[HN Gopher] Ragya - Indian classical music played by time of the...
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Ragya - Indian classical music played by time of the day
Author : kadal
Score : 140 points
Date : 2020-11-26 18:25 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ragya.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ragya.com)
| um304 wrote:
| Love it!
| sean_the_geek wrote:
| Thank you!
| tudorw wrote:
| If you like that you might like this film on the Dhrupad genre;
|
| https://youtu.be/Lye2FSx0F4c
| danans wrote:
| Dhrupad is a fascinating style of Indian classical music, whose
| origins predate many of the musical system schisms, identities,
| and boundaries that have emerged in Indian Classical music over
| the recent couple centuries.
|
| Every time I attempt to categorize it as one or the other,
| either by theory, language, religion, or culture, I learn about
| a new facet that defies that categorization.
| rmk wrote:
| Cool!
|
| One request: Can you _not_ auto-play when the website loads? It
| 's an annoying UI design thing that has spilled over from ads and
| news sites (looking at you, CNN).
| OJFord wrote:
| It didn't for me, but.. there's nothing to do but click play,
| so why not?
|
| I agree when there's content to read, especially if that's the
| main purpose. (YouTube for example might be more debatable.)
| n3k5 wrote:
| In Firefox, auto-play (for audio) has to be manually enabled on
| a per-site basis. Ragya.com just quietly sits there waiting for
| the user to click play. I mention that as a positive because
| other sites are way worse: I'm occasionally annoyed by a video
| streaming site where I have deliberately enabled auto-play, but
| when establishing the connection takes a second longer than
| expected, it throws up a pop-up wrongly informing me that I
| have auto-play off -- and the pop-up needs to be manually
| dismissed even when the video is already playing behind it.
|
| Honorary mention: Twitter. Every video is muted by default; you
| have to enable audio every single time. This option always
| exists, even when the video has no sound at all. Because life's
| like a box of chocolates.
|
| Sorry about the off-topic rant; the point is that the issue is
| more nuanced than 'noise bad' and you'll get a better
| experience when the site and your user agent are cooperating
| nicely.
| fermienrico wrote:
| Here is my basic understanding of Indian music: The northern and
| southern parts have their own styles but with overlaps. What's
| amazing is that Indian classical music has no key. There is no
| absolute sense of middle C or whatever. It is relative to the
| tuning of the drone. I don't have a strong background in music,
| but this seems to get rid of the complexity of the notation
| system in the west with a much more fluid aspects - pick a note
| and make it the root. Off you go. That's the key you're in.
|
| Furthermore, I find the construction of these musical scales
| (correct me if I am wrong but there is no analog in western
| classical music of what a raga is) very interesting. Going up in
| the scale is different than going down and there are some key
| phrases that identify a raga. Then its all about interpretation.
|
| Is there any specific tabla percussion associated with a Raga?
|
| Some of my favorites:
|
| - Raga Bhimapalasi: Beautiful lazy afternoon raga.
|
| - Raga Tilak Kamod: I would describe this raga as a playful and
| less serious, very romantic.
|
| - Raga Bhairav: Intense and great for early mornings. For
| reflective, pensive moods.
|
| - Raga Desh: Festive feel to it.
|
| I personally like vocal renditions of ragas. Spotify has a large
| selection.
| jariel wrote:
| It has a 'key' it's just not standard. It doesn't matter
| though.
|
| What it _does_ is make use of specific scales, or one scale, in
| particular, the minor scale or maybe one of it 's variants.
|
| The problem is actually ... they stay in that one scale,
| forever. This is a limitation of this music.
|
| This music is: take a scale, and have someone play a very long,
| intuitive solo overtop in that one key, effectively one chord.
| The structure is really quite limited unfortunately.
| snickell wrote:
| Tuning (at least in our universe, due to the distribution of
| the prime numbers) is an exercise in tradeoffs. Indian
| classical music makes a different tradeoff than western
| classical (or its direct and indirect descendants), which
| gives it GREATER freedom than western some areas, and less in
| others.
|
| Its true that Indian music doesn't modulate (~change keys).
|
| If your goal is modulation (~changing keys), than Indian
| classical is limited. If your goal is amazing perfectly tuned
| chords, intricate tuning patterns, and complex relationships
| between the tuning of notes and rhythms, then Indian
| classical is MUCH freer than a western-style equal
| temperament scale.
|
| Modulation (changing chords), as a priority, was a choice
| made in western music in the 1600s. That choice had
| downsides, in particular western classical lost access to a
| larger palette of beautiful "edge of consonance" tone and
| chord coulors.
|
| Analogy: at its extreme Western classical paints complicated
| rapidly shifting geometric patterns using a tiny set of "sort
| of meh" slightly-gray primary colors (think: Escher), Indian
| classical paints colour fields using a vast array of rich
| colours (think: Rothco).
|
| The holy grail would be complicated shifting geometries, and
| complicated shifting colours. These turn out to be in direct
| tension for math reasons. (Can explain more if there's
| interest, Pythagoras (yeah, that one) thought there was no
| tension between the two, but he measured wrong, and the roman
| catholic church actually encoded "there is no tension between
| the two owing to the power of God" as dogma, which caused no
| end of pain for pipe organ makers, who directly knew the two
| were in tension).
|
| Western classical used to use less regularized tunings, even
| Bach played (and comnposed for, and imo should be played in)
| a not-fully-modernly-even tuning. These tunings came from the
| ratios of integers (directly, or prime numbers, indirectly)
| and while the chords are unfamiliar in a modern context,
| looooong held notes tended to be very satisfying to listeners
| in these "ratio of integer" tunings (or integer ratio)
| tunings.
|
| That's where gregorian chant comes in, if you hit these exact
| ratio tunings, once your ear is used to it, chords seem to
| glow so beautifully you could listen to them "forever". The
| problem is that switching root notes on a fixed-pitch layout
| like a pipe organ or harsichord keyboard isn't fully
| regular.... very roughly (and this is wrong, but conveys the
| idea) "holding a base note, and the note five keys above it"
| will sound totally different depending on the base note you
| pick. This comes necessarily from the math.
|
| So you either end up with an almost infinite variety of
| physical keys..... or you fudge (tamper, temper, temperament)
| the pipe organ pipes to "split the difference" and share a
| key between two not-quite-fully-consonant chords rooted at
| different base notes.
|
| Unfortunately, now all your chords are a little.... fudgey
| sounding.... so nobody likes to hear them for a loooooong
| time (the longer you listen, the more clear the mistuning
| becomes), so you tend to move faster between chords.
|
| In a nutshell, as European music started wanting total
| freedom to move around, from anywhere to anywhere, and have
| each 5-note-pair have EXACTLY the same ratio (resulting in
| our completely regularized modern tuning equal temperament),
| the chords themselves were less solid, so you move faster and
| faster. Once the chords aren't quite as nice, you want to
| move faster and do elaborate patterns, and the cycle fed back
| on itself until we got where we are today.
|
| Indian classical made the opposite tradeoff, they traded off
| harmony, and the ability to root harmony at any point in a
| fixed keyboard, in return they got a larger variety of VERY
| interesting tonal colors.
|
| I found western classical tuning VERY limiting due to the
| lack of colour palette (and, personally, very subjective
| naturally, I don't find increasing the number of colors to
| 22-edo or whatever to help, its just 22 muddy colours to my
| ears... I only need a few colours but I want them to be
| gorgeous lol ;-)
| sfifs wrote:
| Some thoughts:
|
| > What's amazing is that Indian classical music has no key.
| There is no absolute sense of middle C or whatever. It is
| relative to the tuning of the drone
|
| European music actually was largely relative too until keyboard
| instruments (organs and later pianos) became common and popular
| which forced standardizaton. In North Indian classical, you can
| see the popularity of the harmonium in recent years driving a
| similar effect.
|
| Singers in popular western music often transpose scales freely.
| Many live performers tune half down or full down vs. their
| studio recordings and many singers transpose their songs down
| as they age.
|
| > I find the construction of these musical scales (correct me
| if I am wrong but there is no analog in western classical music
| of what a raga is) very interesting. Going up in the scale is
| different than going down and there are some key phrases that
| identify a raga.
|
| Yes-ish. If you look at the scales in different "modes" of
| western music, you'll find they do correspond to foundational
| ragas in Indian classical music (eg. Ionian = Shankarabaranam,
| Aeolian = Nata Bhairavi, Mixolydian = Harikamboji etc) . The
| core raga in Carnatic classical (maya-mayava-gowla) has the
| same notes as the double harmonic scale (think Misirlou from
| Pulp Fiction). The ragas with different notes going up and down
| or having fewer than 7 notes are considered derived or
| synthetic ragas and some artists still create new ragas.
|
| However, as you correctly recognise ragas are not themselves
| scales. It's more correct to think of ragas as frameworks to
| present and improvise on scales. There is a concept of "pakad"
| for example as it's called in Hindustani classical which is a
| characteristic sequence of notes for a raga etc. This is
| easiest to spot and understand this if you listen to recordings
| by top artists in Raga Jog - it comes in the avarohana
| (descending notes).
|
| > Then its all about interpretation.
|
| "Freedom within a framework" is how I'd best describe it. A
| typical Hindustani "Khayal" (literally meaning "thought")
| concert begins with a heavily improvised "Aalap"/"Jod"/"Jhala"
| section that presents the main raga followed by the main
| composition ("bandish") in which also the artist improvises to
| a certain extent. After this main presentation, the artist
| typically presents other compositions in other ragas (with some
| improvisation) often ending with a "bhajan" (simple devotional
| song).
|
| A Carnatic classical concert often starts with smaller
| compositions and has the main piece in the middle which also
| has "Aalapanai" and composition sections. Usually the "aalap"
| is shorter and more improvisation happens within compositions
| vs. Hindustani.
|
| The closest analogies to this style of performance in Western
| music is Blues and Jazz.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| > Is there any specific tabla percussion associated with a
| Raga?
|
| I have recently started tabla, so I can perhaps answer
| correctly. Whenever you play a piece on a melodic instrument,
| like sitar, it has a cyclic nature, where after X notes you
| come back to the same "sum" note.
|
| The tabla player matches this cyclic nature. X is commonly 16,
| so then the tabla player will play in "teen taal". This is any
| percussion of 16 beats (or 32/64/128 beats) that obey a very
| particular structure. For teen taal the structure being that
| notes 9-12 are played without the left tabla (no bass).
| OJFord wrote:
| tiin taal? mtlb 'three beats'?
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| Teen taal means three claps. The idea is that you can
| divide 16 beat cycle into 4 parts. The first, second and
| fourth parts are played with the left/bass tabla, while the
| third without.
|
| Now, an audience member clapping along is supposed to clap
| at the start of the first, second and fourth parts, but not
| at the start of the third part.
| OJFord wrote:
| Ah, makes sense, thanks! I was just confused by thinking
| I understood, and '16 beats' almost but not confirming
| that.
|
| For others, you can hear it here from around 1m40s:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9Rm9ayMhb4
|
| (I don't know if it's a great example or anything - just
| the first I found. But there's definitely a 'boing'
| sounding beat in the background with that third part
| gap.)
| danans wrote:
| > What's amazing is that Indian classical music has no key.
| There is no absolute sense of middle C or whatever. It is
| relative to the tuning of the drone
|
| Yes, but practically there are standard pitch zones based on
| the tunability of certain instruments, particularly percussion.
|
| > Going up in the scale is different than going down and there
| are some key phrases that identify a raga. Then its all about
| interpretation.
|
| Sometimes but not always. Most ragas are the same ascending and
| descending. They are more like the western modes system.
|
| > Then its all about interpretation.
|
| There is actually a huge body of fixed compositions, for both
| melodic and rhythmic instruments, especially in Carnatic and
| Dhrupad traditions. Of course improvisation still plays a more
| important role vs. western classical music, but it is driven by
| a set of standard canonical themes.
|
| > Is there any specific tabla percussion associated with a
| Raga?
|
| Not formally, but as one develops as an Indian classical
| percussionist, you develop an ear for what sorts of rhythmic
| passages pair with certain types of melodic structures. For
| example, the rapidly rolling rhythmic structure known as a Rela
| pairs with steady fast pulsating melodic patterns.
|
| In terms of the actual type of percussion instrument there is a
| strong pairing, however. Tabla in particular is used in the
| Khyal style (the most prominent style of North Indian classical
| music and what you have likely been listening to), and is also
| used extensively in folk music. The Pakhawaj, a much lower
| pitch drum, is used with the Dhrupad style. Carnatic
| percussion, however, comprises a much larger variety of
| instruments, prime among them and closely related to the
| aforementioned Pakhawaj is the Mridangam.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| > Sometimes but not always. Most ragas are the same ascending
| and descending. They are more like the western modes system.
|
| I in this list, http://soundofindia.com/raagas.asp I see half
| or more than half have different Arohana (ascending scale of
| notes) and Avarohana (descending)
| danans wrote:
| I stand corrected about my incorrect use of the word
| "most", but a great many of the popularly performed ragas
| are the same ascending and descending.
| fermienrico wrote:
| > There is actually a huge body of fixed compositions, for
| both melodic and rhythmic instruments, especially in Carnatic
| and Dhrupad traditions. Of course improvisation still plays a
| more important role vs. western classical music, but it is
| driven by a set of standard canonical themes.
|
| That hasn't been my observation at all. 100% of the stuff I
| find on Spotify is improvised and interpretative.
|
| Could you point to some specifics? Not only is that
| interesting, perhaps it can also provide insight into the
| underpinnings of the "identity" of a raga. I think there is
| definitely a commonality between different people rendering
| the raga but I haven't come across a "cookie-cutter" of the
| sorts.
|
| Thanks for your comment!
| danans wrote:
| > That hasn't been my observation at all. 100% of the stuff
| I find on Spotify is improvised and interpretative.
|
| Khyal is mostly improvised, but even then if you listen
| closely there are common phrases and rhythmic patterns that
| get reused over and over again. Think of them as analogous
| to standard blues licks and riffs.
|
| Also, if you are not a native speaker of Indian languages,
| especially with instrumental music you aren't hearing the
| words to the songs. A native listener would however
| recognize the fixed compositions and themes because they
| often know words that go along with them. I would recommend
| listening to the vocal renderings of Indian classical music
| to develop the sense.
|
| Here are notes and lecture from a performance from the
| Dhrupad style that might help illuminate some of this:
|
| https://asiasociety.org/video/gundecha-brothers-concert-
| high...
| fermienrico wrote:
| I see your point. I listen to vocal renditions, but
| context around what's being said would be helpful.
| blizkreeg wrote:
| This is fantastic. Just downloaded.
| hbharadwaj wrote:
| Thank you! I was literally looking for an Indian music
| alternative to Generative.fm. May not have been the use case you
| are trying to target, but it is the use case for me :)
|
| Big shout out to Generative.fm as well!
| neduma wrote:
| Thanks for Generative.fm info. Never heard of that before.
| Wondering what would be mix of both generative and ragya with
| some AI magic.
| rjakobsson wrote:
| Thank you, this was it.
| GordonS wrote:
| Years ago I used to like Talvin Singh and Nitin Sawhney, and this
| reminded me of that. Lovely sounds, and I'll be listening to this
| tonight!
|
| Slight tangent, but anyone got suggestions for Asian electronica
| (tabla/raga inspired)?
| throwawayamzn1 wrote:
| Beautiful, wow thanks for creating and bringing attention to
| Indian classical music. I like all sorts.. Coke studio and dream
| journey has done some good stuff to ease people into the genre.
| Not hard classical, more semi-classical
|
| https://youtu.be/BXmIpbBOSvI https://youtu.be/JlMJhDHJ3t4
| dharma1 wrote:
| Love it. Thank you
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(page generated 2020-11-26 23:00 UTC)