Krsna Kirtana Songs
est. 2001 www.kksongs.org
Home à Music Center à Instrumental Guides à Khol Guide
Lesson E 2: Scientific
Understanding of Talas
When
this course was initially taught in 2006, this lesson was included to teach
students the science of rhythmic cycles work. However, this confused many
people and many did not know how to apply it, or find the need to apply it.
Therefore, this lesson is written out of the curriculum when the course was
redone in July 2010. However, if one wishes to proceed with deeper rhythmic
studies, this lesson is a mandatory one.
In
Indian music, it is said that there are three pillars which music stands by.
The three pillars are raga, sur, and tala. The raga is considered the melodic
form, in the simplest sense. The study of melody through ragas is a very
lengthy subject matter. We will not find much use of raga in studying the khol. Although, there is a page on KKSongs
called Ragamala
will help you study ragas. The next form, sur, is the
drone or the focus on the most important notes as well as the root note. This
applies greatly to musicians, although classical drummers will tune their heads
to be in sync with the notes. For the nature of this class, sur
is not going to matter much. However, the third pillar, tala,
will be of great relevance.
The
tala (lit. “clap”) is the
rhythmic foundation of music. Without tala, the other
two forms cannot last independently for the most part. When we talk of talas, we will be talking about rhythmic cycles. As we will learn rhythmic cycles in the next few
lessons, it would be quite useful to understand the framework of talas. This chapter is dedicated to just that: the science
of the tala.
TALA DIAGRAM
The
tala can be examined with a tala
diagram, shown below. The diagram consists of a white circle divided into four
quadrants. This cycle shown below represents a cycle of sixteen beats or
sixteen matras.
The matra is the fundamental unit of measuring time.
It depends on how fast or slow one is playing the specific cycle to identify
how long one matra is. Musicians use the word matra and beat synonymously. The number of matras will be one of the many properties to define what a tala is.
In
this figure below: sixteen matras equals one cycle.
The
first matra in any
cycle is known as the sam. The sam, or matra 1, is represented by an “X.”
In
the circle, as mentioned earlier, the circle is divided into four quadrants.
Each quadrant is called a vibhag. It is purely based on the flow on the tala. The most important fact to keep in mind is that the
number of matras per vibhag
does not have to be equal. Of course, 4+4+4+4 (which is shown above) is the
most ideal condition of symmetry, but other sixteen matra
talas can consist of 5+3+4+4, which is not
symmetrical, but indeed are four numbers which add up to sixteen.
EMPHASIS ON MATRAS
Talas
are not dry rhythms. The very nature of the vibhags dividing
a rhythm allows for points of emphasis and de-emphasis. The tali represents the points of emphasis. The khali represents the point of
de-emphasis. The tali is usually indicated by an open
baya, while the khali is
represented by a lasting sound of a previous played open baya
bol, closed baya, or no baya usage at all. Under most situations, the sam is assumed to receive a tali.
In
the tala diagram, with the exception of sam, the tali is represented by numbers. Since the sam
is the first tali, represented by an X due to its
position of being a sam, the next tali,
shown on matra 5, receives a number 2, because it’s
the second tali. The third tali is shown by a 3 on matra 13. Therefore, this cycle has three talis, namely on sam, matra 5, and matra 13.
The
only khali in this cycle is matra
9. All khalis, regardless of how many number of khalis exist, receive a 0. If this cycle were to have two khalis, both khalis would receive
0s.
Therefore
summarizing the cycle of this sixteen matra tala, this has three talis on sam, matra 5, and matra 13, while it has one khali
on matra 9. One can clearly see that the distance
between sam and matra 5, matra 5 to matra 9, matra 9 to matra 13, and matra 13 to the new sam are all
equidistant. They are all four matras apart.
Therefore, it is understood more so that this is a 4+4+4+4 divided cycle.
COMPLETING THE CYCLE
A
completed cycle is accomplished when one starts from the sam
and make one circle of 360 degrees coming back to the sam.
One complete cycle is known as an avartan. Theoretically speaking, in this sixteen matra tala, the “seventeenth matra” would be the sam of the
new cycle.
TALA STRUCTURE
To
describe tala structure, the following can be said.
There are four vibhags divided 4+4+4+4. (4+4+4+4=16).
This tala has talis on sam, matra 5, and matra 13 with a khali on matra 9.
Now,
looking back at the tala diagram, knowing what terms
are used, the outer ring with the numbers 1, 5, 9, and 13 represent matra numbers. The big X, 2, 0, and 3 represent the tala numbers.
CLAPPING AND WAVING
In
orally describing a rhythm without playing it on the khol,
a conventional system of clapping and waving is developed. To describe a tali, one claps. To describe a khali, one waves. To describe a matra
that is neither a tali nor a khali,
one either counts using a finger or does nothing at all to represent these.
If
one were to orally recite the above diagram, one would say and do:
(1)CLAP
2, 3, 4, (1)CLAP 2, 3, 4, (1)WAVE 2, 3, 4, (1)CLAP 2,
3, 4
TALA IDENTIFICATION
Ultimately,
in conjunction with the tala structure, talas in North Indian music are defined by the theka. The theka is the bol formation of how
the tala is played on the rhythmic instrument. The theka is the most simplest and standard way of playing the tala. With the theka alone, one
knows the vibhag structure, matra
number, and what bols to play. In this course, we
will be focusing most of our attention to playing thekas.
A
form based on the theka is called a prakar. Most
people play prakars, as thekas
are too simple to play. Playing and creating prakars
are developed after one gets comfortable with the instrument and the thekas.
UPDATED: August 2, 2010