Snehi Ram

The following is an essay I wrote for my English class. All written by me, Snehith Chittavajhula. All rights reserved. No publishing, copying, redistributing, modifying, or changing my text in any way is allowed. Not without my express written permission.

There are many different systems of notating music, throughout the world, all with different structures and ways of notation. Any two of these countless systems are, if studied, highly different, yet strangely similar. One is the present-day music system embedded into the Western culture; the other is an Indian classical style called Carnatic music. Knowing what points these two distant systems share and hold unique will provide everyone with an insight into both cultures, as well as the value of appreciating the beautiful melodies we call music.

Both the Western method and the Carnatic method are highly evolved systems, developed over the centuries. Those who were profound in their respective musical fields experimented with the boundaries set by their predecessors. They played until they felt they hit something new, something exciting enough that was not already in the books. Then they practiced, perhaps for many years, to try and perfect it. Our highly motivated ancestors also documented what they did, in their own respective ways, so that later generations may benefit from these new styles. By doing this they took the standard to whole new level. By “raising the bar,” they have popularized new genres of music, and have left the ambitious in us to stretch the limits even more, if that is possible.

Both of these systems are also pentatonic, which is to say, both are based on the same basic five notes that form a backbone to the structures. Basic structures have been fit around these five notes, in both cultures. Many melodies have been composed of just these five basic notes, and are sometimes used for the purpose of training. Commonly this leads to advancing into and familiarizing the student with more notes, depending on the level of proficiency achieved. This is very common, especially in the Carnatic ways of teaching. The pentatonic scales can also be transposed, or converted into another major scale. One of these scales is the C Major scale (Western), which assigns the notes to the piano’s five black keys, respectively.

Speaking of scales, the musical structures of both systems comprise of a system of these scales, each made up of the same seven notes repeating in either direction. The direction in which a note follows a previous note shows how much higher or lower the pitch relatively is. As this repeating pattern goes on, each of the note names will keep repeating. It is structured this way because two pitches of the same note name, regardless of octave, sound very much alike. This is due to the sound vibrations we hear, and supposing we pick these notes from adjacent octaves, the higher pitch has vibrations exactly doubling that of the lower pitch (e.g. 440 Hz & 220 Hz). This is true for every note, the vibrations doubling for each octave we go up, and halving for each octave we go down. We can play a melody in two different octaves and both would sound about the same.

Both systems have methods of notation that use bar lines to form organized measures, or sections which denote a certain number of beats. These measures help us visualize and concentrate on one small section of the melody. By breaking the music down in this way, they let us stay focused and going on with our steady beat, which is difficult when we see so many notes at once, all coming at us very quickly. Both notation systems have relative spacing, allowing notes of longer duration to take up the space often used by more than one note. This allows us to visualize how long we need to hold these notes. The measures are also sometimes broken down by more bar lines, often invisible and implied. This helps if a measure is housing many notes together, making the whole bit looking very cluttered. Both systems have their own ways of telling us to repeat certain measures at the end, often with a symbol or words of some sort. Measures are also frequently used to indicate where to start playing from (“Let us start from the fourth measure”), especially when playing from somewhere in the middle. This makes it helpful for bits that repeat and is common in practice sessions.

One very strong difference that is immediately noticed is in the way the music is notated or written down. Western sheet music uses the staff, a group of five lines that are relative to each other in pitch. The notes are represented as little bubbles on this staff, their location showing us the pitch associated with that position, with higher on the staff meaning a higher pitch. If a pitch is high or low enough to go past the set of five lines, then ledger lines, or additional lines for the staff, are added as necessary. Even if I do not know the note names, I can see how the melody of a piece of music goes up or down through this type of notation. In strong contrast, the Carnatic system uses lines of written note names, each called a svara, with dots above or below the svara indicate which (sthaayi) the svara belongs to. Then, there is what is individually called a raga, which is a set alphabet consisting of only those note variations that are allowed in a song tuned to that raga. This concept makes it very difficult to learn Carnatic music without the aid of a teacher or at least an audio source which we can imitate and learn. This difference shows that though learning the theory is extremely helpful for both, Western music has a more visual approach, while Carnatic music takes a more concentrated one.

Another major difference between the two systems is the way of counting beats and the rhythm. In Western music, a time signature, a set of two numbers, indicates how many beats there are per measure, and the note of which length to take as one beat. These numbers, written on top of each other, are placed on the staff before the melody, so we can expect which beat to follow. In Carnatic music, however, there is a tala, or a precise method of tapping our fingers to the beat, that tell us how many beats we are looking at. The most common tala is the basic adi tala, which counts 8 beats. After we tap the base beat (with our right hand only), we tap 3 of our fingers separately, starting from the little finger. We finish off the tala by hitting the base beat and flipping our hand over, and we do this part twice to add up to 8 beats. When we are done tapping the tala, we repeat the tapping cycle without breaking the flow of the melody.

The third pressing difference is the concepts and organization used. Western melodies are structured in scales composed of 7 basic notes (12 including variations) called C, D, E, F, G, A, and B, with C repeating. (They are also named Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, and Do respectively, as a sight-singing technique called solfege.) The standard set used in Carnatic music does not exactly match the Western notes, though there are equivalents. Each svara has a name of its own, them being Sa, Ri, Ga, Ma, Pa, Da, and Ni, with Sa repeating, for each sthaayi, or octave. Each set of names would seem different, difficult, and maybe even odd to those of us used to the other.

Yet another unavoidable difference is the number of note variables possible. The Western system has five additional note variables (C♯, pronounced as C Sharp, D♯, F♯, G♯, and A♯; these are also the ones easily thought of as the black keys on a piano) added to its standard set of seven. These twelve together make up the Chromatic scale, so much influenced and standardized in the 1600′s that all pianos, keyboards, and synthesizers are tuned, even now, to this scale. In sharp contrast, the Carnatic system has a countless number of ragas, each with a different variation to each svara. Only the notes of Sa and Pa (whichever octave we cho
ose) are not changed, regardless of the raga we pick up. Even the Mayamalavagoula raga, (the standard in which to begin learning), has trills and pitch-bends for every note, apart from Sa and Pa.

There are musicians, including me, who have and will experiment and play Carnatic music on Western instruments, but it is definitely not easy. It is not easy, but not impossible. The amount of trills and pitch-bends that come in quick succession make playing these melodies on woodwinds and strings much more viable, compared to playing on a piano or trumpet. The favorable instruments let us move our fingers strategically to notes “in between” and back, without the impression of going over several notes. We are not confined to the notes built in, and they allow us to navigate from high to low to high very fast, our capacity permitting. The only instrument capable of playing both Western and Carnatic music by default is our own voice. Built inside us, these instruments are capable of taking us through the largest range of music, all without moving a finger. Amazing.

What do all these similarities and differences mean to us? It means that wherever we come from, wherever we live, we all have music in common. Being similar is a good thing, in that it allows those of us familiar with one of the systems to relate easily and transit smoothly into the other. We need to think of it as a language. We all know English, yet write in different styles and hand-writings. In the same way, music is spread throughout the world. Each of us just play in different styles and write it down differently. Music is something we can all relate to. However structured or notated, music gives us all the same feeling. Through music, we can communicate our expressions and emotions. All the people in the world, including us, share this language we all know and feel. Some call it Music, some call it Sangeetam, and yet we all mean the same thing. I call this perfect harmony.