source file: mills2.txt Date: Sat, 10 May 1997 12:42:44 +0200 Subject: Re: Indian music From: rtomes@kcbbs.gen.nz (Ray Tomes) I think my first try at this vanished with the lost messages... Aline Surman wrote: >My office keeping skills are minimal, so I'll have to paraphrase this >next phrase rather than quote it. It's from a book called "Sonic Design," >and I'm afraid I don't know the author. When referring to Indian tunings, >they demonstrated with a 27 note to the octave scale, rather than the >usual 22 srutis I am used to seeing. Then, they pointed out that each >note was more of an "area", rather than a "fixed pitch"...the performer >was at liberty to use several different "notes" to express the mood of >the raga he/she was playing. This makes perfect sense to me...notation is >a tricky affair at times, and in many cases, such as bending a note, >there is absolutely NO way to tell a person where to put that note, since >it is a matter of feeling and expression...and, this, of course, is where >real music differs from theory. I know nothing about Indian music and so may quite wrong. However, I think that saying that each note is "a bit of an area" rather than a fixed pitch may be a little misleading. Rather, I think it is a set of locations in an area. They are very definite and not just random. My source for this information is an excellent little book, "An Introduction to the Study of Indian Music" by E Clements (1912). There is a diagram at http://www.kcbbs.gen.nz/users/rtomes/in_music.gif which shows the relationships between the notes in indian music with the ratios of 2, 3, 5 and 7 shown. The frequencies and names are according to Clements and the layout according to an idea I got from elsewhere. Some notes like ma have 7 different frequencies (although 2 are old values), namely 315, 337, 320, 341+1/3, 324, (333+1/3, 316+4/81) and are the flat7, natural, flat\, t and flat respectively. [Hey I can't do those notations in ascii :-] > I've been playing blues for 30 years, and it is impossible to tell >someone where to play a pitch when they bend; you have to DO it; yet, I >know when it's wrong, and so do my students. Again, it's a feeling. I >truly believe that only the practitioners of a style of music are >qualified to be authorities on what makes it tick. I acknowledge that practitioners do know what to do. However I suspect that you automatically go to the correct one of the above depending on the context. -- Ray Tomes -- rtomes@kcbbs.gen.nz -- Harmonics Theory -- http://www.kcbbs.gen.nz/users/rtomes/rt-home.htm Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sat, 10 May 1997 12:43 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA08535; Sat, 10 May 1997 12:43:49 +0200 Date: Sat, 10 May 1997 12:43:49 +0200 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA08543 Received: (qmail 9201 invoked from network); 10 May 1997 10:43:42 -0000 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 10 May 1997 10:43:42 -0000 Message-Id: <33b2500e.301901156@kcbbs.gen.nz> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu