arabhi gandhara on flute

Shekarg · Post by **Shekarg** » 10 Mar 2009, 01:36

I am a newbie on this forum and need some help from experienced flautists on how to play arabhi gandhara in flute. Unfortunately, I do not have a flute teacher to teach me in my neck of the woods and my wife can only teach me vocal. My love for the mellow sounds of flute have made me practice and teach myself and am stuck trying to play rere sriramachandra in arabhi.

I know that Ga and Ni are subtle in arabhi ragam and the entire beauty of the ragam is how ga and ri are played. If somebody can tell me how to play "ma ga ma" gamaka for arabhi, I would appreciate it.

Thanks in advance.

Shekar

Shekarg · Post by **Shekarg** » 10 Mar 2009, 03:04

I just googled and came across Shashank's web site on tilting the flute in Ma to play Ga in ragas like arabhi where "ma ga ma" connection has to be fluid and not jerky.

I also came across this cross fingering technique discussed in another website where I could open 4th hole whilst playing ma to gently touch gandhara to bring out the nuances of playing arabhi. Shall try out tonight and let know how it comes out.

My background: Avid carnatic (or any good music) listener for 37 years (my age), environmental scientist by profession at Cincinnati, decided to take the plunge and learn flute formally (my wife is vocally trained), can play (or play with!!) piano and rhythm guitar and learnt violin carnatic when I was 9 years old before dad got transferred to Uttar Pradesh where I could not continue my musical pursuits.

Thanks for your time.

Shekar

Shekarg · Post by **Shekarg** » 15 Mar 2009, 03:36

All:

I tried the cross fingering technique and it worked fine.

Also one question based on the same beautiful arabhi gitam "Rere Sriramachandra"

Apparently Nishada is not used in the Gitam although the song is sung/played in distinctly arabhi style. Is it common to skip a note for the raga and still have the song classified under "arabhi". That would essentially mean "a raga is based solely upon the way a set notes are played" and not if all notes (present in aarohanam and avarohanam) occur in the song. Please excuse my ignorance. Love this website and just discovered that my dad apparently has been reading and posting on this site for over 2 years from Coimbatore!!

Thanks

Shekar

srikant1987 · Post by **srikant1987** » 15 Mar 2009, 12:07

Some people call the same phrase as SSD which others call as SND. Does SSD occur in the gItam?

bilahari · Post by **bilahari** » 15 Mar 2009, 12:23

Shekarg, as long as the composition SOUNDS like the raga, you could get away with anything! For instance, Jagadanandakaraka does not use the dhaivatham in the ascent though it's part of Nattai's arohana, but it doesn't sound any less Nattai, does it? Same with Endaro which eschews the dhaivatham as well (SNPDNPMRGRS=avarohanam).

bilahari · Post by **bilahari** » 15 Mar 2009, 12:24

Srikant, I think SSD does occur in the gItam right?

Shekarg · Post by **Shekarg** » 15 Mar 2009, 18:39

SSD occurs in the Gitam although I do not know how some people refer to it as SND? Atleast from what I learnt, Ni is not touched upon in the ascent. Thanks all for the clarification and analogies to Nattai and Sri

srikant1987 · Post by **srikant1987** » 15 Mar 2009, 21:39

@ bilahari

I don't know the gItam.

But as for Sriragam, it traditionally didn't include the dhaivatam and PDNPMR. Rather than entaro eschewing the dhaivatam, compositions of Muttuswamy Dikshithar delicately join it up.

When careful people perform, they won't include D in their alapanais (or neravals and svarams) if they perform a Thyagaraja kriti.
---
All that said, arohanams and avarohanams are not particularly important features for a ragam. One can know a ragam like rItigowLai or nIlAmbari or kannaDa or aThANa or hAmirkalyANi fairly well without knowing the moorchana.

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 15 Mar 2009, 22:17

srikant1987 wrote: But as for Sriragam, it traditionally didn't include the dhaivatam and PDNPMR. Rather than entaro eschewing the dhaivatam, compositions of Muttuswamy Dikshithar delicately join it up.

Actually most historical texts not only include dhaivatam, but specifically mention in the context of pdnpm (but also mention it is somewhat rare). So dikshitar was certainly following tradition. For some reason tyagaraja chose to avoid it.

Arun

srikant1987 · Post by **srikant1987** » 16 Mar 2009, 00:03

I have heard that to have a sampoorna raga with all seven svaras to stand for the khpriya melam, they included this pdnpm thing. This system is much before MD, from times of Venkatamakhin I think. The whole melakartha system, however, was probably a mostly bookish thing until the Trinity (especially T and MD) came and rained down compositions. "Historical texts": present-day musicology books on Carnatic music are a total puzzle to me and I can't think why these historical texts should relate any more closely to practice of Carnatic music in their days either.

Of course, you as a practising musician would know more on whether practising musicians also find musicology books as much of a puzzle as I do. This tonal shift, symmetric tetrachords and all ... And also how much of this musicology actually shows up in concerts.

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 16 Mar 2009, 00:17

srikant,

I am not a practicing musician - just a practicing (rank) amateur

- actually just a hobbyist.

But in this case many texts mention this under Sri raga - and these are texts post 14th century i.e. this is not some reference in the earlier system. So while I also thinks a lot of stuff in these books are a puzzle (and an indicator that music is every changing), I think the evidence for p-d-n-p-m being part of tradition of Sriraga is exceptionally strong. I think there is another thread where we had discussed this and I had provided the particulars.

Arun

Rasika911 · Post by **Rasika911** » 17 Apr 2009, 10:51

Arabhis gandhara is very close to" ma" so the phrase Ma ga ri will almost be played as "mmr". The same can be said about the nishadham which is probably why thyagaraja abandoned it and just went for sa da

ppraghu · Post by **ppraghu** » 16 Jun 2009, 07:42

Shekarg wrote:I am a newbie on this forum and need some help from experienced flautists on how to play arabhi gandhara in flute. Unfortunately, I do not have a flute teacher to teach me in my neck of the woods and my wife can only teach me vocal. My love for the mellow sounds of flute have made me practice and teach myself and am stuck trying to play rere sriramachandra in arabhi.

I know that Ga and Ni are subtle in arabhi ragam and the entire beauty of the ragam is how ga and ri are played. If somebody can tell me how to play "ma ga ma" gamaka for arabhi, I would appreciate it.

Thanks in advance.

Shekar

Hello Shekarg,

I had this discussion with Vasanthakokilam in a completely different thread (and in the context of Sahana). I am posting it here in case you find it beneficial. (This is the URL for the other discussion: http://rasikas.org/forums/viewtopic.php? ... i-p2.html)

vasanthakokilam wrote:BTW, the 'ga' tilting effect you mention, is it produced by oscilating ri-ga, or ma-ga or something else?

Hello Vasanthakokilam,

I had been taught two techniques of taking Ga and Sudha Ma transitions in flute:

1) In Sahana, Ma-Ga-Ma can be achieved by playing usual Ma (with first hole open and rest 6 closed) and then tilting the flute inwards at the same time, the first hole also closed (you also need to reduce the blowing strength a bit to get that Sahana effect). ie, Ga is played with all 7 holes closed, an inward tilt and a weaker blowing. But this is possible only when you play 1st kAlam of Varnam, or if there is a prolonged Ga (like Pa Ma Ga,,,Ma).

2) Ma is played with all holes open and flute tilted outwards (with a stronger blowing to increase the frequency a bit). In Shankarabharanam, it is typically used if you want the Ga-Ma-Ga,, Ri-Ga-Ma-Ga kind of prayogams). It was wonderful to see, in one of the Thiruvayyaru Aradhana videos, Vidwan Sri Chittor Venkatesan playing a prolonged "Ma" in Ritigowla with this technique for "Nannu ViDici" pallavi to transition from "paTTAbhirAmA,,,," to "rAmayya vadalakura".

In Sahana, you can use the second technique to transition from Ma to Ri. Ma-Ga-Ma is played with first technique, then immediately open all holes, tilt the flute outwards (so it becomes Ma) and then do a Jhaaru to Ri.

In Arabhi to get a only "touch" of Ga when playing Pa-Ma,,,-Ga-Ri,,, flutists typically use the first technique. But the tilting is very little for Arabhi Ga. So Ga is almost like a fully closed Ma.

The second technique is also used in a lot of situations to get just a touch of Ma whenever you need to play Ga-Ma-Ga-Ri with Sadharana Ga and Sudha Ma, e.g. in Thodi, K.H.Priya, Ritigowla.

Hope I didn't confuse.

Regards
Raghu