Chapter 6 Instruments, Melodic and Rhythmic ______________________________________________________________________ (1) 7-12, C/U Pages 65 The Indian Violin As have those in other nations and cultures, Indians have imported the violin from Europe and have used it with those instruments that are indigenous to the region. Explore with students the acculturation process by which the violin has become integral to Indian musical traditions, listening, observing, and discussing the distinctive manner in which Indians have fashioned (1) its tuning (a-d-a-d), (2) its playing position (at an oblique angle from under the chin to where the scroll rests on the foot), and (3) its timbre (played with a straight, non-vibrato tone). Invite students to play with these possibilities. Look to other journeys the violin has made--to Turkey, Indonesia, Mexico, eastern Canada, the Apache nation, and Bolivia, by searching keywords like "violin", "fiddle" and "lute, bowed", and compare the violin on the three facets which Indians have shaped to their liking and use. _____________________________________________________________________ (2) 7-12, C/U Pages 65-66 Instrumental Influences Challenge students to search for examples of Indian instruments in the musical styles of neighboring countries. What instruments exist in Burma, China, Iraq, Iran, and Nepal that resemble the Indian sāntur (hammered dulcimer), sitār, and tablā? (For illustrations of instruments, see Ruth Midgley et. al., editors, 1997, Musical Instruments of the World, New York: Sterling Publishers). ____________________________________________________________________ (3) AA Pages 66-68 The Drone Have students explore the function of the tānpura in providing a drone to create a fixed tonal center for a melodic performance by a singer or instrumentalist. Listen for the drone in the musical selections. Play a V-I-I-I (G-c-c-G or A-d-d-D) drone on piano (with pedal), guitar, or cello, and then add a sung or played melody above it. Invite someone with a tānpura in to class to demonstrate it. ____________________________________________________________________ (4) AA Page 68-69, 76-79 Instrumentally “Fit” Examine with students an assortment of familiar instruments to determine whether they would qualify in the performance of Indian traditional styles. Consider, for example, the clarinet (or the viola, guitar, recorder, trumpet, flute, trombone, or keyboard), and run the three-point test to see whether it "fits" Indian music: (1) Can the instrument be played to slide between notes up to the interval of a fifth? (2) Can it play in slightly altered tunings? (3) Can it play ornaments, like trills, to decorate the melody? Encourage students to play their own instruments to determine whether they pass the “fit” test. ___________________________________________________________________ (5) 7-12, C/U Pages 71-72 How Teachers Teach Read aloud to students the excerpt from Ravi Shankar's My Music, My Life. Guide students in contemplating the manner in which teachers teach, including disciplinary measures (or "motivational strategies" as the case may be) taken by someone's piano (or flute, or guitar, or voice) teacher for a poorly executed piece or exercise. Discuss Ravi Shankar's feelings regarding his teacher's reaction to his performance, and speculate why he was able to work his way through these feelings. ______________________________________________________________________ (6) AA CD Track 32-36 Ali Akbar Khan, Rag Chandranandan on the sarod 1. Play the beginning of the selection. Ask "What do you hear?" Answer: sarod, tānpura, (and at 27") tablā. 2. Describe the featured melody instrument, sarod, as a plucked lute thatis played by using the fingernail on a fretless steel fingerboard to produce various pitches. 3. Chandrananandan is an evening rāga. It is played by Ali Akbar Khan, who studied sarod with his father, Allauddin Khan, later to be joined by sitarist Ravi Shankar. Ali Akbar Khan now lives and teaches sarod near San Francisco, and continues to be an active performer of sarod. 4. Listen to piece, for the interplay of sarod with the tablā, for the repeated motifs as well as the progressive development of the melody, the intricacies of the sarod's melodic ornamentation and tablā's rhythmic play, the increasing tempo. 5. Listen freely to the piece, or using the guide below. As the piece runs long, it is useful to stop for each of the five sections, to discuss what might be musically going on at the moment within the piece. Compare the following events with the guide on Text Pages 88-89. _____ ______ ______ _______ _____ _____ _____ ___ * Introduction to the raga on the sarod [running 0’27”] * Beginning of descending Mukhrā by sarod and entrance of the tablā playing tīntāl. (The 16-beat tīntāl can be clapped and counted, and the mukhra can be quietly sung, in following the musical development.) [running 0’28”] * Mukhrā [running 0’09”] * Vistār (improvised instrumental section) on sarod lasting two cycles of tīntāl.[running 0’20”] * Return of Mukhrā, followed by rhythmic variations by tabla lasting two cycles. Sarod explores lower register in vistār.[running 1’23”] * Return of Mukhrā, and tablā playing in triplets and more complicated rhythmic flourishes. Sarod continues to improvise in vistār, including upper register improvisations. [running 0’30”] * Vistāar in middle register [running 0’30”] * Tān of mainly down-strokes on sarod [running 0’05”] * Tihāī [running 1’ 03”] * Tan ends with Mukhrā [0’32”] * (Recording cuts actual performance) Sarod becomes more rhythmically intricate through the use of syncopations.(called layakari, or "playing with the rhythm") [running 1’18”] * Return of Mukhrā. [running 0’05”] * Beginning of fast composition (gat) represent with its regular rhythmic plucking pattern, "1- 2-3, 1-2-3....", w * Emergence of a structured tān, or improvised section [running 0’30”] * Beginning of the jhālā section, characterized by repeated quick strokes of the sarod's drone strings and tablā's rising and falling pitches that complement the rhythm of the sarod. [running 1’18”] * Question-answer section begins, with sarod's melodic phrases imitated (or varied) by the tablā. Phrases are a tīntāl 16-beat cycle in length. [running 1’29”] * Question-answer phrases are reduced by half in length, to 8 beats. [running 0’25”] * Question-answer phrases are reduced by half in length, to 4 beats. [running 0’13”] * Question-answer phrases are reduced by half in length, to 2 beats. [running 0’02”] * Question-answer phrases are reduced by half in length, to 1 beat. [running 0’30”] * Tempo quickens, sarod's drone strings are prominent.[running 0’20”] * Closure comes through repeated phrases sounding together by sarod and tablā.[running to the end] _____________________________________________________________________ (7) AA CD Track 37 Nikhil Banerjee plays sitār gat in Rāg Sindhūr Khammāj 1. Play selection. Identify the melodic instrument as the sitār, the preeminent melodic instrument of India. Note that the standard trio of instruments can be heard: sitār, tablā, and tānpura. 2. Listen to and feel the rocking rhythm of 16 beats, or tintal, by first swaying right and then left. Then, clap the strong beats and then sway. (The current selection is gat-torā style, which is important for its use of structures of bols (plucking patterns.) 3. Listen to the pitches of the recurring melody, and sing them. This melodic phrase sounds four times in the first minute of the rāg. 4. After a short break, there appears the jhālā, a section that features the fast stroking of the drone strings. The 16-beat tāla is quite fast, and the steady pulsing of the drone is prominent. _____________________________________________________________________ (8) AA CD Track 38 Shivkumar Sharma plays sāntur in Rag Rāgeshri 1. Play selection. Guide students in identifying the melodic instrument as the sāntur, a hammered dulcimer similar to those found in the Middle East, China, Scandinavia, and the Appalachian Mountains of the eastern U.S. Explain that the instrument consists of strings stretched from one end of a trapezoidal sounding board to the other, which sounds when slim felt-tipped dowels are bounced upon them. 2. Listen to the tān, and ask the following questions: * What instruments can be heard? (Sāntur, tablā, tānpura) * Does the sāntour's improvisation consist of a narrow or wide range of pitches? (A wide range spanning three octaves) * Does the sāntour's improvisation feature a consistent and unchanging or changing dynamic level? (Changing, as this is one of the distinguishing features of the sāntour [and not the sitar or sarod]) 3. Following Figure 6.7, Page 76, sing the theme from the sāntur solo. 4. Challenge students to follow the tablā player's performance in the 16-beat tīntāl. (Count, clap and wave the sixteen beats. It is challenging, as the sāntour plays rhythmically 1-2-123’1-2-123’123123 (offbeat from the 14th beat) unique structure but Zakir Hussain picks it up!) 5. At about 1'25", Ask “Do you hear the increasing tension that is built by the tablāa's tihāī (cadential ending)?” (Note that the sāntour repeatedly plays a melodic phrasethat supports rather than overshadows the tablā's part.) 6. At about 1'50", ask “Do you hear the release of tension created by the tablā's dramatic finish of the tihāī at the beginning of sāntour's melodic theme? _____________________________________________________________________ (9) AA CD Track 39 Sultan Khan plays sarangī Rajashthani folk song 1. Play selection. With students, identify the melodic instrument that sounds in the second half of the piece, playing the same melody the singer sang in the first half, as the sarangī. Note that the sarangī is a small bowed lute with thirty-five sympathetic vibrating strings which is played with the cuticle of the nail of the left hand sliding up and down the string to the pitches of the melody. 2. Listen to the singer's ornamented melody rise and fall and surround a tonal center without venturing very far above or below it.