post by **uday_shankar** » 28 Mar 2009, 16:46

I have a fascinating observation that bolsters vainika's case.

Without any preamble, I played the so-called "nattakurinji" to my father -in-law who's a dyed in the wool vocal type with very little tonic consciousness. And he told me without any hesitation that it was ritigowlai.

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 29 Mar 2009, 01:17

Uday: This restores some faith in me that there is an intrinsic component to the concept of 'raga' that is perceivable with out and in spite of an external tonic reference. In other words, some/many ragas have enough built-in internal redundancy/consistency that a mere change in external tonic can not easily wipe out.

A related question: In terms of 'perception management' ( as you had referred to in other threads for this business of graha bedam ), what do the musicians actually do that is different from, say, in
an alapana where they anchor on each swaras of the scale. Here they have to do it in such a way to not confuse the audience that they are doing graha bedam.

So, technically, what are the Dos and Don'ts for this perception management during graha bedam?