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).
9 comments:
Good Song - Good melody+Good/Great lyrics. :)
Let me see how you define good music?
It was quite heavy to digest :P
Are you sure that pitch is "Nothing But Frequency"?
Pitch is interrelated to frequency and scientists claim that it can be determined from frequency. But pitch per se is not frequency. It is something else. We have two terms here that denote two ideas.
Pitch is a quality of sound which has more to do with the internal tuning of an instrument. Tuning could be man-made in case of instruments like Sitar. And it could be natural - male voice has lower pitch than female voice, naturally. Pitch denotes position of note in a scale - how low or high a note of sound is.
Your post shows clear signs of misunderstanding and confusion, which has been covered by unnecessary details and pedantry.
Q. What is Music?
A. Anything that is pleasing to ears.
This could be the only meaningful definition of music as music can not be contained or defined in words. Those who understand the 'M' of Music know this very clearly.
Overall a disappointing post from you. I expected much more sense. May be you know, but you just don't say. :)
@abhishek
are u sure u understood the intension of the post well?
i very well made my point in the beginning that its for those who wish to learn the basics of music & i clearly said MUSIC THEORY. and i tried to do it in a scientific fashion so that techies can get the essence.
anything pleasant to ears is music? well.. i dint miss that point either. :) may tatz enuf to get satisfied for a layman. but as i said, the intension of the post is to explain the science behind it but not defining music.
pitch is for tuning instruments? well may be ur knowledge is confined to instruments. can you tell me what is pitch "C"? When you tune a guitar, it shud go EADGBE on its strings. can you tell me what these notes are based on.
pitch is not an abstract term. rather, its a concert term. every pitch has a fixed set of harmonics fyi. its a standard all over the world. u can refer to this for more information on pitch & how its fixed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_(music)
don't miss the formula btw ;)
frequency is the only defining variable for a pitch. THER R NO OTHER QUALITY OF SOUND ON WHICH PITCH IS DEPENDENT UPON. now tat can only alter my statement pitch is not frequency to pitch only depends on frequency. i can take tat. Each n every pitch, as of date, are standardized and can be represented by a set of frequencies, which ever instrument u may refer to.
when u cud make a statement that pitch is a quality of sound which helps in tuning an instruments, i m wondering, how u cudnt spare a thought on it that any instrument or vocal synced with a pitch, sound in harmony???
pitch denotes position of a note in a scale? can i ask u if u understand what a scale is?
want to talk in Indian music terms, u cant even decide the scale if u dont fix the pitch.
want to talk in Western music terms, for eg. if u r talking about A minor pentatonic scale, how come is the pitch dependent on this scale can u tell me? u can only play this scale in different pitches. POSITION OF A NOTE IN A SCALE IS PITCH? WHICH NOTE? A, A#, B, C or G or wat ... A minor pentatonic starts with A. you cant change the note 'A' to something & call it the same scale.
FYI, sequence of selected notes define the scale.. and these notes dont change positions but can only change the pitch (lower/low/high/higher ... ) unless the position u r talking about is the position of a fret or a hole in a musical instrument.
you comment shows clear signs of misunderstanding, confusion & haste which revealed ur half knowledge. :)
pedantry? yes.. i mentioned clearly that i m talking theory which is supposed to contain such details (which may not be necessary for a music listener but required for a learner)... i m not reading out a love letter after all :P
one mistake from my side was the confusing statement:
pitch is not frequency, pitch is a function of frequency :) for i cant tell ppl later that when i say pitch is frequency, it doesnt mean pitch=frequency. yes it wasnt clear.
thanx for ur comments & u r more welcome.
but before getting disappointed at what u read, may be u shud try to understand what it means & try not to compare terms with your own definitions.
and yeah... in the above comment:
please read this line >>
u can only play this scale in different pitches.
as
u can only play this scale in different pitches (higher/lower pitches).
Anil,
Well said.
Abhishek,
I guess you haven't understood the post properly as Anil said, you seem to have made a hasty comment for no reason.
On one side, you say anything pleasing to ear is music and immediately you say there's no definition for music! You surely are confused man.
May be you should read posts with an open mind or you should stop giving such comments.
can u suggest some place online to learn icm. this is for someone who hasn't learnt anything at all in music.
You are doing a good job along side your father on Bhakti Tv music learnig show.
@anony
Thanks a lot :)
@mukima
I don't know. But my feeling is that, there's no substitute to learning under a guru :)
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