Konnakkol Manual. David P. Nelson
to student requests. The naḍai studies in chapter 5 came out of the question, “How can I get comfortable in five per beat?” from a jazz keyboard player. Students who attended a Navaratri concert were curious about miśra capu tāḷa. At the beginning of each school year, I ask my percussion class what tāḷa they are interested in studying. “How about a nine-beat cycle?” was one suggestion. “Let’s do five” was another. Such questions and suggestions give rise to the rhythmic contemplation that generates whatever I teach. Over the years, I have found the tāḷas included here to be rich fields for such inquiry, and so I share them. I also demonstrate methods of transformation that explore the flexibility of form at the heart of Karṇāṭak rhythmic material. I have directed most of this effort to material found within Solkaṭṭu Manual, showing how to adapt it to fit other tāḷa contexts.
An uninitiated reader or listener might think that Karṇāṭak musicians are using “old” material. It is true that Indian musicians of any nationality have a deeply respectful attitude toward their progenitors. Our reverence to our teachers, combined with the prevalence in the repertoire of songs with devotional texts, composed by musicians who are considered saints, gives some support to such a view. Our teachers are our heroes. But this respect for tradition does not amount to slavish devotion. Once one has internalized the core lessons and principles of one’s teacher, there is nothing external about it. One’s own mind takes over, and the tradition continues within each person. Older compositions and processes give rise to new ones based on them. Chapter 4 gives accounts of three compositions handed down by Palani Subramania Pillai to T. Ranganathan, and then to me. The chapter details the evolution of new forms from these original pieces as they passed through Ranga’s mind and then mine.
STRATEGIES FOR LEARNING THIS MATERIAL
The following paragraphs describe helpful methods for efficient learning and well-synchronized ensemble work. Each is the product of hard-won insights of my own or good advice from other musicians. Their value is by no means limited to the present volume; they will help you in any music you choose to pursue.
Learn the Phrases First
My approach to the material here may be called phrase-based, as opposed to tāḷa-based. I write patterns according to the shapes of their phrases without immediate reference to a tāḷa, or even to a beat. The phrases reveal the design of a pattern: long to short, short to long, expanding, contracting, or whatever the creator of the design had in mind. Most patterns and designs may be performed in nearly any tāḷa or naḍai. I use beat and tāḷa markers to reveal the relationship between phrase and meter in specific, temporary situations. When the pattern and tāḷa are well synchronized they are, in my view, dancing together. A given pattern in a new tāḷa or naḍai dances differently than it did in its previous relationship.
I recommend learning the phrases first, then adding the tāḷa. It is certainly possible to put any of this material into European notation, but I do not advise it. If you learn the phrases first, you are in a better position to appreciate the inherent flexibility of the material. Notation, especially for musicians trained in European music traditions, can very easily take the place of the internalization of form that is necessary for real mastery of this material.
Voice the Patterns to a Steady Clap before You Try the Tāḷa
Once you have a grasp of the phrases, voice the patterns using a steady four-pulse-per-beat clap, with no specific tāḷa in mind. Once you have stabilized the relationship between the pattern and this steady clap, begin to add specific tāḷa gestures. If the tāḷa’s gestures are complicated, as the gestures in all the tāḷas in this book are likely to appear to be, use a simpler set of gestures at the beginning. The varieties of ēka tāḷa found in Solkaṭṭu Manual, chapter 5, should provide ample resources for this substitution. The chapters on the three tani āvartanams in this book include specific suggestions for practice.
Use Counting Solkaṭṭu
The patterns in this book are designed to sound musical and interesting, but they are not always easy to grasp. You can temporarily simplify the solkaṭṭu in order to help you gain control over a given pattern. This simplified solkaṭṭu has been called counting solkaṭṭu.5 I have indicated useful substitutions throughout the three tanis in this book. Avoid counting in numbers; counting solkaṭṭu is much closer to the musical material. And always voice the unsounded pulses. Think of these as extensions of the previous syllable, not as rests independent of an articulated syllable.
Always Practice with a Metronome or Tāḷa-Keeping Device or App
I offer two reasons for this direction. First, rhythmic synchronization is one of the most important features of excellent ensemble work, and solkaṭṭu is no exception. No one’s sense of musical time is perfectly even; everyone tends to rush certain patterns and drag others. Attentive regular practice with a timekeeping device is the best therapy for curing rhythmic unevenness.
Second, if your command of the tāḷa is insecure, your grasp of the material will suffer. The external reinforcement provided by a metronome or tāḷa app helps to stabilize your command of this key partner in the dance with the patterns. In addition to several stand-alone devices made by Radel Electronics and others, there are, as of this writing, several apps available for mobile electronic devices (phones and tablets) that generate customizable tāḷa sounds. My app of choice for iOS is Talanome, by Sridhar Rajagopalan, which I use for teaching and practice every day.
Slow It Down
This is good advice for any musician, including the author. If you are having any trouble performing a pattern, try it at half speed. Be sure you have fully understood its internal workings and can execute it perfectly before you speed it up. When you do speed it up, do so incrementally. If you can’t do it at MM = 80, try it at 40, then go to 50, 60, and so forth. You are looking for the fastest speed at which you have full control. Practice there; the speed will take care of itself as correct muscle memory takes over.
Work from the End Backward
This suggestion is based on the notion that if you can’t do something, your mental image of it is not detailed enough. Every musician is familiar with the following syndrome. You begin a piece of music, get to a certain point, and make a mistake. You stop, restart the piece, get to the same point, and make the same mistake. If you persist in this method, you are practicing that mistake. You think you know where the piece is going, but your mental image is flawed.
The best way to avoid this problem is to work backward from the end of the piece. When I am teaching a new piece, whether it is a mōrā, a kōrvai,6 or a full tani āvartanam, I teach the end first and work backward from there.7 This seems arduous at first, but one soon discovers that, as we add newer material before that which we have already learned, we are moving into increasingly familiar territory. Momentum increases, time seems to collapse, and suddenly we have finished the piece. An added benefit of working this way is that the piece is committed to memory without any direct effort to memorize it. When one of my groups performs a difficult tani of fifteen minutes or longer entirely without written notes, the credit goes to this way of learning. You will find detailed instructions for this process throughout the material in the following chapters.
Practice with Your Eyes Open and Looking at a Trusted Tāḷa Keeper
We are told that Indian music ensembles from the earliest times sat so that they could maintain eye contact with one another.8 If you are sitting with your eyes closed, or staring at the ceiling, your concentration is divided and you are separating yourself from the ensemble. Let your eyes rest, as relaxed as possible, on the hands of someone whose tāḷa you trust. Don’t worry about your own tāḷa; it will be drawn into the correct gestures. I learned this from the great flautist T. Viswanathan,