On A Scale Of Five
Ravi Mundoli -
Sunday, August 02, 2009 1:55 PM
Which is finally a post about science, (tangentially)!
This blog started trying to be a "science" blog. Various lumpen elements like Simbu and Subbu came and hijacked the whole enterprise, and the science train more or less derailed. Until now. By some miracle (i.e. the Google RSS feed Reader), I am finally able to churn out a post that is on science, India, and music at one fell swoop.
Now anyone who has heard me sing knows that it is preferable to have their nails pulled out with pliers rather than go through that quaint ordeal. Nevertheless, ever so often I make brief and brave sallies into the world of music, on recconaissance missions, as it were. In the manner of some border-land raider, I will swoop through the field, and carry off whatever nuggets by way of song and music my frequency challenged (I know I'm colour blind, and I suspect I'm tone deaf) brain can accommodate.
In the mid-90s I discovered Western popular music for the first time, through a 3-4 day viewing of The Beatles Anthology in the hostel common room. That was pretty much it. Haven't really caught on to any other band or artiste ever since, only the odd song registers. In 2000, out of the loneliness that came from being lovesick, finishing the M.S. finally and moving to a new city, and a primeval urge to consume samosas on Sunday afternoons, I started attending the concerts that MITHAS organized regularly. In the middle of warm, muggy Sunday afternoons, I'd walk a mile and take the empty, rattling Red Line train to an equally deserted campus. It started off as a lame attempt to make new (hopefully female) friends, but somewhere along the line the music became more interesting, and I actually started paying attention to it.
Initially however, the stuff didn't make any sense. The mind was filled with fundamental questions. Why was this musical? What on earth was the tapping all about? What did bhesh mean? If I sit next to the young woman in the indigo sari, will I die from excitement? I cast about for answers, searched high and low, and finally found my own Vaadyaar in Shining Veshti, Ramesh Mahadevan.
Ramesh was famous, even legendary on the internet for his fantastically funny and insightful pieces on the desi grad student's struggles in the US, usually employing his most famous creation, Ajay Palvayanteeswaran. Quite apart from the funnies, he'd written a bunch of stuff on religion, politics, and suchlike that are all eminently readable. But his biggest contribution to my life is A Gentle Introduction to Karnatic Music. Here, for the first time, was South Indian classical music properly de-mystified in a manner that someone like me could parse.
Using the language of the desi engineering grad student, he unpackaged the whole edifice and laid bare the innards of an esoteric world. I lapped up this gushing torrent of information and before they could say Pallavoor Kunjakutta Marar, I was putting fundas on taalam to the likes of Kunnakudi. Everything I spew today on aarohaNam-avarohaNam and vaadi-vivaadi pretty much comes from there, and hasn't changed since.
One of the many many topics that "The Gentle Introduction" covers is the notion of scales and raagams. Somewhere buried in there is a funda that raagams have 5, 6, or 7 notes on the ascending part of the scale, and the ditto on the downstairs going side (yes, we lapse into this sort of language once in a while, bear with us.) A raagam which has a 5-5 structure is called an audava-audava raagam. Bear this in mind. This is where the science theme makes a grand entry.
The World Science Festival seems to be an annual New York City event that aims to take "science out of the laboratory and into the streets". Events include lectures, demonstrations, discussions etc. The advisors list reads like a who's who of science and science popularization authors. The festival is not without its detractors, partly because of the support it receives from the wealthy and influential Templeton Foundation which, it is alleged (among other things), tries to "fuse" science and religion and tries to find out how one casts light on the other (if that's at all possible). Indeed, the festival seemed to have a fair number of panels where theologians and their ilk are to be found sharing space with the scientists.
Be that as it may, on June 12 this year there was a remarkable demonstration (video) of how the notion of the pentatonic scale seems to be hard-wired into human beings. A pentatonic scale is one which has 5 notes (hello, audava!) per octave in contrast with a "standard" heptatonic 7-note scale. It is found in music from all over the world (sample: Celtic, West African, Hungarian, traditional Greek, Albanian, Indonesian gamelan, Chinese etc.), which may suggest how "fundamental" it is (or how globalized the world is). (There are other scales also, apparently. :)
In the video, Bobby McFerrin demonstrates just how fundamental the scale is. He sings a couple of notes, and the crowd automatically "fills" in the next note, without having to be "taught" the scale. It's a lovely video, well worth the 5 minutes you need to watch it. If someone who has the musical know-how can do the math and explain how this particular pentatonic scale fits in with the audava-audava from Carnatic, that will be lovely.
Speaking for myself, now it doesn't seem like a major coincidence that some of my favourite Carnatic and film pieces are in audava-audava raagams. Random sample: Shivaranjani (Mere Naina Saawan Bhaadon,Bahaaron Phool Barsaao), Hamsadhwani (the usual suspects), Hindolam (Saamajavaragamana) etc. The pentatonic makes a brief but significant appearance in Close Encounters of the Third Kind as a sort of common communication platform between humans and aliens. Not suprising, wot?
(1) There is an audio companion to Mahadevan's opus and other lessons, thanks to Prof. Shivakumar.
(2) Rajan Parrikar's extensive writings on Hindustani raags and thaats, along with the audio clips are as compelling as Mahadevan's but a lot more technical. Sigh. Does anyone remember the days when the internet used to actually be rich in content?