TIME and RHYTHM |
| tāla [Sanskrit] / tāḷa [Telegu] (nm "palm of the hand," "clap") time cycle |
| A tāla is a
cyclic, additive, and repeating measure of musical time. That is, unlike
the approach to musical time that has prevailed in Euro-American culture
South Asian musicians have created time measures by adding a number of
subsections together. The Euro-American approach has been to group and
to subdivide a number of pulses. |
| A number of terms are
employed in Karnatak music theory to describe the parts of tāla. |
| āvarta / āvarttanam (Sanskrit/Telegu nm "cycle," "a return to the beginning")
the time-span of one cycle of the tāla |
| aṅga [Sanskrit nm "member" "part"] a subsection of one āvarta of a tāla |
| mātrā [Sanskrit nm "syllable"] "count," "measure," "one beat," a subsection
of a anga, the unit of measure of tāla |
| Each mātrā can
be divided in several ways. The word that describes this subdivision,
as well as the speed at which mātrās are played, is laya. |
| laya [Sanskrit v layate "to go"; nm laya "the act of sticking
or clinging to"] "tempo" |
| |
|
| |
| MĀTRĀ SUBDIVISION |
| gati or naṭai: (Sanskrit and Tamil "pace") single count
pulse division |
| tiśra naṭai: triple submetric division |
| caturaśra gati or naṭai: quadruple submetric division, also known as sarva-laghu |
| khaṇḍa natai: quintuple submetric division |
| miśra naṭai: septuple submetric division |
| |
|
| |
| TEMPO |
| vilambita-laya "slow tempo" |
| madhyama-laya "medium tempo" |
| druta-laya "fast tempo" |
| |
|
| |
| ANGA ORGANIZATION |
| Every aṅga has
a symbolic representation whether by a physical gesture (kriyā)
and/or written symbol. The two most evident physical gestures employed
today are the taṭṭu and viccu. |
| taṭṭu [Telegu] "beat" "clap" |
| vīccu [Telegu] "wave" |
| Three
written symbols represent the three different kinds of anga common
in the modern era. |
| drutam a clap (taṭṭu) and a wave (vīccu) mark this two-mātrā aṅga. A circle (O) represents this gesture and aṅga. |
| anudrutam a clap (taṭṭu) mark this one-mātrā aṅga. An
upwardly opening circle (U) represents this gesture and the aṅga. |
| laghu a multiple-mātrā aṅga marked by a clap (taṭṭu)
and a number of additional silent beats to complete an aṅga. A laghu is symbolically indicated by a vertical bar and a number indicating its duration (|n). |
| A laghu can
be of five different durations: 3, 4, 5, 7, and 9 mātrās. These
are described as: |
| |
tiśra ["triple"] a laghu of 3 mātrās |
| |
caturaśra ["quadratic"] a laghu of 4 mātrās |
| |
khaṇḍa ["broken"] a laghu of 5 mātrās |
| |
miśra ["mixed"] a laghu of 7 mātrās |
| |
sankīrṇa ["composite"] a laghu of 9 mātrās |
|
| |
|
| MUSICAL PRACTICE |
 |
| Sūlādī-tālas |
| The devotional singer,
Purandara Dasa (1480-1564), established a set of seven tālas for
use in the most formal of compositions by combining the laghu (|), drutam (O), and anudrutam (U) in ways that probably reflect
performance practice of the time. |
| |
dhruva |
|n 0 |n |n |
| |
mathya |
|n 0 |n |
| |
rūpaka |
0 |n |
| |
jhampā |
|n U 0 |
| |
tripuṭa |
|n 0 0 |
| |
āṭa |
|n |n 0 0 |
| |
eka |
|n |
|
| |
| When naming
the different versions of these tālas one first names
the quality of the laghu followed by the name of the tāla. |
| Particular
versions of these tālas have special recognition. For
example, caturaśra-tripuṭa tāla is more commonly known as ādi tāla ["first"]
and is one of the most common tālas in south Indian
music. Similarly, khaṇḍ-āṭa tāla
is particularly important in tāna varṇam compositions. |
| Below is the most common schematic representation of these tālas in roughly the order of their usage. |
|
|
| |
| |
| Konnakkōl Syllables |
| Drummers and dancers often
vocalize rhythm through non-lexical syllables |
| single |
ta |
| double |
ta ka |
| triple |
ta ki ta |
| quadruple |
ta ka dhi mi |
| quintuple |
ta dhi ki na tom |
|
| |
| Cāpu Tālas |
| While the sūlādī
tālas are found in the most complex compositions of the repertoire,
the cāputalas, which are most often rendered in fast laya, are very common. A characteristic of the cāputālas is that each tāla is divided into two parts, the second part
one beat longer than the first part. The most important of these are |
| miśra cāpu (3 + 4; sometimes known only as "cāpu") acts
as an up-tempo version of tiśra-triputa (3 + 2 + 2) |
| khaṇḍa cāpu (2 + 3; often called ara jhampa ["half jhampa"]) acts as an up-tempo version of miśra-jhampa (7 + 1 + 2) |
| tiśra cāpu (1 + 2) |
| sankīrṇa cāpu (4 + 5) |
| |
|
| |
| Learning Rāga and Tāla |
| Students of South Indian
music spend many of their first lessons drilling pitch and time independence
through excercises called alaṅkara. The very first of these is
in rāga Mayamalavagaula and ādi tāla.
Teachers expect students to sing the ascending and descending scale of
this rāga in a relationship of 1:1, 1:2, 1:3, and 1:4 to
the tāla. |
| Alaṅkara |
| |
|
| |
| Selected References |
| Capwell, Charles. 1986.
South Asia. In The New Harvard Dictionary of Music, ed. Don Randel,
788ff. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. |
| Pesch, Ludwig. 1999. The
Illustrated Companion to South Indian Classical Music. Delhi: Oxford
University Press. |
| Powers, Harold. 1980.
The Subcontinent of India. In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and
Musicians, ed. by Stanley Sadie, 9:118b-125a. London: Macmillan. |
|