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1 · STRATEGY AND STRUCTURE

The material, processes, and notation conventions in this book are based on those found in Solkaṭṭu Manual. Your understanding of the previous volume will contribute greatly to your success with the material I present here. This book is designed for people interested in the inner workings of the Karṇāṭak rhythm system. It is grounded in more than fifteen years of experience teaching students in an American university. The great majority of these students are not hoping to become professional musicians in the South Indian tradition. Rather, they have become interested in the rhythmic forms and processes that Karṇāṭak drummers use and want to know how they can generate material that makes use of these methods in their own compositions and instrumental performances.

THE PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK

As a professional mṛdaṅgam player thoroughly trained in the Palani style, I am committed to passing along the material and modes of thought for which this style is justifiably revered among Karṇāṭak musicians. I do not feel it is necessary or appropriate to present material here specifically designed to prepare a student for life as a professional mṛdaṅgam player. Any student who wants that type of training is welcome in my studio, which is a much more appropriate venue and context than a book that provides solkaṭṭu and not instruction in playing the instrument.

If this book were designed to present the next canonical stages of Karṇāṭak rhythm studies, a reader might expect to see lessons in the following three tāḷas: rūpaka, miśra capu, and khaṇḍa capu.¹ But given the context in which I teach, I have chosen to present material here that expresses the spirit of the canon, rather than the letter of its detail. The exception is miśra capu, a very important tāḷa in Karṇāṭak music. I include two other tāḷas here, the ten-beat miśra jāti jhampa² tāḷa (7 + 1 + 2) and the nine-beat khaṇḍa jāti tripuṭa³ (5 + 2 + 2). Nine, as the reader will discover, is not considered an extension of the three-beat rūpaka tāḷa, which would be the canonical choice. Nine is considered a separate jāti,⁴ or rhythmic kinship group. Ten, on the other hand, is firmly in the world of five-ness; all the material I have included for this tāḷa will translate easily into khaṇḍa capu tāḷa if the reader wishes to adapt it. I also present exercises here designed to help students develop control and proficiency (even comfort, to the most dedicated) in naḍais other than the default, catusra (four pulses per beat). These are logical extensions of the material in the first five chapters of Solkaṭṭu Manual. Throughout the text are symbols in the form (00-000V) that indicate video demonstrations of notated patterns and compositions. The two-digit prefix indicates the chapter number. The videos can be found at https://www.wesleyan.edu/wespress/konnakkol/.

All this material has one common feature: I developed everything here in response to student requests. The naḍai studies in chapter 5 came out of the question, “How can I get comfortable in five per beat?” from a jazz keyboard player. Students who attended a Navaratri concert were curious about miśra capu tāḷa. At the beginning of each school year, I ask my percussion class what tāḷa they are interested in studying. “How about a nine-beat cycle?” was one suggestion. “Let’s do five” was another. Such questions and suggestions give rise to the rhythmic contemplation that generates whatever I teach. Over the years, I have found the tāḷas included here to be rich fields for such inquiry, and so I share them. I also demonstrate methods of transformation that explore the flexibility of form at the heart of Karṇāṭak rhythmic material. I have directed most of this effort to material found within Solkaṭṭu Manual, showing how to adapt it to fit other tāḷa contexts.

An uninitiated reader or listener might think that Karṇāṭak musicians are using “old” material. It is true that Indian musicians of any nationality have a deeply respectful attitude toward their progenitors. Our reverence to our teachers, combined with the prevalence in the repertoire of songs with devotional texts, composed by musicians who are considered saints, gives some support to such a view. Our teachers are our heroes. But this respect for tradition does not amount to slavish devotion. Once one has internalized the core lessons and principles of one’s teacher, there is nothing external about it. One’s own mind takes over, and the tradition continues within each person. Older compositions and processes give rise to new ones based on them. Chapter 4 gives accounts of three compositions handed down by Palani Subramania Pillai to T. Ranganathan, and then to me. The chapter details the evolution of new forms from these original pieces as they passed through Ranga’s mind and then mine.

STRATEGIES FOR LEARNING THIS MATERIAL

The following paragraphs describe helpful methods for efficient learning and well-synchronized ensemble work. Each is the product of hard-won insights of my own or good advice from other musicians. Their value is by no means limited to the present volume; they will help you in any music you choose to pursue.

Learn the Phrases First

My approach to the material here may be called phrase-based, as opposed to tāḷa-based. I write patterns according to the shapes of their phrases without immediate reference to a tāḷa, or even to a beat. The phrases reveal the design of a pattern: long to short, short to long, expanding, contracting, or whatever the creator of the design had in mind. Most patterns and designs may be performed in nearly any tāḷa or naḍai. I use beat and tāḷa markers to reveal the relationship between phrase and meter in specific, temporary situations. When the pattern and tāḷa are well synchronized they are, in my view, dancing together. A given pattern in a new tāḷa or naḍai dances differently than it did in its previous relationship.

I recommend learning the phrases first, then adding the tāḷa. It is certainly possible to put any of this material into European notation, but I do not advise it. If you learn the phrases first, you are in a better position to appreciate the inherent flexibility of the material. Notation, especially for musicians trained in European music traditions, can very easily take the place of the internalization of form that is necessary for real mastery of this material.

Voice the Patterns to a Steady Clap before You Try the Tāḷa

Once you have a grasp of the phrases, voice the patterns using a steady four-pulse-per-beat clap, with no specific tāḷa in mind. Once you have stabilized the relationship between the pattern and this steady clap, begin to add specific tāḷa gestures. If the tāḷa’s gestures are complicated, as the gestures in all the tāḷas in this book are likely to appear to be, use a simpler set of gestures at the beginning. The varieties of ēka tāḷa found in Solkaṭṭu Manual, chapter 5, should provide ample resources for this substitution. The chapters on the three tani āvartanams in this book include specific suggestions for practice.

Use Counting Solkaṭṭu

The patterns in this book are designed to sound musical and interesting, but they are not always easy to grasp. You can temporarily simplify the solkaṭṭu in order to help you gain control over a given pattern. This simplified solkaṭṭu has been called counting solkaṭṭu.⁵ I have indicated useful substitutions throughout the three tanis in this book. Avoid counting in numbers; counting solkaṭṭu is much closer to the musical material. And always voice the unsounded pulses. Think of these as extensions of the previous syllable, not as rests independent of an articulated syllable.

Always Practice with a Metronome or Tāḷa-Keeping Device or App

I offer two reasons for this direction. First, rhythmic synchronization is one of the most important features of excellent ensemble work, and solkaṭṭu is no exception. No one’s sense of musical time is perfectly even; everyone tends to rush certain patterns and drag others. Attentive regular practice with a timekeeping device is the best therapy for curing rhythmic unevenness.

Second, if your command of the tāḷa is insecure, your grasp of the material will suffer. The external reinforcement provided by a metronome or tāḷa app helps to stabilize your command of this key partner in the dance with the patterns. In addition to several stand-alone devices made by Radel Electronics and others, there are, as of this writing, several apps available for mobile electronic devices (phones and tablets) that generate customizable tāḷa sounds. My app of choice for iOS is Talanome, by Sridhar Rajagopalan, which I use for teaching and practice every day.

Slow It Down

This is good advice for any musician, including the author. If you are having any trouble performing a pattern, try it at half speed. Be sure you have fully understood its internal workings and can execute it perfectly before you speed it up. When you do speed it up, do so incrementally. If you can’t do it at MM = 80, try it at 40, then go to 50, 60, and so forth. You are looking for the fastest speed at which you have full control. Practice there; the speed will take care of itself as correct muscle memory takes over.

Work from the End Backward

This suggestion is based on the notion that if you can’t do something, your mental image of it is not detailed enough. Every musician is familiar with the following syndrome. You begin a piece of music, get to a certain point, and make a mistake. You stop, restart the piece, get to the same point, and make the same mistake. If you persist in this method, you are practicing that mistake. You think you know where the piece is going, but your mental image is flawed.

The best way to avoid this problem is to work backward from the end of the piece. When I am teaching a new piece, whether it is a mōrā, a kōrvai,⁶ or a full tani āvartanam, I teach the end first and work backward from there.⁷ This seems arduous at first, but one soon discovers that, as we add newer material before that which we have already learned, we are moving into increasingly familiar territory. Momentum increases, time seems to collapse, and suddenly we have finished the piece. An added benefit of working this way is that the piece is committed to memory without any direct effort to memorize it. When one of my groups performs a difficult tani of fifteen minutes or longer entirely without written notes, the credit goes to this way of learning. You will find detailed instructions for this process throughout the material in the following chapters.

Practice with Your Eyes Open and Looking at a Trusted Tāḷa Keeper

We are told that Indian music ensembles from the earliest times sat so that they could maintain eye contact with one another.⁸ If you are sitting with your eyes closed, or staring at the ceiling, your concentration is divided and you are separating yourself from the ensemble. Let your eyes rest, as relaxed as possible, on the hands of someone whose tāḷa you trust. Don’t worry about your own tāḷa; it will be drawn into the correct gestures. I learned this from the great flautist T. Viswanathan, whom I frequently accompanied in his later years. He said, “Open your eyes; then you will be able to take indications.” And the indications could be very subtle: a slight turn of the head, the twitch of an eyebrow, a small change in the tempo. One is drawn into the entirety of the performance and out of one’s (usually unhelpful) inner dialogue.

THE STRUCTURE OF THIS BOOK

In chapter 2, I have included a brief outline of the Karṇāṭak tāḷa system, including the thirty-five tāḷa scheme, the capu tāḷas, and tāḷas derived from the Tiruppugaṟ, a collection of isorhythmic songs by the sixteenth-century composer Arunagirinadar. This is not exhaustive information; I have included enough to get you through the present volume with some understanding.

Chapter 3 details the notation conventions I use to represent rhythmic patterns. It also includes brief definitions of the principal design elements, mōrā, kōrvai, and koraippu, that occur in these pages.

Chapter 4 is a personal account of the evolution of three mṛdaṅgam compositions that Palani Subramania Pillai taught to T. Ranganathan, who discovered ways to re-invent them that his teacher had not seen. Ranga taught both the original versions and his logical extensions of them to me, and I in turn found further applications of them that he had not seen. I share these developments in order to demonstrate the continuity of a style and its growth from one generation to the next. The three compositions I discuss in this chapter appear later in the book in the three tani āvartanams.

Chapter 5: Solkaṭṭu Manual, chapter 5, details exercises in four of the five versions, or jātis, of ēka tāḷa: tiśra (three beats), khaṇḍa (five beats), miśra (seven beats), and sankīrṇa (nine beats). In this book, chapter 5 adapts the same exercises for use in developing control in different pulse rates within each beat, known as gati in Sanskrit and naḍai in Tamil.

Chapters 6, 7, and 8: Each of the next three chapters presents an extended composition for group or individual performance in a different tāḷa. Each features mōrās, kōrvais, a koraippu, and an ending section. I present them here in konnakkol; they could also be played on any of the Karṇāṭak percussion instruments.

In part 2, I have provided video examples from chapter 4 and important material from chapters 6, 7, and 8, along with full performances of all three tanis by groups of my students, and two performances by ensembles in Iran and Germany.

In part 3, the notation includes all the compositions detailed in chapters 6, 7, and 8.

PRONUNCIATION⁹

The pronunciation and diacritical marks in this book apply equally to foreign (Sanskrit and Tamil) terms and to the solkaṭṭu syllables themselves. They are drawn from the International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration.¹⁰

· Vowels may be short, a (opera, cinema), e (pet), i (tip), o (porch), u (put) or long, ā (blah), ē (say), ī (tee), ō (blow), ū (tool).

· Consonants t and d are dental, pronounced with the tongue flat against the top teeth. Solkaṭṭu examples using these sounds include ta, di, din, tām, tom, and tōm.

· Consonants with dots underneath, ḍ, ṭ, ḷ, ṇ, are retroflex, pronounced with the tip of the tongue curled against the roof of the mouth, as if a liquid “r” preceded them: bird, curt, snarling, corn. Solkaṭṭu examples using these sounds include ki ṭa and jo ṇu.

· Consonant ś sounds like flash; s sounds like dust, not music.

· Consonant r is like the single Spanish r, in which the tongue bounces once off the roof of the mouth, not like the liquid American row. Solkaṭṭu examples using this sound include ri, as in ta ri ki ṭa.

· Consonants j and g sound like jog.

· Consonant c sounds like church.

Accents in Sanskrit and Tamil words are functions of long and short syllables. If all the vowels in a word are short, the syllables are pronounced with equal weight, for example, sol-kaṭ-ṭu, not SOL-kaṭ-ṭu or sol-KA-ṭu. A long vowel in a word generates an accent, for example, TĀ-ḷa, san-KĪR-ṇa. Most of the non-English words in this text can be sounded out using this scheme. One exception is the Sanskrit caturaśra, which most Tamil-speaking Karṇāṭak musicians pronounce as cha-TOOSH-ra or cha-TOOS-ra. After the first occurrence of this word, in chapter 1 on the history of tāḷa, I have used the modern pronunciation and spelling, catusra.

The first use of a Sanskrit or Tamil word is italicized. Depending on the context, these words may appear in a glossary at the end of the chapter in question or may be defined along with the first use.

GLOSSARY

gati (gutty): The Sanskrit term for the internal structure of a beat as measured in pulses. See chapter 2 for a fuller explanation. Synonymous with naḍai.

koraippu (ko-rye-pooh): “reduction.” A section of the tani āvartanam in which drummers trade progressively shorter groups of phrases. See chapter 3 for a full definition.

kōrvai (CORE-way): A complex rhythmic design, ending with a mōrā. See chapter 3 for a full definition.

mōrā (moe-rah): A rhythmic ending figure. See chapter 3 for a full definition.

mṛdaṅgam (mri-dun-gum): The barrel-shaped, two-headed drum used to accompany Karṇāṭak music.

1. For descriptions and definitions of these and other terms in this paragraph, see chapter 2, “What Is This Thing Called Tāḷa?”

2. See chapter 2.

3. See chapter 2.

4. See chapter 2.

5. Dineen, 2015, 134ff.

6. For definitions of these terms, see chapter 3, “Notation Conventions and Some Fundamental Concepts.”

7. I use this method in my own practice as well as in any effort that requires the internalization of material: my performance of lectures, poems, speeches, and other presentations benefits from this kind of work.

8. Rowell, 1992, 188ff.

9. This set of pronunciation conventions is adapted from Solkaṭṭu Manual, 10.

10. “International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Alphabet_of_Sanskrit_Transliteration.