Chords are "new"

[duff777]

Actually, chords are relatively new to European music.

In the medieval era, early Christian hymns featured organum (which used the simultaneous perfect intervals of a fourth, a fifth, and an octave), with chord progressions and harmony an incidental result of the emphasis on melodic lines during the medieval and then Renaissance (15-17th centuries).

Then, the use of chords formally began in Renaissance and the folk musicians didn't know these, since chords were presented in church music.

If we take that modern human culture began 200,000 years ago, and the harmony began 5 hundreds years ago, the chords are "new" in music.

[vasanthakokilam]

"with chord progressions and harmony an incidental result of the emphasis on melodic lines"

What does this mean? Can someone explain this please?

[Shivadasan]

The use of the simultaneous perfect intervals of a fourth (Ma), a fifth (Pa), and an octave (Upper Sa) are melodic and helps to emphasize the melodic lines. It appears that the other consonances do not merge with the melodic lines and using simultaneous imperfect intervals may not emphasize the beauty of the melodic line.

[cmlover]

Can somebody confirm whether chords have been tried in CM?
I am sure ILayaraja has tried it in some of his CM-based movie songs...

[Nick H]

The drone of the tambura is a chord.

[srikant1987]

"Like"

[Nick H]

Actually, it goes further.

It is too long ago for me to quote word for word, but, paraphrasing, Rama Varma (a great Mozart fan, among other things) told me that People are wrong to say that there is no harmony in carnatic music: there are harmonies formed by the tambura drone and the sung notes.

After nearly ten years, I am probably not able to express his idea properly.

[Shivadasan]

The notes of the strings of the tanpura are played successively and in the strict sense it may not be considered as a chord. It appears that for the chord the notes should be played together, start and end at the same time.

[uday_shankar]

It is too long ago for me to quote word for word, but, paraphrasing, Rama Varma (a great Mozart fan, among other things) told me that People are wrong to say that there is no harmony in carnatic music: there are harmonies formed by the tambura drone and the sung notes.

Sure ! If we're into semantics and splitting hairs like this, there certainly is "harmony" in Carnatic music ... in the same sense that there's gamakam in western music on the basis of that rare glissando (hey, that's like jaaru isn't it ?!).

In fact, while the "harmonies" formed by the tambura and the sung notes in Indian music are purely accidental, at least the glissando in WM is intentional. In that sense, one has to concede that "gamakams" are better developed in WM than "harmonies" in CM.

Now that we're finished arguing meaninglessly, the point is how well developed and sophisticated the respective aspects are. Harmony is NOT a goal in Indian music and gamakams are NOT a goal in western music.

(No offence to Rama Varma, but Mozart is only the kindergarten of harmony. One must try Mahler or Tchaikovsky)

[cmlover]

If three groups concurrently sing the same kriti one at one kaTTai, second at 5 kaTTai and the ladies at 8 kaTTai.. there will certainly be harmony (?) but will there be melody?
Like the cacophony during bhajans (or the pancaratnas during the Thyagaraja festivals

[vasanthakokilam]

In the medieval era, early Christian hymns featured organum (which used the simultaneous perfect intervals of a fourth, a fifth, and an octave), with chord progressions and harmony an incidental result of the emphasis on melodic lines during the medieval and then Renaissance (15-17th centuries).

Shivadasan, I am not sure if you were responding to my question or if that was a general point. in any case, let me clarify my question. There are two points made in the above paragraph. a) Playing consonant intervals existed first b) Chords and Chord progressions came in later as "an incidental result" of the emphasis on melodic lines

I am trying to understand clearly what they are talking about when they say 'emphasis on melodic lines' ( beyond sounding consonant intervals simultaneously ) which led to the chord progressions

There are a few reasons why I want to understand this.

1) Harmony sounds quite complex to me, both the theory and the music. But the above explanation is not complex. Second, the vocal harmony is not complex: With two or more people singing the same line but out of phase so there is a vertical layering of notes. But somehow from these simple origins, it seemed to have evolved to this complexity ( at least as perceived by me ). I want to get a grasp on that.

2) To understand the actual aesthetic purpose for the harmony, at the same level as I understand the aesthetic purpose
behind melody. Understanding the transition mentioned above will help us understand the motivations behind harmony.
Is it to provide more "substance" and "body" to the music because melody alone sounds "lean"? ( just as an example )

3) CM seems to be at that medieval era level since all we have is simultaneous sounding of some consonant intervals.
So understanding the transition that happened in WM will be of some use in thinking about possibilities for CM.

[Nick H]

Uday, yes, I see your points entirely --- but saying that something is not the aim, and saying that something is absent is not the same.

Like cmlover's point, Cacophany is not the aim of the group singing he mentions, but group singing in carnatic music seems very hard to achieve well

The notes of the strings of the tanpura are played successively and in the strict sense it may not be considered as a chord. It appears that for the chord the notes should be played together, start and end at the same time.

That would leave out instruments like the guitar, which would upset a lot of western musicians. How quickly the notes must be played to form chords depends on the sustain of each one. I think that a single pluck on a tambura will be heard longer than a single pluck on an acoustic guitar?

VK, you are going far deeper into this that I can ever reach. Many of us are not musicians in either Indian or non-Indian music.

Uday mentions Mahler. When I first heard his music I loved it. After that, I found he had a reputation of not being an "easy to listen to" composer. Why? Many of his melodies are quite light and catchy, although the overall effect can be heavy going. I guess I was always aware that there was more than met the eye in his harmonies

The quote in the original post was picked to make a point. It may or may not be correct, and it may or may not make that point. Cherry-picking words from Wikipedia can be dangerous!

Of course, as is the way with forums, the original post may, or may not, have anything to do with the ensuing discussion

[rshankar]

but will there be melody?

Seems like a question for a Gaul, one Prof. Cacophonix!

[cmlover]

You mean
http://www.cacophonix.com/music/files/m ... _score.mp3

[uday_shankar]

vk
Those are hard and penetrating questions that cannot be answered easily. Here are some thoughts:

Chords and Chord progressions came in later as "an incidental result" of the emphasis on melodic lines....I am trying to understand clearly what are they talking about when they say 'emphasis on melodic lines' ( beyond just sounding consonant intervals simultaneously ) which led to the chord progressions...

I think there's more to it than emphasizing melodic lines. It's an exploration of musical sounds at another dimension. The melody itself is simple but the harmony adds a rich and colorful tapestry. "Color" and "tapestry" are key words I think.

So why is there a highly sophisticated development harmony, especially starting from the baroque (16th and 17th century, JS Bach, etc..), though pre-Romantic (18th century, Mozart, etc) to the Romantic (19th century Schumann, Brahms, Mendelssohn, etc..) whereas Indian music never attempted it ? Here are some random thoughts:

1) Western or Christian music/culture/philosophy is much more about large-scale co-operative group behavior than Indian culture. The earliest churches had groups singing the liturgical songs. In general Indian culture has emphasized the expression of individual experience or at best a small extension of that with small groups. Large scale co-operative group behavior is underdeveloped as evidenced by traffic in any Indian city, or more tragically in the frequent occurrence of stampedes in Indian temples. So the attempted point of this rant is...Western culture was primed for the musical possibilities that can arise out of co-operative group behavior.

2) The notion of triads (S-G3-Pa) as a consonant combination of sounds was known to Ancient Greeks plucking on harps. Bharata too might have known it as Tribhinnam, although the word only implies simultaneous plucking of three strings. At any rate, exploration of such consonances in group music may have been a natural development.

3) Fast-forwarding, or at any rate playing fast and loose with historical sequencing, the invention of the keyboard, wherein multiple sounds can be produced concurrently with two hands, is a huge deal. Organs and harpsichords were the earliest keyboard before the advent of the pianoforte. Also, since the earliest days, their organs, unlike our harmoniums, were operated with bellows by foot, thereby freeing both hands. This may again be a cultural and geographical accident - cold air settles close to the floor and in general floors are cold in cold climates and not conducive to a life of sitting down on the floor. Therefore Western culture is a chair-and-table culture, thereby freeing the feet to operate the bellows of the organ. Also, unlike Hindu culture, it wasn't sacrilegious to operate something with the foot (drums too for example). The keyboard is a critically important aid to the development of Western music, and an integral part of any composer's life, from Bach to Ilaya Raja. Every symphony composed by Beethoven came from his ruminations on the piano, sometimes with poignantly loud banging due to his deafness.

I seem to have lost my original train of thought since starting to type...will continue if I regain it, but to explore some other questions:

Is it to provide more "substance" and "body" to the music because melody alone sounds"lean"? ( just as an example )

I think that's definitely a part of the story.

So understanding the transition that happened in WM will be of some use in thinking about possibilities for CM.

Attempts to bring harmony into Indian music has been made. Here are some notable examples:

1) Pandit Ravi Shankar has composed a sitar concerto and I listened to it quite a while back. While quite pleasant, my takeaway was that the harmonies were incidental and not flowing from a holistic conception.

2) L Shankar, by far my most favorite violinist ever, has produced exquisite harmony-like effects with his double violin, taking advantage of recording aids like mixing tracks. The limitation of that is that since it's a single player, most of the "chords" come out like triad sequences and are also limited in scope. Still, the aural effect is extraordinary, especially when there's a smooth transition to the rAga, be it Hemavathi or Shankarabharanam. Also - I cannot emphasize this enough - his rAgamalika at the end of a Savitri piece recorded in 1980 is a statement of extraordinary originality that transcends genres like never before. I am sure many Carnatic artists have listened to it secretly with awe !

3) Chitravina Ravikiran, an unwavering ambassador of undiluted Carnatic music, has been training western orchestras to play CM, using his notion of mel-harmony wherein the attempt is to restricts the elements of harmony to notes within the rAga of a chosen Carnatic melody. I've heard the BBC Orchestra play Shobhillu Saptaswara very competently.

4) Anil Srinivasan is adding an interesting dimension to CM with his keyboard ruminations. It may not attract the Harimaus but thankfully there are enough people with a more expansive worldview .

[mahesh3]

=

[Shivadasan]

Dear Vasanthakokilam,

I do not know much, but from whatever I knew I have penned a few lines. Please take it for what it is worth.

Melody in Indian music is the exploration of the relationship of various notes with the basic tonic i.e., Sa for evoking emotions in the listeners. Music in the early stages had only a subsidiary role and served only as an accompaniment to the actions in a drama as we see in Bharata Natya Sastra. There also its work was to evoke the concerned emotion. Natya Kala disappeared the over centuries but music remained. As correctly pointed out, Indian music had a tradition of solo rendering and not a group rendering as in the Western Music and so chords did not emerge.

So far as Western Music is concerned musical tradition was preserved by the churches through their group music which facilitated the evolution of chords. Gregorian Chants are wonderful melodic creations woven by successive change of chords. Their music were not tied down by limits of a single scale. They traversed from one scale to another freely an yet produced beautiful pieces of music. Listening to an expert rendering of the chord progression is a splendid experience by itself.

Over centuries the use of chords became more and more complicated and sometimes they have 5 lines of music running simultaneously. It requires a lot of experience and study to appreciate just as it involves a lot knowledge to understand difficult pallavis.

Indian and Western aesthetics are on different planes. But both have their beauty.

Shivadasan

[Nick H]

(edited)

Please stop discussing trolls (moderator)
.

{edited)
Some things do strike as being a little fanciful. Monasteries were not meant to be comfortable: perhaps it just never occurred to them that they could improve their discomfort levels by sitting on the cold floors! I don't know organ history, but I think that hand pumping goes back quite a long way, except that it would have been somebody else on the pump. The feet were free to play yet another "key"board.

Whilst the traffic analogy is attractive, out of the obviously-music-producing countries of Europe, only disciplined Germany stands out as being, err, disciplined. France is pretty crazy, and I don't know if even my years of Chennai driving would have properly prepared me for Italy . Also, other countries have stampedes too. The crowd intelligence, whether of football fans or temple devotees, seems to work the same way.

[uday_shankar]

I don't know organ history, but I think that hand pumping goes back quite a long way, except that it would have been somebody else on the pump.

No doubt. This would be the case for a pipe organ, a fixture in large cathedrals from the pre-baroque times (16th century). It had multiple consoles and was by definition, "harmony ready". However, to draw a comparison with the Indian scenario, I was talking about the smaller reed organs, which are exactly like the harmonium in principle, except the bellows were operated by foot pedals. These were used in smaller churches, and while not nearly as versatile or grand as the pipe organ, they still allowed for two-handed playing, a vital necessity for polyphony/harmony. The hand operated bellows version of the harmonium, I believe, is an India-specific invention for operation sitting down. This harmonium is, by definition, melody only.

As for sitting on the floor vs sitting at tables and chairs, my "argument" is just a loose speculation but has nothing to do with monasteries or mortification of the flesh. Traditionally in Indian culture everything is done sitting down on the floor whereas in western culture it has been done sitting at tables and chair. I can't think of a single depiction in ancient or medieval western art of any activity sitting down on the floor. One more reason, I would add is that Indians go around barefoot inside the house, again because the floors are warm enough. Being barefoot is a vital necessity for sitting on the floor to cook, thresh, meditate, eat, etc..

Raucous crowd behavior is different from co-operative group behavior and I think there's merit to the observation that western culture has been able to achieve many more things out of group synergy.

[seema]

Uday
Interesting posts. Found this video online of Sikkil and Anil's version of Ekkalathilum. Very interesting rendition, if nothing else. Maybe pertinent to the discussions on keyboard ruminations. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lde3gqsHKjA

[Nick H]

I had always assumed that the harmonium was every bit as much an import as the violin. Partly because of its keyboard, and, I suppose, I used to see these things around in UK in my childhood --- but probably more in antique shops than anything else. Insofar as Wikipedia can be trusted ('citation needed' as they might say ) it says that French missionaries introduced it to India. How curious is that? The staple accompaniment of the South came from the Irish, and the staple of the North, from the French! ]

But ...is it true? And, if so, was it in the form as we know it today?

The pipe organ came in many shapes and sizes, from really quite small to something that is part of the building. Even the small ones, though, were/are pretty complex mechanisms. Wonderful things!

The village church is likely to have had an organ. The chapel might have had a harmonium. Maybe the methodist religious family, too, if rich enough.

Please stop discussing trolls (moderator)

Oh, right ... only just saw that. Hope the ongoing conversation is valid :$

[vasanthakokilam]

Thanks Uday and Shivadasan. Understood. I will have to mull over a few things but you got me thinking.

A few points.

1) Gregorian chants: They are wonderful to listen to. I get the same feeling as listening to Vedas ( esp Sama ) being recited. Veda reciting is also typically done in a group. I do not know if Gregorian chants can be called polyphony. Yes, they change scales but everyone in the group shift together. May be there are versions where different people singing different lines, I do not know. The simplest form of vocal harmony which sounds neat is, say 2 singers singing exactly the same line but offset by, say, 4 mathras. It has to be distant enough to make a difference but not too distant. I realize it is not harmony progressiosn but it is still polyphony alright, however primitive.

2) Taking a clue from the previous point, when a violinist accompanies a vocalist, a primitive form of that shifting occurs, however close the violinist wants to shadow the vocalist. This is probably true of alapana and thanam. Of course, it is not any significant "music building" chord progressions but the overlap is not necessarily along consonant intervals. It sounds just fine. May be because both are playing the same raga.

3) Uday, the group-individual behavior of different cultures may have a role to play. I do see the angle you are thinking of, especially of the times that are of recent history. This can go off topic very quickly. With that caveat... I am not sure if the difference you bring in to this discussion had been true over centuries. Religious services were done as a group in India ( e.g. group recitation of vedas or other manthras ). As Shivadasan wrote above, in pop culture of ancient India, music and dance were associated with drama and all those put together is a group activity. On the other side, we have to remember, prior to the recent few centuries of cultural domination by Europe, it was in dark ages for many centuries before that. So correlating achievements to group behavior has to look at that dark ages also. Anyway, this is a whole different topic, though a very interesting one. ( My own personal interest in this off shoot topic is how big things get done if we remove God, Royalty or Dictator as the binding factor. A whole different topic )

4) Uday, thanks for those examples of attempts at Harmony in Indian music. I do find Anil Srinivasan's work to be fascinating. I need to listen to him more. I recall one interlude he played on the piano for a Vasantha piece. That was very natural and it fit in with Vasantha. I remember thinking at that time that there is at least some hope for me to grasp something of musical substance out of this otherwise incomprehensible harmony ( beyond enjoying the general sound colors and tapestries as Uday succinctly described )

5) We are talking about harmony and chords in western classical music. What about chords in Jazz, Blues, Rock and Pop. I hear commonly the Pop musicians being put down as 'he is a three chords pop guy'. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-chord_song). Hmmm.. when I read up on it, that does not sound trivial to me, though those songs, while sounding pleasant, lack a certain depth.

But this also tells me the chord progressions are so woven into the basic framework western music of any kind: from the full orchestral arrangement to a "singer song-writer" type musician who sings while strumming an acoustic guitar. I find that low end fascinating that they think in terms of chord progressions to build the song. But what they sing is indeed a melodic line but what they play on the acoustic guitar is this chord progressions that are 'somehow related but not the same as the melody. And that is considered by many to be obvious including lay people in the audience. While talking to lay people, they are not even conscious of the chords, since they seem to be paying attention and "hooked" by the melodic lines but without the chords it sounds 'bare' and 'lean' to them. ( The melodic line when sung alone does have an independent existence of its own like our music, it does not sound bad however lean it may sound )

6) As a final point to explain my astonishment and curiosity around this topic, let me rope in an example from Blues Guitarists.
Watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylAo1-nR09w
It is really for guitarists interested in learning to play like Stevie Ray Vaughn since the teacher is a big SRV geek. Look beyond the guitar techniques he talks about if you are not interested in that but pay attention to the sounds created by the chords that are involved as accompaniment to the SRV vocal. There are so many 'progressions' going on under that tapestry which results in very good, rich and relate-able music. ( You can check out the teacher's other free videos on youtube, they are quite good, this is a good sample. ). But here is the point. While teaching, the teacher plays those chords and progressions in piece parts and slowly. They do not sound foreign or western to my ears at all and I have a feeling you all will find it that way too ( we will see ). Only when they are played together they take the shape of the Blues Rock song in the style of SRV.

[cmlover]

Uday
How come group singing will not pass for 'chords' ?
Does it have to be instrumental?
I have heard vedic recitations (eg., Rudram by 12 Rithviks) which sound like sweet 'chord progression' - which otherwise would sound bland if chanted solo.
Many times Bhajans have a similar effect if there is synchrony...

[Nick H]

There are great examples of chords in vocal "group" singing, from classical choral music, through "barber's shop" and other acapella music, to the harmony singing in the more superior types of rock/pop.

If you have a group of people ranging from older men to younger girls who have to sing a song together, and to make it possible two or more sruthis are chosen, then there is certainly harmony, of a simple kind. I think it takes three or more notes to make a chord? and would it count if every one sings the same line, just at different pitches?

[cmlover]

Thx Nick for the clarification!

[vasanthakokilam]

I think it takes three or more notes to make a chord?

Probably so in classical but in blues rock I see frequent references to 2 note chords!

would it count if every one sings the same line, just at different pitches?

I do not think so, if you mean by 'same line different pitches' that the different pitches are octave apart. Polyphonic lines which are an octave part are still the same line. But as cml mentioned earlier, if they all sing at different kattais that are not octave apart, that will be polyphonic, however cacophonic it may sound. In CM terms, if one of the singers is given the priority status of Sa, then everyone else will grahabeda to their own ragas, even though individually they may think they are singing the same line.

[duff777]

Some examples of non-Indian, non-Western, traditional music (correct me if I'm wrong) -


Tajik ( no chord change ):




Mexican ( chord change ):

[Nick H]

<crossposted> will come back later, but deleted for now