Pauses in kritis

rajesh_rs · Post by **rajesh_rs** » 22 Jul 2009, 18:24

Are there any songs which have been composed with deliberate pauses of significant length in the middle of the piece?

I was listening to an old set of recordings of DKP in the 1950s. She has rendered two songs in two similar ragas - Yaaro Ivar Yaaro in Bhairavi and Sivakama Sundari in Mukhari. In both songs, there is a pause before the anupallavi (or the charanam, I forget exactly which). In Yaaro Ivar Yaaro, there is a pause before "Kaarulaavum...", for example.

Are these pauses deliberate and are the compositions taught with the pauses?

s_hari · Post by **s_hari** » 22 Jul 2009, 21:01

I think it is due to time limitation on 78RPM records. One side of the record can be upto 3 to 5 minutes?

-hari

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 22 Jul 2009, 23:20

I think in perhaps all cases, the pause is not part of the composition but taken by the artist - say to wait till eduppu (e.g. this could be the case for SivakAma sundari which if I am not mistaken starts at the 7th beat).

Arun

rajesh_rs · Post by **rajesh_rs** » 23 Jul 2009, 16:37

S_hari - interesting point about the time limitation on 78 RPM records. That could be the real reason.

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 23 Jul 2009, 19:41

As hari points out, in these two cases that Rajesh raises and many cases of 78 RPM recordings, that pause is indeed due to the concatenation of the two sides. I occasionally try to edit the pause so that it fits exactly the thalam like what Arun is referring to. With mixed results

I even try to paste in the sruthi sound in the gap if I could find the sruthi sound alone elsewhere in the song.

Why mixed results? It is sort of hard to get it just right to provide the continuity. Artists are not usually accurate to the 100th of a second. So having that kind of an accuracy with editing software actually produces bad results. Each beat of the previous 8 beats are not exactly the same. So you have to average it and also allow enough variations in the filler ('humanizing it') for it to fit in nicely with the rest of the song. Also, the restart on the 'flip side' when concatenated does not flow properly. So you have to play with the fade in/fade out and other things to make it one continuous thing. Second, on a lighter note, a friend of mine, not knowing he is listening to my edited version, went off on a lament about how the old time masters did not care about maintaining continuity. My edit was too believable, I suppose

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 23 Jul 2009, 20:33

V Kokilam,
You are creatures of your age--experimenting with all the technology you have at your finger tips. I do not deny that we benefit by it all in unimaginable ways. Still, that pause in the rendering gives a moment of expectation, that vintage feel. May be because we waited with bated breath for an adult to turn the 'plate' around--looking forward to watching that shiny pin (needle?) circle around the disc again like an ice skater spinning around an expanse of ice. Coming to think of it, a song on each side was no big deal. Waiting for the caraNam, neraval and svarams was added pleasure.

rajesh_rs · Post by **rajesh_rs** » 23 Jul 2009, 22:12

vasanthakokilam wrote:As hari points out, in these two cases that Rajesh raises and many cases of 78 RPM recordings, that pause is indeed due to the concatenation of the two sides. I occasionally try to edit the pause so that it fits exactly the thalam like what Arun is referring to. With mixed results I even try to paste in the sruthi sound in the gap if I could find the sruthi sound alone elsewhere in the song.

Why mixed results? It is sort of hard to get it just right to provide the continuity. Artists are not usually accurate to the 100th of a second. So having that kind of an accuracy with editing software actually produces bad results. Each beat of the previous 8 beats are not exactly the same. So you have to average it and also allow enough variations in the filler ('humanizing it') for it to fit in nicely with the rest of the song. Also, the restart on the 'flip side' when concatenated does not flow properly. So you have to play with the fade in/fade out and other things to make it one continuous thing. Second, on a lighter note, a friend of mine, not knowing he is listening to my edited version, went off on a lament about how the old time masters did not care about maintaining continuity. My edit was too believable, I suppose

Haha. It is fun to try such exercises and yet find that the quality of the music doesn't diminish with the lack of accuracy that being human brings.