source file: mills2.txt
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 12:45:24 -0800

Subject: Ornaments and Intonation

From: Daniel Wolf <106232.3266@compuserve.com>

In passing, Jonathan Walker mentioned a feature often attributed to
European music, the use of ornamentation (from vibrato/_Bebung_ to trills,
etc.) as a means of obscuring intonational problems.

Since the tradition of performer-supplied ornamentation is not continuous
(having been broken by the tendency of composers to notate in ever more
detail - and the expectation that novelty in a new composition involved
departure from tradition, including traditional ornaments), I am interested
in learning how this use of ornamentation is attested to in the theoretical
literature.

I ask because my experience of continuous ornamental traditions,
particularly that of South Indian classical music, has exactly the opposite
use of ornaments: in the Karnatic tradition, the ornaments (_gamakas_) are
essential to getting the intonation right, not to obscuring bad intonation.
In the exercises one practices in order to lear a raga, simple scales are
not used, but rather ornamented melodic types that are typical of the raga
in question.

For example, the raga closest to Major is sung not S R G M P D N s and down
again but rather ascending (every four _notes_ is a single beat):

S - - -   R S R S   G - - -     P G P -    P - - -    P s D -   s N s N   
s - - -

and descending:

s - - -   s N s N  bN DbN D   P - - -    M G M G    M - - -    R S R S   S
- - -

When sung with a   Sa= 1/1  Pa= 3/2 drone, the intonation

Sa 1/1
Ri 9/8
Ga 5/4
Ma 4/3 (Descending only)
Pa 3/2
Da  Ascending 5/3 (but only following a high Sa)  Descending 27/16
bNi 7/4 (Descending only, and only as gamaka for Da)
Ni  15/8

is quite easy to learn.

(I learned most of the above from T. Viswanathan and Jon Barlow).

Perhaps other list members have similar examples.

Daniel Wolf      

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