Ragya – Indian classical music played by time of the day • Hacker News Board

Re: Ragya – Indian classical music played by time of the day

#11

Post by abdullahkhalids » Thu, Nov 26, 2020, 8:29 PM UTC

fermienrico wrote: post #6

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 a…

> 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).

Re: Ragya – Indian classical music played by time of the day

#12

Post by abdullahkhalids » Thu, Nov 26, 2020, 8:34 PM UTC

danans wrote: post #9

fermienrico wrote: post #6

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 a…

> 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.

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)

Re: Ragya – Indian classical music played by time of the day

#13

Post by fermienrico » Thu, Nov 26, 2020, 8:40 PM UTC

danans wrote: post #9

fermienrico wrote: post #6

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 a…

> 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.…

> 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!

Re: Ragya – Indian classical music played by time of the day

#14

Post by danans » Thu, Nov 26, 2020, 8:46 PM UTC

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #12

danans wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. 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)

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.

Re: Ragya – Indian classical music played by time of the day

#15

Post by danans » Thu, Nov 26, 2020, 8:51 PM UTC

fermienrico wrote: post #13

danans wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

> 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 som…

> 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...

Re: Ragya – Indian classical music played by time of the day

#16

Post by sean_the_geek » Thu, Nov 26, 2020, 8:52 PM UTC

Thank you!

Re: Ragya – Indian classical music played by time of the day

#17

Post by OJFord » Thu, Nov 26, 2020, 8:56 PM UTC

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #11

fermienrico wrote: post #6

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 a…

> 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 b…

तीन ताल? मतलब 'three beats'?

Re: Ragya – Indian classical music played by time of the day

#18

Post by OJFord » Thu, Nov 26, 2020, 8:59 PM UTC

rmk wrote: post #10

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).

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.)

Re: Ragya – Indian classical music played by time of the day

#19

Post by jariel » Thu, Nov 26, 2020, 9:00 PM UTC

fermienrico wrote: post #6

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 a…

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.

Re: Ragya – Indian classical music played by time of the day

#20

Post by n3k5 » Thu, Nov 26, 2020, 9:02 PM UTC

rmk wrote: post #10

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).

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.