How would you find the pitch of the drone UN-accompanied music???

[ganesh_mourthy]

Ranganayaki ,

you are spot on . It is a mix of both Rageshree or Bhageshree . It seems that it is called malkunj raag. Still there is some liberty with a foreign note to be added.

I am close to understanding how the filmy song pitch works. I shall try to explain that in detail later when I have time at my disposal. All that I understand is it will be in vain to look for a pitch of a song ( Sa base ) like we do in carnatic music or hindustani music. Western music and filmy music and light music has a different theory. I am a little surprised that this thread did not have inputs from anyone , not a fraction of attention of a several TMK post .

[Sachi_R]

Ganesh and Ranganayaki have this covered well.
Scenario: No drone or aadhaara Shruti sound in the track
Sample: multi voice multi instrument track with attractive music
Question: What is the Sa? Why does it change? Why can't we fit ragas neatly to the melody?

My take: As I have shown, each of us have been able to infer or detect the Fundamental, Sa, in each portion of the track
Composers are not obliged to stick to either the Sa or the Raga in a song, as they want to make music which goes beyond these constraints. As long as the music is appealing, that is a sufficient condition. No need for a strict adherence to a single Shadja or a single raga right through the song.

There is nothing more to be said, I think.

[ganesh_mourthy]

Ganesh and Ranganayaki have this covered well.
Scenario: No drone or aadhaara Shruti sound in the track
Sample: multi voice multi instrument track with attractive music
Question: What is the Sa? Why does it change? Why can't we fit ragas neatly to the melody?

My take: As I have shown, each of us have been able to infer or detect the Fundamental, Sa, in each portion of the track
Composers are not obliged to stick to either the Sa or the Raga in a song, as they want to make music which goes beyond these constraints. As long as the music is appealing, that is a sufficient condition. No need for a strict adherence to a single Shadja or a single raga right through the song.

There is nothing more to be said, I think.

Sachi you are super correct. There is no need to stick to a raaga lakshana , nor its arohana avarohana or a aadhaara shrudhi . The concept of aadhaara shruti is purely for gamaka based music such as Hindustani or carnatic where a Sa is required which universally stays without gamakams in all ragas . And that gamakamless base note is the aadhara shrudhi which should repeat octave after octave. And Pa is the same .

In the western music , and in any music where there is no gamakams except vibrato such an anchoring may not be even be logically necessary .

Now , the Indian light music and even devotional music is the mix of two systems .

1. System one : Similar to the western music there is no such thing as a raaga. No aadhaara shadja required . There can be two harmonical musical scales which can be done via instruments and voices. Sometimes more than two . The harmony and appeal matters. Therefor the song anthi mazhai can be vasantha or panthuvarali. It does not matter at all. What matters is that you have to find the scale and note and octave corresponding to the western scale . That is easy with the help of a piano .

2 . System two : Though the scales are set in western notes and scales, it is , however, given in indian flavour. Gamakams are used. Janta, alankarams , jaaru , fast sangathis, podi sangathis, rava sangathis,.... long jaaru ( but very clearly enunciated note by note and systemized oscillation making sure that the notes are reasonably clear.). And for this reason they still inconspicuously keep a raaga like style without sticking to any particular raaga. There will be a Sa like halt without gamakams often and that particular note is not oscillated. In most cases it is not any raaga but just a scale . Just imagine if two singer sings in different pitch ( aadhara shrudhi ) ... It is better to call it with different names such as " c major or E major " than by different kattai . I have observed that the film musicians and western musicians develop a different ear sensitivity over years.

GM

[Ranganayaki]

(@Rsachi wote:)As long as the music is appealing, that is a sufficient condition. No need for a strict adherence to a single Shadja or a single raga right through the song.

This came out a few days ago (the video. The composition of the music by LGJ csme our at least 25 years ago)

https://youtu.be/AZxkbKhkQZs

The liberties RSachi mentions have been in vogue for the last three decades, as I pointed out earlier. Older film songs were much more traditional. Relying on a single raga with a clearly defined adhara Shadja.

I guess the notion of aesthetics has expanded as our composers as well as the audience are exposed to other systems of music and other slants (melodic vs harmonic for example) with an untapped richness of sound simply waiting to be explored in the genre of film music.

[ganesh_mourthy]

(@Rsachi wote:)As long as the music is appealing, that is a sufficient condition. No need for a strict adherence to a single Shadja or a single raga right through the song.

This came out a few days ago (the video. The composition of the music by LGJ csme our at least 25 years ago)

https://youtu.be/AZxkbKhkQZs

The liberties RSachi mentions have been in vogue for the last three decades, as I pointed out earlier. Older film songs were much more traditional. Relying on a single raga with a clearly defined adhara Shadja.

I guess the notion of aesthetics have expanded as our composers as well as the audience are exposed to other systems of music and other slants (melodic vs harmonic for example) with an untapped richness of sound simply waiting to be explored in the genre of film music.

In fact , it has started 70 years ago . Did you watch that video of Ramesh Vinayagam deciphering different msv songs of 60s ? Basically it should be major minor scales with occassional foreign notes.

[Ranganayaki]

I did not.. but I thought of the possibility. I’m just saying that it has become very common and quite typical in the last few decades to incorporate ideas that are not from traditional carnatic music. In fact the older type of song is far more rare now, quite the exception, it seems to me.

[ganesh_mourthy]

Yes , indeed that . That gives a lot of liberty. That is the the reason why the western musicians have a keyboard by their side to decipher the scales to match the notes . Just if they shift all the notes even by a seminote , the entire scale changes.We would call that as half kattai higher.

[Nick H]

Just if they shift all the notes even by a seminote , the entire scale changes.We would call that as half kattai higher.

That's called changing the key which is known by the name of the tonic. If starting with C major, shifting every note by a semitone, means the key will be C# major. But the scale will still be major, the intervals will still be the same, and the feel will still be the same. I think it is called transposition.

That's about all I know.

[Ranganayaki]

Just if they shift all the notes even by a seminote , the entire scale changes.

If all The notes are shifted up equally as you describe, the scale does not change. Nick is right. Since the shift is unifirm, all the intervals remain identical.

In Indian terms, Nick’s example scale, C Major is Shankarabharanam at 1 kattai. Moving all the notes up by a semitone will give you c# major scale, Shankarabharanam again, at 1.5 kattai. we just simply speak of ”raising the pitch,” or ”singing at a slightly higher pitch.”

Btw, any comments on the Bharatiyar-LGJ video I posted?

[ganesh_mourthy]

Yes , you are right . I mentioned the transposition as change of scale by error.

Yes I am going to look at at. It seems interesting as the whole piece in grahabedha . I am going to watch it today. Isai oru kadal .

[RaghuPS]

I am a new member and have been a regular guest here. This topic spurred me to register as I have had this question in my mind for a long time.

first, I want to thank the Forum administrators and all the members for their illuminating posts.

suppose a singer is doing alapana of Raga A and let us say there is a Raga B which can be derived from A through sruthibhedam . can somebody in the audience be under the impression that the vidwan is elaborating raga B ?

[ganesh_mourthy]

Hello Raghu

I am welcoming you into Rasikas on behalf of all.

About your question of Raaga A and B .... yes the distinction is very clear to audiences who are familiar with the raagas. It is although a challenge to the singer to cautiously shift. You cannot just sing any raga and practically and theoretically even , only a few raagas have this flexibility . It is easy for you to arrive at it with some logic if you are familiar with the carnatic raagas. And what distinguishes is the raaga's signature . Two raagas will have different grammar. It is better to show the popular signature of each raaga as one shifts to make the audience ready to appreciate.

I suppose you are talking about Grahabedham which should be an even better term than shrudhi bedham. For a discussion on that you can check this link in Rasikas itself when you find time.

viewtopic.php?t=6046

[raghavendra]

Hello,

I am a new member, was reading through and found this a very interesting question, all the answers are very informative as well.

Just thought of adding my 2 cents:

Without a physical drone signal buried inside the vocals/instruments/accompaniments signal, it is left to the brain to interpret and as others rightly pointed out, contextual information comes into play.

As far as I think, roughly:

1) A sequence of 'n' notes is sung/played (of course, it is impossible to extrapolate the tonic with just one note, difficult with 2 and so on..there is a threshold below which the brain cannot analyze much)

2) The ears faithfully pass on the ratios of the notes and contextual information associated - stressed note, what was the curve taken from one note to another (delta, delta-deltas, energy content) etc. mostly spectral information (as our cochlea acts as a natural spectrum analyzer) to the brain.

3) The brain arrives at further subtle high-level features (which goes into perception realm and is not at all fully understood). The brain then tries to fit this collective information (including basic notes and context) with the patterns it has already heard and learnt in a best-fit kind of approach. Roughly it is like asking, when have I come across these 3 points in these ratios and this context?

4) For someone with a knowledge of classical music, when a decision is made by the brain on (3), it gives them a recognition of the notes played/sung which implicitly extrapolates that the Shadja should be this. (apart from the mood that the notes evoked, this little problem-solving in itself gives them a happy moment and they "feel" they now fully understand the language of the singer)

Part of reason why present day technologies like machine learning are far more successful in audio/vision problems compared to only signal analysis, they model and learn the abstract contextual information also to an extent.

[Ranganayaki]

suppose a singer is doing alapana of Raga A and let us say there is a Raga B which can be derived from A through sruthibhedam . can somebody in the audience be under the impression that the vidwan is elaborating raga B ?

I believe it happened to me once. I was listening to an Alapana in the car so my attention was not a hundred percent, I don’t remember what the tambura situation was, but I heard a raga that was different from the intended raga. When I discovered the error, I mentally computed that it was a grihabhedam shift that had happened, and I found it very interesting. It’s been many years and I don’t remember a single detail. - ragas, singer.. but it happened and there was a certain carelessness from my side because of the driving situation. So it seems possible.

Recently there was a grihabhedam on an LGJ varnam in their tribute series. I spoke to this relative-friend of mine, and he could only hear the grihabhedam version throughout. But I have follow-up questions that I haven’t yet asked.

[ganesh_mourthy]

I am a new member and have been a regular guest here. This topic spurred me to register as I have had this question in my mind for a long time.

first, I want to thank the Forum administrators and all the members for their illuminating posts.

suppose a singer is doing alapana of Raga A and let us say there is a Raga B which can be derived from A through sruthibhedam . can somebody in the audience be under the impression that the vidwan is elaborating raga B ?

I think I understood it wrong and answered it differently earlier. Generally the grahabedham is done with Raagas that are more familiar and it is good to do so as the purpose of singing on stage is for audience's appreciation. When a singer does grahabedham , he is rather doubly cautious so that it does not blend . The shift should be effortless but the distinction should stay pronounced. Hence the all the raaga grammars are well exploited to avoid confusion. Generally a seasoned ear will quickly notice the shift .

[raghavendra]

I am a new member and have been a regular guest here. This topic spurred me to register as I have had this question in my mind for a long time.

first, I want to thank the Forum administrators and all the members for their illuminating posts.

suppose a singer is doing alapana of Raga A and let us say there is a Raga B which can be derived from A through sruthibhedam . can somebody in the audience be under the impression that the vidwan is elaborating raga B ?

In my opinion, yes.

From a bansuri (Hindustani) perspective, I can say that this is even employed by the instrumentalist. Komala swaras (flat swaras) in the flute requires the hole to be partially closed by the finger. Two successive komala swaras is a flutist's nightmare!

Eg: raga Bhairavi (Sindhu Bhairavi), Todi (Shubhapantuvarali) has komal ri and ga which is very difficult to play on a flute. An option is to shift the Sa to Ni, in which case, Sa becomes komala Ri and shuddha Ri becomes komala Ga etc. and it is very easy to play (somewhat close to Shankarabaranam scale - but from Ni to Ni). So, setting the tamboora Sa to Ni and playing these open notes results in Bhairavi - it is routinely employed. It is also employed in cases where another instrumentalist is on a different scale and you have to adjust.

A short excerpt where the flutist is playing shuddha swaras (open notes) - but the raga is Hindolam/Malkauns - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI7-329fdlk

Although, purists contend that the effect of a komala swara is always different.

So, I think if your brain has just absorbed a long concert in a particular frequency of Sa and you immediately begin listening to Shankarabaranam scale but with Sa set a semi-tone higher (and almost no tamboora sound coming through), you would hear something like Bhairavi.

(Apologies for the different notations from Carnatic)

[ganesh_mourthy]

Hello Raghavendra ,

Such a thing has never happened to me . I listen a whole concert of youtube in the background and sometimes a long RTP of around an hour. And then when I listen to a different singer in a different Raaga, in a different pitch I have never had the confusion . Say for instance , the shankarabharanam and sindhu bhairavi or carnatic can hardly be confused. They sound like two different musical styles. Perhaps if someone is playing shankarabharanam scale in a piano for sometime and shifts to sindhubhairavi it may be possible. The raaga signature prevents you from getting confused. The bilaawal thaat and sindhubhairavi could be different , but the unnoticeable seamless merge can work only for total straight notes. That is my take...
You go on ... certainly you have thrown in some interesting information.

GM

[raghavendra]

Hello Ganesh,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. When you shift to new, if there is an audible drone from tamboora establishing the Sa, or the singer establishes it by a starting nyaasa on Sa or Sa-Pa-Sa etc. then the old shruti would be replaced and no more relevant. I was speaking of a case when there is no aadhara in the new one. Personally, I do remember getting confused a couple of times for a few brief moments (with the old shruti still sort of playing in the head).

It is very fleeting, and as you said, drastic differences in signature phrases and approaches of the ragas do help in eventually distinguishing.

[ganesh_mourthy]

I see that some people are gifted that they are absolute pitch sensitive. Though they say it is 1 out of 10000 , I think we can almost make it out give or take 1 tone, after some constant musical listening. Ear training is an integral part of curriculam in some of the western schools. In a film song or even western song... I keep my pitch constant to 1.5 and try to hum along . And I am quite OK. I dont follow any grammar . But if they are shaking the c# then I shift it a keep the straight long note as a shadja... It may be a unique illogical method , but that works for me in the absence of a shuti drone. If a music note is D# it is just my ri2 . Since there is no adhaara shadjam.. all the song would revolve around my aadhaara shadjam.

[Sachi_R]

This came out a few days ago (the video. The composition of the music by LGJ csme our at least 25 years ago)

https://youtu.be/AZxkbKhkQZs

Hats off to Ranganayaki for having found this video and shared the link here. I am visiting the forum only occasionally these days.

This is a masterpiece at so many levels.

• The very idea of how enchanting music can be - as said by Bharatiyar
  
  The way Lalgudi - the only one we can think of with that name- has tuned this song with a sensibility and imagination as a pinnacle of all such tunesmith efforts
  
  The way Anuradha has created a musical canvas beyond anything I have heard in Carnatic orchestration
  
  The way the voices have melded - something unimaginable these days
  
  The way the instrumentation has been done - the most synergistic one I have heard. Even Rahman and Raja and Shankar & Co would die to achieve this level of synergy, with their megabuck studios and techs
  
  The scenery is not jarring at all. For me music is always an internal experience and video depictions of sceneries from SB Khanthan onwards have been at best terrible. Even when TMK sits in marshlands and mouths his innuendoes
  
  What makes this video unique is that here is a deep respect for art, the composer, the listener, and the soul of what we call true musical idiom.
  
  This could well be the greatest tribute paid to Lalgudi

I have heard this sung by Abhishek in a Margazhi Utsavam. We discussed it in rasikas. At that time I was amazed. But this time I am simply in the stratosphere of musical experience.

Coming to ragas and grahabhedas, the greatest statement here from a layman like me would be that I didn't even think of all that this time! For me it was Goddess Durga singing of her beloved brother Krishna and his music.

Coming to what makes music go beyond tonics and scales, one thing I wanted to say. I am convinced that the cadence of our 22 Shruti system is rooted in what we may call cosmic bliss Ananda. It is the definition of what we may call music.

When any music plays in parts within that 22 Shruti idiom with all its flexibility, moving from tonic to tonic and raga to raga, it has the impact of good music. The greatest example for that could perhaps be this video!

In God's creation, there is always room for something greater. Maybe Anuradha will give us more and better. But I am satiated for now!

[ganesh_mourthy]

I am listening the Lalgudi musical piece and it is very novel , I am listening to it for the second time now. Will listen it a few more times. These are new and controversial experiments for carnatic music and the mainstream may not easily endorse it. The light music on the other hand can try anything as long as it is pleasing.

A music like the below with the nadaswaram hammers the pitch in your head even if there is no drone in the background. That is because it is withing the realm of grammar . Is it not? Can a non carnatic ear find the the same pitch like us is the question ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Acp2xiVjLKk

[Ranganayaki]

I am listening the Lalgudi musical piece and it is very novel , I am listening to it for the second time now. Will listen it a few more times. These are new and controversial experiments for carnatic music and the mainstream may not easily endorse it. The light music on the other hand can try anything as long as it is pleasing.

This is controversial? How? Which ”mainstream?”

As for it bring new, i think I did mention that it came out about 30 years ago in a cassette of Bharatiyar songs, set to music by Sri LGJ. Not really new.

[ganesh_mourthy]

I am talking about the carnatic mainstream. Grahabedham was too slow to enter the concert arena much after GNB made it popular. Even now I don't listen much of grahabedham done in concerts. I am talking about the carnatic mainstream.

[Sachi_R]

Ganesh,
You may find this interesting:



Aopriva is a student of Lalgudi Srimathi Brahmanandam and Anuradha Sridhar. I know her from her performances in Bengaluru. She won the Naad Bhed award and other awards a few years ago.

Let's watch out for her tracks.
This one is here:
https://youtu.be/GN96ISjgnjE