Ok... I have got some time finally! And as the subject says, its about Music this time. Everyone knows music. Everyone loves music. So what is it that I have to say more about it?
Well... Many of my friends have asked me to teach them singing. Though, I have never taught anyone so far, I have tried to give them all an overview of music to give them a foundation of music theory and I would like to share the same here. Since, I have not much knowledge of western music (I don't know all that major note - minor note terminology), I'll use Indian Classical Music (ICM) as my language here. My language to explain the science behind music. I'll try to explain whatever I want to, in a Q&A fashion.
Q: What is Music?
A: Wikipedia defines music as an art consisting of sound & silence expressed through time. Music is an art. But, its a science too. Its a science comprising sounds & mathematics in an artistic way to please human ears. Everything that you hear is sound which is characterized by its frequency, wave length, amplitude etc. The main characteristic of a sound note is its frequency. As per ICM, there are saptha (7) swara's - Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha & Ni. There are 2 variations of Re, Ga, Ma, Dha & Ni notes. So that totally makes its 12 notes from Sa till Ni. The notes Ri, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha & Ni are all relative to Sa. Where you start your Sa is determined by the pitch (Shruthi) that you decide to sing in.
Q: What about the frequencies that come in between these notes? Why aren't they considered?
A: To a human ear, some frequencies are quite indistinguishable. Lets say Sa is at 140 Hz and Re is at 145 Hz. There are frequencies in between which are perceived by a normal ear and categorizes it either as Sa or Re. Simply put, these frequency differences, as heard, are negligible. To exemplify, we all hear songs on computer. We hear both .wav and .mp3 files. A .wav file size is huge compared to a .mp3 file. This is simply because in an mp3 encoding, the number of representable frequencies are less and any other frequencies are approximated to nearest representable frequency. But we don't see any difference in the songs we hear irrespective of their encoding formats. So, approximation holds the key.
Q: Why is it that another Sa follows Ni and the whole notes runs in cycles?
A: The SA(top one) that comes after Ni is nothing but equals the frequency obtained when you double the frequency of the Sa(bottom one). Its a cycle of notes with the frequencies getting doubled every cycle. We call it Octaves.
Q: Singers talk about this.. "Pitch". What is it?
A: Pitch is nothing but the frequency that you choose to render the note Sa. A singer's voice is normally capable of rendering 2 octaves. An octave mean 8 notes. Usually, pitch is chosen in such a way that we start from say Pa0 which runs till top Pa2 (Pa1 in the center). This is because, typically, our songs are tuned in such a way that it doesn't have notes beyond top Pa or below base Pa. Some songs may have more higher notes but not lower notes in case of which, singers just choose an appropriate pitch.
Q: What is a Raaga?
A: Raaga is nothing but a protocol. A protocol that is built using permutation and combination of the notes. A Raaga is made by notes from the selections which involves: variants of Re, Ga, Ma, Dha & Ni and inclusion or exclusion of Pa. Sa is mandatory and fixed. A Raaga is characterized by ascending and descending notes. A typical example: Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni, SA is ascending and SA, Ni, Dha, Pa, Ma, Ga, Ri, Sa is descending. Ascending notes and descending notes may be different. Western music calls Raagas as "Scales" - pentatonic scale etc.
Q: What is Taal?
A: It's a Rhythmical cycle of beats (like a Meter).
