Incorrect information furnished in respect of 10 Gamakas in

Miscellaneous topics on Carnatic music
arunk
Posts: 3424
Joined: 07 Feb 2010, 21:41

Re: Incorrect information furnished in respect of 10 Gamakas

Post by arunk »

chitravina ravikiran wrote: Arun, you are also right. That is referred to as nokku (you actually hook the note from a note above). But it can probably be visualised as a subset of kampitam (done just once or even partially) esp. when played fast.
Thank you!

Arun

msakella
Posts: 2127
Joined: 30 Sep 2006, 21:16

Re: Incorrect information furnished in respect of 10 Gamakas

Post by msakella »

Chi.Ravikiran dear, The Shloka of Panchadasha-gamakas starts with ‘Svarsya kampo gamakaha….’. Here two terms, Kampita and Gamaka are furnished to help us categorise these things. More over, there is slight difference between these two. If you go through all the details of these oscillations along with the audio-files of my CD, AMS Easy Methods-2007, with patience and perseverance, you can understand these things more. Till now, nobody ever tried to categorise or define or symbolise all the oscillations of our music irrespective of 15 or 10 or any other number of Gamakas to make them accessible and follow even to a common musician. Even though I am not a competent person, seeing my quest, you may not believe, the Almighty had driven me in doing all such things.

In western music only the shake which we can all it Kampita is used and they won’t use Gamaka at all. I hope you will mind the difference between shake and movement of Kampita and Gamaka respectively. Thus I have categorised this aspect and accordingly while the Kampita has the relation with the adjacent upper or lower note only Gamaka has the relation beyond that.
If we were to go even further, the Shankarabharana Ri starts from S and goes to GRGR and the Da will be like P,SDSD. My only request would be to refer to these lalita-kampita and deergha-kampita, since all these still fall under the broad category of kampita. In technical terms, gamaka (from root word gam - to move/go) is more a generic name which has been incorrectly used as an alternative to kampita for many years.
In this respect I cannot agree with you. If you want to sing the Gamaka of Rishabha alone without mixing it with Shadja you must sing ‘grgr’ and in the same manner, for Dhaivata you, in fact, are supposed to sing ‘ndnd’ but, in our music, as Kakali-nishada must always be the dependent on Shadja you have to sing ‘sdsd’. If you call them ‘Lalitha-gamaka and Sampradaaya-gamaka’ it would be apt but not ‘lalita-kampita and deergha-kampita’ at all. More over, you must note that the Gamaka should always start from the upper note to the lower note to maintain certain discipline.

While categorising these oscillations to make a difference between the shake and the movement our ancestors have very correctly and aptly used the words Kampita and Gamaka. But, most unfortunately, our lethargic and lazy people never cared in standardising our things of our music even in the interest of our kids and posterity. For our lethargy, lazyness, inefficiency, ignorance etc., etc., we need not abuse our ancestors always.

Chi. Arun dear, At the first instance you must know the basic-inter-relation of 12 notes which I have named it, ‘Dvaadasha svaragathasthaana kampita gamakaanubandham’ and furnished in the beginning of the chapter ‘Kampitas & Gamakas’ in the pdf files of my CD, AMS Easy Methods-2007. And then proceed further. amsharma

vainika
Posts: 435
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 11:32

Re: Incorrect information furnished in respect of 10 Gamakas

Post by vainika »

msakella wrote: More over, you must note that the Gamaka should always start from the upper note to the lower note to maintain certain discipline.
Shri Akella's prescription certainly applies to some of the gamakas in ri and dha - shankarAbharaNam, ni - bhairavi, etc.

But how about other instances such as the ma in ascent mUrchanas of shankarAbharaNam and bEgaDa? These kampita gamakas begin with the lower note, don't they?

Also, there are gamakas other than the kampita ones, like ETra jAru, a type of ullasita, that are rendered as glides from lower to higher notes.

So the prescription appears to have limited applicability, imo. Of course, I have yet to listen to the CD, AMS Easy Methods-2007, which may clarify some of my doubts in this matter...

msakella
Posts: 2127
Joined: 30 Sep 2006, 21:16

Re: Incorrect information furnished in respect of 10 Gamakas

Post by msakella »

Dear vainika, I am extremely happy to find your post in regard to the oscillations of our music. Presently, the available material in regard to the oscillations of our music is not at all enough to cater the needs of our present-day music and, most unfortunately, even keeping the view of our aspirants, nobody had ever worked to categorise, list out and possibly symbolise all the different oscillations of our music to make it easily accessible and followable to the common musician. So, at this juncture, even after my retirement, only in the interest of our kids, I was compelled to make extensive research in this direction. At last, only by the grace of the Almighty, I was able to bring out 60 kinds of oscillations along with symbols and examples both in terms of notated-phrases and audio-files which have been furnished in my CD, AMS Easy Methods-2007 and which is downloadable from http://www.sangeethamshare.org/chandra/ ... hods-2007/. I have also brought out 27 facets of Kaishiki-nishada alone and furnished in the same CD. Even then I am not at all satisfied with this number and my work and since then I have been waiting for a knowledgeable person either to find fault with my work or to give me proper suggestions and guidance in this direction but in vain. That is why, after seeing your post, now I feel happy and expect some constructive criticism from you in bringing out flawless and reliable material on this topic.
But how about other instances such as the ma in ascent mUrchanas of shankarAbharaNam and bEgaDa? These kampita gamakas begin with the lower note, don't they?
At the first instance, if you don’t mind, I don’t like to utter ‘kampita gamakas’ as they already have independent identity and have not been mixed up even in the first Shloka ‘Svarasya kampo gamakaha………’ pertaining 15 Gamakas.

In my experience, I have arrived at that conclusion that Gamaka in ascent must always start with a downward glide from its upper-note and, if needed, I shall demonstrate and prove it even on Skype (my ID is ‘msakella2002’ on both Skype and Yahoo Messenger) to any knowledgeable person. In descent some modifications are needed but even in descent, in general, Gamaka doesn’t start with the lower-note. In my view, Kampita or Gamaka or upward glide or downward glide - all are different and we should not mix them in any manner. amsharma

You are welcome to go through my CD in detail and comment without any reservations. amsharma

srkris
Site Admin
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Re: Incorrect information furnished in respect of 10 Gamakas

Post by srkris »

Dear Sri Akella garu,

Can you kindly record the demonstration and put it on youtube or some other website so everyone can benefit. Specifically can you address the examples mentioned by vainika on the ascending jAru/ullasita, and the begada/shankarabharanam?

srkris
Site Admin
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Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 03:34

Re: Incorrect information furnished in respect of 10 Gamakas

Post by srkris »

Subbarama Diksitar's Sangita-sampradaya-pradarsini (1904) is a treasury of compositions in the family tradition of its author's great-uncle, the saint-singer Muttusvamy Diksitar (1775-1835). In this work the younger Diksitar introduced a new threefold classification of ornaments. His grouping was taken up by later writers, and it will be the central feature in the discussion of violin technique here. The three classes are: slides ( jaru or ullasita ), deflections ( gamaka ), and fingered stresses ( janta ). (Note that the more specific meaning of gamaka here should not be confused with its use as a general term for all ornamentation.)

Source: http://www.gswift.com/article-2.html

msakella
Posts: 2127
Joined: 30 Sep 2006, 21:16

Re: Incorrect information furnished in respect of 10 Gamakas

Post by msakella »

Dear brother-member, srkris, As I am not well versed with the techniques how to record the Skype proceedings I cannot do so. But, if our brother-member, vainika does it and put it in youtube I do not have any objection. Please ask him to do the needful in this respect.

Till now, a very few people worked on Gamakas and did something but it will not cater the needs of our present-day music and enable the common musician to implement it easily in his daily usage. That is why I am not at all bothered about the numbers or names or even the technicalities of the Gamakas already brought out by some people as they are not at all enough to cater our needs. I think it is better to build a new house of our own choice than repairing an old house of others.

Thank you for your nice artcle on Gamakas. I shall go through it at my leisure. amsharma

srikant1987
Posts: 2246
Joined: 10 Jun 2007, 12:23

Re: Incorrect information furnished in respect of 10 Gamakas

Post by srikant1987 »

I go with Sri Ravi Kiran's description for the ri of shankarAbharaNam.

While learning yadukulakAmbhOji's hecarikagA, I was not beginning the ri from sa, and was corrected by my teacher.

Coming from Vidushi KS's school, my guess would be that vainika also follows the same. The plucking will probably be done a tad bit before pressing on the ri fret.

davalangi
Posts: 90
Joined: 08 Jul 2005, 01:36

Re: Incorrect information furnished in respect of 10 Gamakas

Post by davalangi »

Here is a link to a lecture-demonstration by Prof. S.R.Janakiraman on "The place of gamakas in South Indian Music" - a fairly detailed practical demonstration of most of the gamakas explained by Shri.Ravikiran in his post.

http://www.sangeethapriya.org/Downloads ... makas-SRJ/

Couple of You Tube links from the same lecdem:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUOhN9mrmQY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKooLImC ... re=related

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