Iacobus Leodiensis [Iacobus de Montibus, Iacobus de Oudenaerde]

(d) The exposition of a Karnatak rāga.

The differences in style between Karnatak and Hindustani music are nowhere more exposed than in ālāpana and ālāp. The stately Hindustani ālāp exhibits individual scale degrees often approached by slow mīnd and, in certain rāgas, sustained with oscillations. The Karnatak ālāpana alternates occasional sustained pitches with other scale degrees prolonged in wide shakes, often preceded by a few short semi-detached notes, the whole interspersed with short bursts of melodic flourish even in slow-paced portions.

A full rāga ālāpana in Karnatak music is also structured somewhat differently in performance from the Hindustani ālāp, although the same basic principles are involved. The early 17th-century Thanjavur treatise Sangīta-sudhā described a procedure not quite like that of the Sangīta-ratnākara. The samples in the Shahjī manuscripts of the later 17th century confirm the procedures described, and the modern practice is very much the same.

The typical Karnatak ālāpana opens with an āksiptikā (‘throwing out’, the vernacular is āyittam), in which a brief overview of several of the basic configurations of uttarāng as well as pūrvāng is given. In the second stage – rāgavardhanī (‘rāga expansion’) in the Sangīta-sudhā – phrases of the pūrvāng are first developed as fully as possible as melodic units, expanded, and contracted internally and combined together through rising and falling patterns externally. The second part of this stage moves to the uttarāng and establishes the upper octave of the system tonic, building and developing uttarāng phrases.

Following the rāga expansion based on melodic elaboration and concatenation comes a second exposition based on approaches to endings, sometimes called vinyāsa-sañcāra (‘end-[marked-]passages’). Vinyāsa-sañcāra is based on the return principle. A short motif is sung, and the approaches to it are progressively lengthened. Vinyāsa-sañcāra is used as the principal area for virtuoso display and comprises three elements: the goal motif; the nearest available sustainable pitch; and ever-longer, ever-wider chains of brikka or phirukka (Hindustani phirnā ‘whirl’), melismatic patterns. These may also appear elsewhere but are characteristically developed in this way. Two or three vinyāsa-sañcāra sections are sung in a full Karnatak ālāpana, with particular emphasis on one that allows the nuclear steady pitch to be at the upper tonic or, where the rāga allows it, higher still.

The last section of the ālāpana brings the pitch and intensity level gradually downwards, through melodic motifs of the uttarāng and pūrvāng, and concludes normally with a few phrases in the mandra (below the system tonic) before coming to rest on the tonic.

Such an ālāpana will normally appear once or twice in a concert. It may precede a kriti composition that is going to be treated as a major item. Traditionally, however, the full ālāpana of a major rāga was presented in connection with the concert item designated rāgam-tānam-pallavi, in which case it would be followed by the pulsed rāga improvisation called tānam. In principle, rāgam-tānam-pallavi is the major item in a programme of Karnatak music, although in modern practice it is often given a lesser role, some kriti earlier in the programme having been given a full complement of prior ālāpana, and adjunct niraval and kalpana svara. The tānam, however, is usually done only in rāgam-tānam-pallavi (see §5(iv) below for discussion of this genre).

South Indian tānam is close to Hindustani nom-tom, given the differences in style; the syllables are tā nam, ta ka nam, ā nan dam etc. Separate sections of tānam are built in successively higher registral levels, each is concluded with a short unpulsed passage of ālāpana before the next is begun. The whole tānam concludes with the threefold sequence of a tānam phrase at successively lower pitch levels (usually built around upper tonic, 5th and lower tonic), followed by a few last phrases of unpulsed ālāpana.

India, Subcontinent of, §III: Theory and practice of classical music.

4. Rhythm and tāla.

(i) Terms for rhythm and metre.

(ii) Historical development of tāla systems.

(iii) Tāla in Karnatak music.

(iv) Tāla in Hindustani music.

India, Subcontinent of, §III, 4: Theory and practice of classical music., Rhythm and tāla.

(i) Terms for rhythm and metre.

Rhythmic organization is at least as important as melody in characterizing the many styles of Indian classical music. The Hindustani and Karnatak styles are distinguished partly by their rhythmic characteristics, as are the vocal genres of Hindustani music (dhrupad, khayāl, thumrī etc.) and their instrumental counterparts. An extended performance of a rāga is likely to comprise a sequence of rhythmically differentiated sections, moving from unmetred rhythm to fixed metre (tāla) and from slow tempo to fast.

Fundamental to the discussion of rhythm in Indian musical discourse is the concept of measuring time, usually on the basis of a regular pulse, called mātrā (‘unit of measurement’) in Hindustani music or aksara (‘syllable’) in Karnatak music. These terms are often rendered in English as ‘beat’ (though this word can be confused with the hand-gestures of tāla) or ‘count’, since the mātrā/aksara can usually be counted on the fingers during teaching or performance (with some exceptions in very fast or very slow tempo). In general, however, the mātrā/aksara corresponds most closely to the concept of a ‘beat’ in Western music.

The closest Indian equivalent for the modern Western term ‘rhythm’ is laya. The basic meaning of laya is ‘tempo’, with three basic levels: slow (vilambit[a]), medium (madhya) and fast (drut[a]). A secondary meaning is ‘rhythmic density’, the subdivision of each beat into two or more equal parts, giving the impression of faster tempos. In Hindustani music the tempo of the beat (mātrā) is termed barābar laya, and the beat may be subdivided into two (dugun laya), three (tigun), four (caugun), six (chegun) or eight (āthgun). Other laya such as 5:1, 7:1, 4:3 etc. are encountered mostly in instrumental solos. In Karnatak music the terms gati and natai similarly denote levels of laya. The normal subdivision of the beat into two or four is called caturaśra (‘four-cornered’) gati/natai, while alternative subdivisions are three or six (tiśra), five (khanda) and seven (miśra gati/natai).

Gati (or gata) means ‘pace’ or ‘movement’ and occurs in other senses too. In Hindustani instrumental music a gat is a composition characterized by its ‘movement’, a rhythmic plucking-pattern on the sitār or sarod, or a configuration of rhythmic densities on the tablā. Another term for rhythmic ‘movement’ is cāl, ‘gait’, as in hāthī kā cāl, ‘elephant's gait’ (the slow rhythm of a dhrupad in Cautāl). Closer to Western ‘metre’ are chand, the term for metre in poetry, which in music denotes a small repeated surface-rhythm pattern (e.g. 3 + 2 + 2), and tāla, a cyclically repeating fixed time cycle.

Most performances begin with an unmetred introduction, even if only consisting of one or two phrases to introduce the rāga (see §3(ii)(c) above). In Hindustani vocal (dhrupad) and instrumental ālāp, and in Karnatak rāgam-tānam-pallavī, this introduction is extended to give a complete exposition of the rāga in several rhythmically differentiated sections. The rhythm of the opening slow ālāp or rāgam appears to be unregulated by a consistent pulse, except in the periodic mohrā formula of ālāp, where an explicit pulsation temporarily resolves the rhythmic ambiguity of the surrounding improvisation. The performer may, however, have a more or less regular pulse in mind throughout. A pulse becomes explicit (and faster) in the medium-tempo ālāp (jor) or Karnatak tānam, where irregular groupings of two, three, four etc. pulses maintain metrical ambiguity and rhythmic interest. Hindustani fast ālāp, which plucked string instruments play in the jhālā style (see ex.12), accelerates the pulse to the maximum technically possible. The grouping of pulses here may again be irregular, but groups of four predominate, and rhythmic patterning (chand) in threes, fives, sevens etc. may be introduced for variety. There is no Karnatak equivalent of fast ālāp.

The ālāp(ana) is usually followed by a composition and further improvisations set to a particular tāla. Tāla, from Sanskrit tala (‘flat surface, palm’), means a clap or slap and hence the measurement of musical time with the aid of claps and other cheironomic gestures (kriyā). Each particular tāla comprises a number of pulse-beats (mātrā) grouped into a ‘cycle’ (Hindustani āvart, Karnatak āvartanam), defined by an emphasized beat (sam) at the beginning. Audible claps (Hindustani tālī) and silent waves (Hindustani khālī) are used to mark the first and selected other pulses during the cycle, in a set pattern, as an aid to keeping time in teaching and in the performance of certain genres. The disposition of claps at unequal intervals helps to maintain a sense of position within the cycle. In some genres the hand-gestures are replaced in performance by instruments: by small cymbals (appropriately named tālam) in the Karnatak nāgasvaram (oboe) ensemble and in many non-classical religious music genres, and by the Hindustani tablā, which plays a set pattern of strokes (thekā, literally ‘support’) based on the theoretical clap-pattern. In khayāl and thumrī the role of the tablā is restricted to playing decorated variants of this thekā, and hand-gestures are therefore unnecessary. In dhrupad the pakhāvaj drum improvises freely, returning to the thekā only occasionally. In this genre, and even more so in Karnatak practice where there is no thekā at all, the hand-gestures are an essential means of articulating the metrical structure and are performed by solo vocalists and/or by members of the audience.

India, Subcontinent of, §III, 4: Theory and practice of classical music., Rhythm and tāla.