Try It! Watch Anubrata Chatterjee explain and demonstrate teental rhythm.

The bols for each of the counts are given below: It is organized in four groups of four beats each. There is a very common 16-count rhythm used in Indian classical music called teental. Let’s see how tabla players use these syllables to create rhythms. Listen for ga, na, te-te, tun, ghe, and ghe-ghe. Try It!Watch musician Anubrata Chatterjee demonstrate the tabla bols. The syllables are onomatopoeic that is, they sound a bit like the sounds produced by the drums. In addition, there are special syllables called bols (BOWLS) used by players of the tabla (TUHB-luh), a set of two drums, to learn and practice specific sounds that can be produced on their instrument. Try It!Try saying this combination of syllables over and over until you can feel the seven-beat rhythm. For a three-beat pattern, musicians might say “ta-ki-ta” and a four-beat pattern, “ta-ka-di-mi.” Those two patterns combine to form a seven-beat cycle: “ta-ki-ta ta-ka-di-mi.” Some rhythmic patterns are quite complex, such as patterns in cycles of five, seven, nine, or ten beats. Just as the sargam syllables organize the melody, other short syllables support the learning and practice of rhythm, or tala (TAH-luh).

Which raga do you thinkis associated with the evening, the rainy season, and daybreak? Try It!Listen again to the three examples below. In modern times, the ragas are often still associated with a particular time of day or season.

Traditionally in Indian music, each raga was itself associated with a very specific emotion. Like scales in Western music, ragas help set the mood for a piece of music-but in much greater detail. Listen to these examples of contrasting ragas in the Resource Carousel above. Listeners familiar with Indian music can recognize the raga from just a few short melodic phrases. Whereas Western music has two kinds of scales, major (think “Happy Birthday” or “Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star”) and minor (think “Greensleeves,” or “Chim Chim Cher-ee” from Mary Poppins), Indian music has dozens of different ragas. For example, listen to the great singer Pandit Jasraj as he alternates singing the phrases of a composition with improvising on the sargam syllables in the raga “Bhairav Bahar” (listen for him to begin with the sargam syllables between the first and second minute of the piece).Ī Range of Expression. You can sometimes hear Indian vocalists singing the pitch names as they improvise within a piece. Indian musicians learn their craft by practicing these pitch syllables in particular patterns, over and over. Try It!Try singing a scale with the sargam note names. This is called sargam (SAR-gum), which itself is a combination of the first four syllables. Learning by Singing. Remember the song “Do-Re-Mi” from The Sound of Music? Did you know that Indian music uses a very similar system of note names? The syllables used to sing the notes of an Indian raga are: Within a raga, there will be prescribed ways of ascending and descending the scale, as well as specific melodic phrases that can be performed during improvisation. Each raga is defined, however, not only by the pitches themselves, but also by specific formulas for using them. A raga (pronounced RAH-guh) is a collection of pitches, kind of like a scale or mode in Western music. Melodies in Indian music are classified by an ancient system of ragas. An Ancient System. Listeners unfamiliar with Indian music are often surprised by the unique combinations of pitches that they hear.

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