Krsna Kirtana Songs est. 2001                                                                                                                                                      www.kksongs.org


Home à Music Center à South Indian Music à Carnatic Talam Page

Foundations of Talam

 

 

To understand the primary basic of South Indian rhythm, understanding the fundamental blocks is imperative. Just like the North Indian talas, the Carnatic talas have the fundamental unit known as the matra, which is the equivalent to a “beat” in Western music. As mentioned earlier, the main performer usually keeps track of rhythm, while the talam instrument improvises according to the way the main artist sings. In order for the main artist to keep track of rhythm, the artist will use the hand clapping and counting method known as the “kriya.” The kriya will consist of various angams, or dividers of the tala which mark the aksarams, or the “measures” of the tala. This is the Carnatic equivalent of the Hindustani vibhag. In comparison to North Indian music, the kriya is the hand movements which count, clap, or wave to mark the vibhags of the tala.

There are many types of angams, but three of them are very popular. The anudrutam is one matra in length. Thus, the aksaram is also one matra. It is represented by a clap which is known as sasabdam. It is the Carantic equivalent of the Hindustani tali. The next type is the drutam, which contains two matras. It is a clap with the palm facing down (sasabdam), followed by a clap with the palm facing upwards (nisabdam). The second type of clap is somewhat similar to the concept of the North Indian khali, though not exactly interchangeable. The last type of angam is known as the laghu. The laghu is going to be one of the more difficult concepts to understand for a North Indian music. The duration of a laghu depends on the jati of the tala. The “jati” (lit. “caste”) is the family of rhythms based on multiples. There are five jatis. The tisra jati (based on multiples of three), caturasra jati (based on multiples of four), khanda jati (based on multiples of five), misra jati (based on multiples of seven), and sankirna jati (based on multiples of nine). For example, if a talam had a laghu and it was a caturasra jati talam, the laghu would have the value of four matras. In terms of the clapping kriya, the laghu will initiated by a clap (sasabdam) followed by counting by fingers of the remainder of the laghu. Using the laghu in Caturasra jati as an example, you clap for the first matra, and use fingers to count matras 2 through 4.

The angams can be represented graphically. In North Indian music, tali is represented by an X and khali is represented by a 0. In South Indian music, the anudrutam is denoted by a U. The drutam is represented by a O. The laghu is represented by a | with a subscript indicating which jati the tala is in. For instance, the above caturasra jati laghu example would be |4.

 

UPDATED: April 2, 2009