Kanjira.ca

I received my copies of both Ganesh Kumar’s The Art of Kanjira and Amrit N’s Khanjira DVDs some time ago but have yet to post about them. Now that I am in possession of several sources of Kanjira instruction the thing that strikes me most is the radically different naming conventions for the 3 simple strokes (4 is you follow Amrit N.but that is for another post) of the kanjira.

It seems that for each tradition coming down from each teacher is unique naming convention and unique ways to approach the same rhythm. For instance is ta the closed 3 finger stroke or the closed 1 finger stroke. While the majority of sources seem to think it is the 3 finger stroke Ganesh Kumar seems to disagree. And given the Carnatic Dynasty from which he comes it is hard to argue the point.

It is for that reason that I have put aside all other sources for the moment to follow the teachings of Ganesh Kumar where I can find them before I move on and learn a new system. So for now the majority of my time is spent with Ganesh’s The Art of Kanjira DVD. You can find some more material as well on his newly launched website.

The DVD contains many lessons and while it starts slow enough to get a good feel for even the newest beginner I believe the lessons are best suited to someone who has spent at least a little time practising kanjira.

The primary elements of this DVD that I have found most useful are Ganesh’s approach to practising and warm up exercised as well as the a small composition to get you started and brief foray into Sarvalaghu.

While the 8 – 10 hours a day of practising Ganesh insists are required are outside what most people are able to set aside he makes several other excellent points in his description of his practice method that are worth listening too. The warm up lesson he provides is also a valuable tool to help get your hands loosened up before practising.

One of the pieces that I had been missing in the other sources of Kanjria rhythms that I have found was an explanation of how these can be combined into a complete composition. In the DVD Ganesh takes you through a short 2 part composition and describes the various pieces and whey they are combined the way they are which I found particularly useful.

As well he provides some traditional rhythms or Sarvalaghu lessons to get you started thinking about traditional Carnatic kanjira playing.

This DVD has been a great source of inspiration and education for me and I recommend it to anybody who wants to get started really playing Kanjira and understanding what they are playing and why.

I have recently received and started reading David P. Nelson’s book Solkattu Manual: An Introduction to the Rhythmic Language of South Indian Music. I have only just started but I am already learning a great deal from it.

Solkattu was not a term I had come accross before when learning about Konnokol. In researching the term I find it surprising that I have not as there are plenty of resources out there about it. It seems that Solkattu is the system combining spoken rhythmic syllables and their corresponding hand gestures that many people refer to as Konnokol. Konnokol on the other hand is the performance of this system of Solkattu as a musical instrument all it’s own. This is not the only definition I have seen for the differences between the two, some even claim they are the same thing, but I think this definition lies at the heart of both is book and the majority of what I have read about this subject.

This starts out assuming nothing of the reader other than a desire to learn Solkattu. It then takes what has always traditionally been taught orally and through direct personal demonstration and attempts to present it in a written western academic model for western music students. He ends the book with full performable konnokol pieces for individuals or small groups.

This book seems like it will fill a gap in my own studies that nothing else has been able to do. Nelson attempts to explain not only WHAT syllables to say and HOW to do the hand gestures but also WHY you do these things.

A great deal has been written about the pure theory of Carnatic music. Tables of Tala, Jati and Gati, lists of ragas and the role of individual instruments. A great deal has also been written about pure technique. How to hold a kanjira, the strokes for the mridangam or the syllables of Konnokol. But very little outside of going to India and studying with a master will help you link the two onto a coherent expression of carnatic music.

I have mentioned my quest to merge the theory and practice before. So far I am finding some answers in Nelson’s book and I hope by the end to have some more. I will probably post a review when I am done but things look promising so far.

As I have mentioned before, without a Master to study under I have had to use the internet to extent that I can to collect learning resources. Sometimes with online articles and sometimes with finding DVDs or ebooks to buy. There are a lot of resources out there but often they can take a bit of work to find. This post is about those resources that I have found so far. In addition I am going to create a separate page listing those resources that I have already discovered to make them easier to find.

The resources come in a few primary types that I will outline here. Check the new page as it will be continually updated.

Free Online Resources

The first are free online resources outlining some aspect of theory or technique. These are great and readily available. The only difficulty with these resources is that the websites that host them are not always stable and they can disappear over time. To get around this, not to mention to help me when I am playing away from my computer, I will often print out or save the articles. Two potential pit falls exist for this technique however. The first is making sure you keep up to date on changes the author makes but you simply need to revisit the site often to solve this issue. The second and more complicated issue is respecting the author and the hard work they put into what you are enjoying.

Make sure you help out authors either by linking to their work, revisiting their site if they are add funded or maybe purchase some of their work if they offer it for sale. Just make sure you are not taking advantage of their hard work.

DVDs

There are several DVDs out there on various aspects of Carnatic music. I have a couple and have recently ordered two new ones. There are two main sources I have found to get Carnatic DVDs. OM Radio has several DVDs for Kanjira and Ghatam among other things, Abstract Logix distributes several titles including The Gateway of Rhythm, but the largest repository I have found for these discs is Amazon.com. I do not wish to imply any sort of endorsement of Amazon in general but I have found and purchased several from them as well as finding several items I purchased elsewhere.

Ebooks

There are several places online where you can purchase Ebooks about Carnatic music, some for free and some for money. Bruno Tauzin as I have mentioned has 3 and there are a couple of PDFs from Pete Lockett that might arguably apply. I personally like the ebook format because I can print sections to use for practising without worrying about wrecking an original copy. As well I can view them on my laptop or phone so they are portable.

Paper Books

I have not found as many dead tree resources outside format academic treatises about Carnatic music theory. I am sure many of these are great scholarly works but they tend to be a little dense to help my practice and learn the craft. Solkattu Manual is, I have read, the exception there but I will let you know more about that when it arrives and I have had a chance to digest some of it.

Again please check out my learning resources page for more details.

I am hoping now that I am on vacation I can make a couple of posts to my blog again and regain some momentum for future posts.

The catalyst to get me started was an email from Bruno about his new instructional kanjira ebook “Drum Groves“.

I immediately purchased this 3rd book in the series as I have the other two and as with the first two it looks like a great resource for my practising.

The book is broken down into grooves and fills and a small intro that explains Bruno’s method to use the book. The grooves and fills start out quite simple for the beginner and move up in complexity and interest. By mixing grooves and fills in different combinations and working on different tempos there is lots to keep you busy.

Without access to a master in my area to study under (not to mention my general lack of time given my job and family) learning Carnatic theory and proper kanjira technique has been difficult. Bruno’s books along with some other resources I have found, which will be the subject of my next post, have helped fill in some of that void for me and I am hoping to sit down and come up with a practice routine using them soon.

I should have another post soon with a list of resource I have found for learning Carnatic percussion and Kanjira in particular but for now this new ebook from Bruno Tauzin at kanjira.fr is a good start.

While this blog is not officially dead it is obviously not all that active either.

I have had very little time to reserach the incredibly complex rhythmic systems present in even the simplest of Carnatic music let alone the depth that is present in more advanced works.

I will continue to try and read what I can and get back to posting but the time I do have has been dedicated to actually playing kanjira and listening to music but hopefully i can get back to it.

In the mean time it seems that Bruno Tauzin has added a second volume to his Kanira lessons book. It covers some or the less conventional time signatures (at least from a western point of view).

I have ordered mine!

It has been some time since I wrote the last article on Carnatic theory.  I was discussing Ragas and it is such a deep and wide topic that it has been difficult to add much more without getting much further into the topic then I intended to cover in this blog.

As I have mentioned there are innumerably books, courses and web sites dedicated to the scholarly study of this immense topic and I will not pretend I can reproduce them here.

What I wanted to do was describe what raga is to get the ball rolling on this more fundamental of topics.  I will recap and clarify a bit and then we can move on in the next post to the next aspect of Carnatic theory the tala.

I have said that a raga is like a western mode that conveys a particular meaning or mood.  This is somewhat correct on the face of it but I think I missed the point.  I was fixated on the ways in which the raga was like a western mode and it is but it is the evocative nature of a raga that really defines it.

So a raga is really more a framework for evoking a particular feeling with music than simply a mode with an attached meaning.  The use of notes, gamaka which I have mentioned before as well as the combination of notes and the choice of tala and laya and the way in which things are intonated combined to evoke an emotional reaction in the listener.

That is not to say that a raga is a fixed or rigid format to be copied.   Working within the framework of a raga any number of compositions can be crated.  The raga provides the tools to allow you to build a composition that evokes the mood or feeling you are trying to create.

While is clearly a huge part of the learning that goes into any melodic Carnatic instrument it is also fundamental for the percussionist to know and understand.   If the raga is setting the tone and mood of the composition then the percussionist must reinforce the tone with the rhythms they choose and laya and tala that are used.

Rather than repeat my self any more than I already have I will leave the topic here.  There are a huge number of resource on this absolutely critical topic for all Indian classical musicians.  I encourage you to follow up and continue learning about ragas.  I may return to this topic eventually as I learn more and as I learn to apply it to my kanjira playing.

Here are a few resources to get started.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raga
http://www.wyastone.co.uk/nrl/world/raga/intro1.html

Lists of ragas

http://www.carnatic.com/carnatic/ragalist.htm
http://cnx.org/content/m12459/latest/

In my last post I told you about Bruno Tauzin’s excellent kanjira ebook and I mentioned in passing that he also has a konnokol ebook.  I have since purchased said konnokol ebook and it is every bit as good as the kanjira one.

I will get into konnokol in more depth later on but it really is an essential part of learning, understanding and performing Carnatic music.  It is also a great system for any musician either on melodic or percussion instrument to learn to really master rhythm in any musical tradition.

There are many articles on the web about konnokol and why it is important.  Many of those will also give you a list of the basic syllables or konnokol phrases.  It is rare however to find a collection of lessons and a method to practice a variety of rhythmic patterns in konnokol.

I recommend a combination of the fantastic DVD “The Gateway to Rhythm” by Selvaganesh Vinayakram and John McLaughlin and the konnokol ebook Bruno has created..  Bruno doesn’t get into a lot of background on konnokol or it’s uses since that is detailed in many other places.  The Gateway to Rhythm provides this solid foundation and start to your konnokol lessons.  The ebook picks up where the DVD and web resources leaves off and gives you practical daily practice routines to hone your konnokol skills with a variety of progressively more difficult patterns

The combination of Burno’s 2 ebooks is especially useful as I find my self playing the konnokol lessons on the kanjira and working out the konnokol version of the kanjira lessons.

If you haven’t checked out Bruno’s site yet I suggest you do.

It has been quite a while since I have put up a post.  I have been incredibly busy and since I am posting as I am learning I have to have time to research and write which is tough.  As well if I do have time I generally tend to spend it listening to Carnatic music or practicing Kanjira.

Progress on practicing Kanjira has been slow but I have found an excellent resource that I wanted to share with you.  One of the hardest parts about trying to learn Kanjira is the lack of a knowledgeable teacher to learn from.  Given this fact I have to get what I can from the Internet which makes finding material to concentrate practicing seriously on difficult.    There are a couple of good patterns and articles by Pete Lockett both on his site and reproduced in a couple places around the web.  But for the most part what you find is the impossible to reproduce brilliance on masters of the instrument.

That being the case finding Bruno Tauzin’s ebook of Kanjira lessons has been incredible as well as frustrating.  With mostly youtube videos and Carnatic CDs to practice from I had started learning bad habits and the few things that came easily instead of working of proper fundamentals.  It has been a fantastic if incredibly frustrating process to get back on track with proper technique and patterns that look simple till you spend some real time with a metronome and proper subdivision.

I will continue where I left off on the last article soon I hope but for now check out Bruno’s book on Kanjira as well as Konnokol (I might have to get that next).

While a thorough deep dive into all the intricacies of Carnatic music theory and practice is beyond both the scope of this blog and my own capabilities I will endeavor to provide the basics.  As I am my self attempting to learn both Kaniira a Konnokol and have developed a deep interest in both mridangam and veena I am constantly trying to absorb as much theory as possible.

As I have said one of the main purposes of this site is to collect my own learning into one place to help me stay organized as I learn, particularly in the absence of a master to learn under.  Therefore I may jump around quite a bit and will certainly focus more heavily on the  rhythmic than melodic theory the two are inextricably linked and there will be much cross over.

The central terms/concepts that I will delve into first are raga, tala and layam.

I will start with the concept of a raga.  This is a huge topic in both breadth and depth that is far far beyond my ability to relate to you.  Innumerable books, courses and polemics are dedicated to a full explanation of this topic.  To get a full grasp of this topic you can start with the fantastic wikipedia article and move on to more advanced works by far smarter people than I.  That being said this is an introduction to the topic with an eye to wetting your appetite to delve further into the subtleties of the subject.

A raga is roughly equivalent to a western mode.  A raga is composed of 5 or more swara.  A swara represents an specific interval from the root note of the raga.  For instance the first swara of any raga is “Shadja”.  If for instance the composition and raga in question utilize a Shadja equivalent to the western note “C” then the swara “Chathusruthi Rishabha” would be equivalent to the western note “D” as it is one tone (or 2 semi tones as there is a swara per semi-tone).  However there is no exact pitch for each raga or swara and each performance requires an agreement on the root note and the intervals of the raga follow from that.

Each raga then contains five or more swara and since each swara has a rough western equivalent it is possible to approximate a raga on a western instrument.  That being said the gamaka is also an integral part of any raga.  The gamaka is an oscillation of the pitch of a swara and it is probably the most distinctive part of the sound of Indian melodic instruments like the veena or sitar.  The gamaka are not represented by any notation and are learned by sound and imitation.  These gamaka make writing down carnatic music or rendering it into any sort of approximation of western notation all but impossible.

While the subtleties may be impossible to capture on paper the swara are important as a reminder of the general notes to be played in a raga or composition.  Each swara has both a full name, a short name and a notational representation for writing down or verbally communicating compositions.  A full list is available in many places including here.

There are probably as many ragas as there are possible combinations of swara and gamaka but the list is divided and then subdivided into a variety of categories of raga each with some common element.  Each raga and category there of has it’s own sound and is generally associated with a variety of themes such as a time or day, a season, a gender, a mood,  a variety of religious concepts and anything else the imagination can ascribe to them.

Swara notational symbols ignore the gamaka and many other nuances that are brought to a raga by both tradition and specific performers but they gets as close to representing a raga as is generally possible.  There is a good list here and in many other places on the web of the numerous popular Carnatic and Hindustani ragas.  The following are a couple of 7 swara ragas using swara notation and their western equivalents based on C as is usual.

Rupavathi:
Swara = S, R1, G2,  M1, P, D3, N3, S
Notes = C, D♭, E♭, F, G, A♯, B, C

Kiravani:
Swara = S, R2, G2, M1, P, D1, N3, S
Notes = C, D, E♭, F, G, A♭, B, C

It should be noted that to the extent that these Indian concepts correspond to a western concept they do so for the most part only coincidentally.    Though I am sure there was some influence back and forth from centuries of travel between Europe and India but not being a music historian I will leave that to others to debate.

That is enough for this post or it will never be finished.  I will continue with raga’s in the next post before moving on to tala which I am hoping is going to be easier to explain.

There are many works used in English descriptions of Carnatic music and culture that remain in their original language (Tamil, Urdu, Sanskrit, etc. . .)  either because they have no direct English translation, are proper nouns, are technical Carnatic musical terms or a variety of other reasons.  To keep these straight and to prevent tediously redefining them for each post I have started a glossary page to house all these terms.  It is sparse at the moment but like the other pages will grow as I progress.

The glossary is going to have errors where I have either misinterpreted the definition or where I have found flawed definitions on which to base my understanding of the terms.  I will strive to continue to refine and update the site but I welcome any better definitions that you might have.