Kritis in multiple talams?

[ragam-talam]

Are there any kritis set in multiple talams?
That is:
Pallavi - in one talam, e.g. Adi
Anupallavi - in a 2nd talam, e.g. Rupakam
Charanam - in a 3rd talam, e.g. Misra chapu

Or is this not a permitted format for a kriti? (We do have kritis set in multiple ragams.)

Here I am not referrring to magnum opus kritis, for example, Maha Vaidyanatha Iyer's in 72 melas.
What I am after is a 'regular' kriti with pallavi-anupallavai-one charanam structure.

[hariniraghavan]

I believe there are talamalika compositions. I am yet tpearn about them.. Any how in Purandaradasa's suladi compositions, each suladi has a no.f charanams wherein each charana is set in a different talam (all of them are suladi sapta talas only.)
Harini.

[vasanthakokilam]

Right. I was going to mention about Prandaradasa's Suladi compositions as well which DRS introduced to us a few years back, with his own suladi composition.

[ragam-talam]

Harini and VK - the suladi structure changes the talams for multiple charanams, right?
Are there any kritis with differing talams for Pallavi-Anupallavi-Charanam?

Arasi?

[vasanthakokilam]

On the structure of the suladi: http://ezcarnatic.tripod.com/sp43.htm

[arasi]

r-t,
tALam impaired Arasi sometimes ends up wondering why the pallavi or charaNam in a song or two of hers has a different tALam, is puzzled and tries if it would all fit in the old reliable Adi tALam without taking away the lyrical flow. It works sometimes. If not. she shelves it!
Nice thought, though. Why not? Strange, I've asked the same question of a vidUshi before, and the prompt answer was: I don't think it's done!

[ragam-talam]

Why not? Strange, I've asked the same question of a vidUshi before, and the prompt answer was: I don't think it's done!

And this is what I wanted to understand: Did she mean this is not kosher? Or merely that it hadn't been done?
Hope you will consider this when you work on your next composition.

[MaheshS]

I am not 100% sure, but I remember someone mentioning that BMK has a composition in different talams. Perhaps, lakshman Ji can shred some light on whether a composition like this exists?

There is a magnum-opus by Ramaswami Dikshitar in 108 ragas and 108[??] different talas, where both the ragam and talam get mentioned in the sahityam.

[arasi]

r-t,
Knowing that she's a die-hard traditionalist, I would say, to her it is not kosher!
Well, if such a composition happens, I will run it by a more liberal musician and see what the verdict is.

[arunk]

I would presume in general this is avoided because it would lead to break in metre rules (?) and in general that is kept constant in poetry. But that is still conditioning. I mean I am certain it is possible to break this and still produce something that can be enjoyable (perhaps with conditioning!).

In Bharatanatyam you do have tala-malika e.g. the jayajAnakiramaNa tODai mangaLam - this is a malika of all sorts - it is a ragamalika, talamalika AND vaggeyakara-malika!!

There are songs with gati/naDai switches which is technically a tala switch.For example sAmbaSivAyenavE (khamas swarajathi) has a khaNDa naDai part. There is a gathibedha (?) BMK tillana.

Arun

[Lakshman]

Balamuralikrishna's composition is this:


jhem jhem tananata (puSpAnjali). rAgA: Arabhi. Adi tALA.

jhem jhem tananata jhem tananata takundari kiTataka kukundarI
jhem tanam tanomta taLAngu taita taitakka takatai taka taka kukundarI
tAhaku jhem taLAngu tadhimi taka dhit-taLAngumani veDalina shrI

adyanta rahita ya ra la va sa Sa ha gam gaNapatikive kai mOTpulu
vighna bhagna nimagna vara sadguNa gam gaNapatikive nA praNatulu
gam gaNapatikive praNatulu gam gaNapatikive praNatulu
(shlOka)
vANIm AshrayAmi brahmANIm vEdanuta purANIm ambAm
vINA rava lOlAm alivENIm virinci rANIm anisham
(rAgA: bilahari/khaNDa cApu tALA)
tAha taka jham tarita tarita jham tatari tAdhimi tAdhimi tAtA takiTa tAdhimi tAdhimi tAm
vandAru mahanIya jana brnda hrdayAlu spandinci AhlAdamondagA kandarpa janakuNDu muraLIni
nAduNDu Ananda kandaLita hrdayuDai nA mundu ravaLinca gA dhIta dittai nEnoDeda dIvenelu nE pondeda
(muktAyi)
taLAngu takadina tOm taittaka taLAngu taka dinatOm takadiku taittaka taLAngu takadinatOm

Madurai N.Krishnan has also composed one titled ranga anjali which is in four rAgAs-nATa, shuddhasAvEri, Kamavardhini and shuddhadhanyAsi in Adi, rUpaka (tisra jAti Eka), cApuand k/cApu respectively.

B.M.Sundaram has composed a rAgamAlika and also an isai natakam in rAga/tALamAlikA.
Rajee Narayan has composed a svarajati and a devastuti in raga/tALamAlikA.
R.Venugopal has composed one too.
C.Rangiah has composed a tAnavarNa in rAga/tALamAlikA.
Ramasvami Dikshitar has composed one as well.

[MaheshS]

it is a ragamalika, talamalika AND vaggeyakara-malika!!
Arun

Off topic I know, that reminds me of MDR's mangalam, two composers, two ragas and two talams and I've heard him add a slokam at the end as well

[arasi]

Lakshman,
Thanks for the list.
Arun,
You speak of gati changes. How about jAlamE SeivadazhagAgumA?--by Mayuram VIswantha Shastry?

Lakshman,
How is this song written down?

[ragam-talam]

Just read on Facebook (Cleveland Sundaram's page) that vidushi Suguna Varadachari recently rendered a Ponnaiah Pillai kriti "Ninainthodi Vanden" in 7 different ragas and 7 different thalas. Did anyone here attend the concert?

Lakshman-ji, would you have details of this kriti?

[rajeshnat]

Just read on Facebook (Cleveland Sundaram's page) that vidushi Suguna Varadachari recently rendered a Ponnaiah Pillai kriti "Ninainthodi Vanden" in 7 different ragas and 7 different thalas. Did anyone here attend the concert?

Lakshman-ji, would you have details of this kriti?

RT,
There is lot of info about this krithi in this review
http://www.rasikas.org/forums/viewtopic. ... dachari%40

[Lakshman]

I don't have the lyrics/info on the Mayuram Vishvanatha Iyer kriti.

Here is the K.Ponniah Pillai song:


ninaindODi vandEn. rAgamAlikA.

(rAgA: tODi, dhruva tALA)
ninaindODi vandEn ninmalanE ninaduruvam kANa viraindu E
(rAgA: pUrvikalyANi, maTya tALA)
manamagizh pUrvakalyANi maTTiyambakkETTAi manurugiyE
(rAgA: bhairavi, rUpaka tALA)
ghana rUpam pIri bhairavi tan adhipatiyE karudaru poruLE
(rAgA: kalyANi, jhampa tALA)
vanamAm kalyANi OrpAl virumbiya vangAra mArbA vAsam paindAr
(rAgA: kAmbhOji, tripuTa tALA)
tina madhuNDE girImrIm rIm enAt-tripuTayoDu kAmbhOji
(rAgA: mukhAri, aTa tALA)
munagiDAd-inid-isaikkavE manam urugiyE haTayOgi enavumE amarndAi
murai iduvAgumO pughavillaiyO iduvE migha mukhAriyil
(rAgA: varALi, Eka tALA)
enadu kuraiyEga EttuginrEn varALiyil peruvuDaiyAnE unnai

[ragam-talam]

Lakshman-ji, many thanks!

Now if only we could get an audio rendering of this kriti...

[Lakshman]

I can send you the notation and you can learn it and sing it for us!

[Lakshman]

arasi: I found the lyrics of the kriti by Mayuram Vishvanatha Shastri. But I think the tALA is just Adi while in some places it changes naDai.

jAlamE seivadazhagAgumA. rAgA: khamAs. Adi tALA.

P: jAlamE seivadazhagAgumA (inda) vaDivElA krpAkarA shIlA enmEl inda
A: tAmadam seyyAmal ennai kAppAyE, kAppAyE kaNNeDuttu
pArppAyE ennai mAyiladil Eri vandennai kAttiDum
C: vEda mantra rUpA dEva nAyakA, nAyakA nAda varadAyakA
nAdabindu kalAdiyE vishvanAthanukkaruL jyOtiyE inda

[arasi]

Thanks lot, Lakshman!
Just as I thought. Yes, the naDai changes!

[gita]

Ilayaraja's 'Agaaya veNNilaave' is composed in 2 talams. The singing portion in rupakam and the interludes in Adi, the transition is so smooth that one cannot notice the difference in taalam.

[arasi]

Lakshman,
In the anu pallavi, isn't it:
mAmayil mIdil ERi vandenaik kAkka vallE--pOi varum--inda jAlamE?

[vasanthakokilam]

gita: At first I thought it may not be a big deal but listening to the song, it is interesting what IR did there.. Though straight forward in construction, it provides the necessary rhythmic variation between the song and the interlude. It actually makes the interludes worthy of paying some attention to. Thanks for the reference.

[vasanthakokilam]

On second listen, may be another way to consider the IR song as a gathi change, with the song in thisra gathi and the interlude in chathusra gathi, with the sub-beat duration the same through out with in the Adi thala outer framework.

[gita]

VK, you mean nadai? I tried trisrs nadai and chaturasra nadai with adi talam, it is not working out.

I heard in some lec dem that gathi is different from nadai. Jaati we all know, as in chaturasra jati triputa. We can do 5 nadais in a chosen tala. Within that nadai, falls the gathi. For e.g. we do trisra nadai in chaturasra ekam, chaturasra gathi. the talam will go like
ta ki ta | ta ki ta | ta ki ta | ta ki ta || in trisra nadai. Now, chaturasra gathi will be
ta ka di | mi ta ka | di mi ta | ka di mi ||

This is what I understood, pl. correct me if I'm wrong. I remember reading about nadai and gati somewhere else in the forum, but didn't quite understand it then.

[vasanthakokilam]

gita, I do not really understand if nadai and gathi are different and if so in what way.. there seems to be two schools of thought on whether they are the same or different.

For this IR song, I agree that considering the song portion as tisra gathi is a bit rough but I thought of that mainly because the song portion had a different feel than a typical chathusra gathi feel.

I guess I meant it in the sense of gathi where between the song and interlude the sub-beat durations are the same..

Keep the beat like this and see if it works out. The thala is chathusra eka throughout. For the song keep three taps per thala beat and for the interlude keep two taps per thala beat. I do grant you that keeping tha ki ta for the song portion is a bit hard.

[arunk]

vk,

Here the beat is catusra gati only - it is (sort of) like tap pause tap tap pause tap tap pause (i.e. 1 p 3 4 p 6 7 p). The same beat with tabla occurs even in the interlude (say around 1:05).

Also mapping a rupaka (2 cycles of chapu style) to a tisra Adi (1 cycle): while it does aligning midpoints, it would also mean differing kriya/akshara/beat duration (from a tala keeping standpoint). So you would have a gati change as well as a kriya/akshara/beat duration diffrence as well. But maybe you mean something else?

In western music, this is probably more common. One example I can think of is Pink Floyd's Money which is a 7/4 (or 7/8?) song - sort of like tisra tripuTa for most of the song but the second interlude switches to a racier straightforward blues 4x4 beat (like catusra eka) - and then after that you get back to 5x4.

Arun

[gita]

vk, while it is possible to put the talam the way you suggested, as arunk said, it is possible that IR used 2 talas, because I remember Dr. L. Subramaniam's orchestral composition 'Reflections' using 2 talas.

[vasanthakokilam]

OK, thanks Arun and Gita. Arun, what I mentioned does imply a change in kriya+beat duration but not akshara kala ( here by akshara I mean the sub-beat duration ). But that is a moot point since you two feel that the gathi change interpretation is a stretch.

Do you two agree that the sub-beat remains unchanged throughout the song? If that is so, and it is all in chatusra gathi, then the thala change is no big deal since the beat duration itself does not change, it is just the avarthana count changes. But IR does more than that to bring out the difference between the song portion and the interlude portion while keeping the sub-beat constant. So that built in laya difference is where the creativity is, I suppose. ( this goes back to an interesting discussion on this topic at Arun's blog last year )

[arunk]

Yes sub-beat (i have read the term pulse being used elsewhere) does not change here, and it is all catusra-gati only.

Arun

[prashanth12]

it must be blasphemy to spend this much time discussing a film song in the carnatic music section......but that's a really nice song...classic ilaiyaraja...lovely lyrics....."thevaara santham kondu dhinam paadum thendral onru, poovaaram soodikkondu thalai vaasal vanthathintru "

[cheenju]

@Lakshman sir, could you please send me the notation (with chittai swarams if available) for “Ninaindodi’ by K Ponnaiah pillai? Thanks

[Sivaramakrishnan]

* Idathu padam thookki the celebrated kriti in Khamas has its charanam in Tisra nadai (though in Aadi taalam itself).

*Chitraveena Ravikiran has composed a Raga-Taala Maalika Tillana.