"MSV CLUB" - The Discussion Forum of MSVTimes.com

[N Y MURALI]

Dear Friends,
I have started a new subject in which I shall try to share some of the information and nuance about music in general and in between connect how MSV 's music encompasses all these characters in them.

This could be boring for somebody as it involves many theories but I can guarantee you that if have interest in mathematics then please read in which you could understand easily as you go further.

I hope it kindles interest in some of you who could take it further and get even better idea about music in general and MSV's music in particular

Thanks

N Y Murali

MUSIC IS NOTHING BUT MATHEMATICS

Music is sound vibrations. Does it include noise? Not so. The fundamental difference between noise and music is that in the case of noise the sound particles or the particles of vibrations spread across when the vibrations are produced and in the case of musical notes are swarams the particles of vibration produced converge on a focal point.

It is something equivalent to a pencil that has been sharpened with a knife and you are able to write better than the pencil without sharpening.

Having understood the difference between noise and the musical notes how does the music notes behave and what the arrangement order is and how naturally they are arranged in an order for us to exploit the same for music composition is the one we need to understand.

Understanding this facet of music would help us in a big way to unlock the secrets of MSV’s composition skill.

To understand this we first of all need to understand the mathematic aspects of music.

Music can be expressed in a form of a circle. You would notice that when you start a musical note from say sa and go further to ri ga ma pa da ni you come to the original position from where you have started which sa. But there is a slight difference. The sa produced after ni is higher pitch sa.

So if you represent a seven note scale of the music then you start from sa and end with sa. This mean it is a circle. This our Tamilian forefathers understood and they further researched and found out the degree value of each note.

In order to understand this better we also need to understand that though musical notes are said to be as a basic 7 keys (notes) in physical position of generating vibrations they have 12 keys (notes).

These are as follows
Sa ri1 ri2 ga1 ga2 ma1 ma2 pa da1 da2 ni1 n2

If we can fit the western notes to suit the above order then assuming that the starting key sa is equal to C note then the western note order would be

Sa ri1 ri2 ga1 ga2 ma1 ma2 pa da1 da2 ni1 n2
C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B

(The letter C# means C sharp. It can also be classified depending upon theory as D flat. The logic why it is called as C sharp is because it is sharper in tone by ½ note compared to C. In the same logic it is flatter to the note D by ½ note. So in this way all the notes can be explained by sharpness or flatness with respect to the higher or lower position.

If you note a typical harmonium or a keyboard you would notice that all the sharp notes would be of black color keys and the other in white color keys.

You would also notice that these black keys which are totally numbering to 5 vis a vis the white color keys which are 7. You would also notice that these 5 black color keys would be arranged in the order of 3 clustered together and 2 clustered together.

From these 12 notes the entire magic of music emanates. Please remember these fundamental arrangements and then only you would be in a position to understand and appreciate the knowledge of music.

If you have interest and patience you would finally understand that music is nothing but mathematics in the sound form.

Now having understood the 12 notes let us try to make a seven note scale.
If you remove all the black keys are the sharp keys and keep only the white keys then this is called as C natural scale in western music. In our Indian system this is equivalent to the raga Sankarabaranam. I said equivalent but not the same because there are fundamental difference between a C natural scale and raga Sankarabaranam which I shall explain at a suitable time. For the time being we can keep it as an equivalent the raga sakarabaranam.

The concept of chords in a scale:
Now when you have these 7 notes the building of a melody differs greatly in the Indian style and western. The fundamental difference is in the case of Indian style they try to establish the individual note clarity and a concept called Gamaga or modualtions. Because the Indian music concentrates on individual notes and the gamagas it is called as individual music or in tamil ‘Thani sura isai’. Where as in the western method they concentrate on the group music which is called orchestra.

You might argue that we have seen the movie ‘thiruvilaiyaadal’ (the song ‘oru naal poduma’) where many number of flutists, mirthangist and veena players are performing some thing like an orchestra. Well that style was prevalent in our music but the fundamental difference is that the notes all these orchestra played would be the same as the main singer. Where as in the case of western orchestra the notes played by the orchestra would be different from the main singer. Then does that not produce jarring noise not suitable for our ears. But the thing is that they play such notes which accompany the main melody. That accompanying melody emanates from the concept called Chords or Harmonical notes which is well defined in the western music theory.

That MSV uses this concept for melody building is important for us to study and understand. So how a chord does is theoretically explained. It is explained in the following way.

As we have seen that in the C natural scale or the raga sankarabarana (all white keys) consist of 7 notes. A chord is defined by generating 2 or more keys together. That means when you press a single key it is not chord. It is simply a note and called as melody. In order to accompany with the note or the melody, the western music generates chords. So a chord is a combination of sounds by producing sounds of 2 or more notes together. Even though this is theoretically correct but in practice the basic chord starts with 3 notes pressed together which is called TRIADS and then you have 4 note chords which are called the 7th chords and 5, 6 and some time 7 note chords. But the most common and basic of all are the 3 note chords (TRIADS).

All these theories have been made during the 15th century due to which western music become a classical music. (Music can be called as a classical music when it has proper theories). Our Indian music is a classical music.

Now if we see the 7 note C natural scale or our sankarabaranam raga scale it consists of 7 fundamental chords. Out of which we get 3 major, 3 minor and 1 diminished chords.
How de we get that. I shall explain

Now see the notes. The bolded one are the black keys. Only the white keys are in the C natural scale.

Sa ri1 ri2 ga1 ga2 ma1 ma2 pa da1 da2 ni1 n2
C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

So the 7 notes that form the C natural scale are


Sa ri2 ga2 ma1 pa da2 n2
C D E F G A B

Now these 7 notes consists 7 chords which I can explain.

C MAJOR:

Sa-ga2-pa
C-E-G
1-5-8
1st-5th-8th(C is 1st E is 4th from C and G is 8th from C)


D MINOR
ri2-ma1-da2
D-F-A
3-6-10
1st-4th-8th (D is 1st, F is 4th from D and A is 8th from D)

E MINOR
ga2-pa-n2
E-G-B
5-8-12
1st-4th-8th(E is 1st, G is 4th from E and B is 8th from E)


F MAJOR
ma1- da2-sa
F-A-C
6-10-1
1st-5th-8th(F is 1st A is 4th from F and C is 8th from F)

G MAJOR
pa-n2-RI2
G-B-D
8-12-3
1st-5th-8th(G is 1st B is 4th from G and D is 8th from G)

A MINOR
da2-sa-ga2
A-C-E
10-1-5
1st-4th-8th(A is 1st, C is 4th from A and E is 8th from A)

B DIMINISHED
n2-ri2-ma1
B-D-F
12-3-6
1st-4th-8th(B is 1st, D is 4th from B and F is 7th from B)

So the above are nothing but a permutation/combination of possible 3 notes chords from 7 notes available to us. How are they classified as major, minor, diminished is with the following rule.

Mojor: The first note is called the root and from that (inclusive of the root) the second note is the 5th and the third is the 8th. So if a chord consists of 1-5-8 relation then it is called as major. In the above example you have noticed that C major is in that rule of 1-5-8. Since the first note or the root note is C it is called C major. In the same way if the first or root note is D and the second note is the 5th from and inclusive of the first or root and the third note is 8th from and inclusive of the first

Minor: In the same logic if the arrangement is in the order of 1-4-8 it is called minor.

Diminished: The combination in the order of 1-4-7 is called diminished.

Augmented: The combination in the order of 1-5-9 is called augmented chord. In the above C natural scale there is no such combination. However this could happen in a minor scale or say a raga like charugesi.

From the above we can understand that the term augmented is arrived by increasing the 3rd note by ½ note from the major chord and the diminished chord is arrived by decreasing the 3rd note by ½ note from the minor chord.

Chords reveal triangles:
Is it possible for us to present the sound in a pictorial form? Well we could do it with chords. As I have told earlier since music can be represented in the form of a circle which our Tamilans found out long ago they have also found out the degree values of each note. This shows that music which consists of sound waves actually takes turns when the note increases and comes back to the original place where we have started.

The values of each of the 12 notes are given

Sa ri1 ri2 ga1 ga2 ma1 ma2 pa da1 da2 ni1 n2
C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
0 22.5 45 72 90 120 146 180 216 240 280 315

Of course the upper or higher pitch Sa would be 360 decrees which complete the circle.
Here you can notice that the note pa or G is in the 180th decree and this is the reason why the carnatic musician tunes the Tamboora or the shruthi box as sa-pa-sa that is 0-180-360 decree so that they can perform the notes perfectly as the shruthi acts as compass needle of a ship sailing in the ocean.

So can we represent the C major chord in the pictorial form?

For a C major chord since the combination is 1-5-8 which is sa-ga2-pa the decree value of the notes would 0-90-180 decree. In simple terms please assume the same with the wall clock in mind and the 1 is the 12th hour (0minutes) the 5 is the 3rd hour (15 minutes) and the 8 is the 6th hour (30 minutes) of a wall clock.

Now connect all these 3 decrees with a straight line. That is draw a line connecting 1-5-8-1.What we get is an isometric right angle triangle in which one side is 90 decree and the other two sides are 45 decrees each. This represents the Pythagorean Theorem. And this is the reason why the note E or ga2 or the 5th note is called as Pythagorean major third in the western music theory.

Now when we come to the melody composition after the advent of these theories there was an improvement. Earlier they use to compose melody alone. Now they have composed melodies with respect to the chord accompaniment and the rhythm guitar or Piano was used to produce chords. Now they found another method of producing melodies. That is instead of producing melodies first and fitting the chords, now they have gone the reverse method. That is they fixed the chords and produce melodies according to the chords. This is called chords progression. And this is one of the reasons why MSV and later music directors have preferred to have rhythm guitarist apart from a percussion players during the composition.

N Y MURALI


(To be continued)

[N Y MURALI]

Continuation of earlier article.....

Now if we see the 7 set triad chords in the C natural scale produce 7 different triangles as below.
C Major
Swarams – sa-ga2-pa-sa
Note - C-E-G-C
Position of key 1-5-8-1
Decree point 0-90-180 –0
Inside angle of triangle clock wise from 45-90-45

D Minor
Swarams – ri2-ma1-da2-ri2
Note - D-F-A-D
Position of key 3-6-10-3
Decree point 45-120-240-45
Inside angle of triangle clock wise from 60-82.5-37.5

E Minor
Swarams – ga2-pa-ni2-ga2
Note - E-G-B-E
Position of key 5-8-12-5
Decree point 90-180-315-90
Inside angle of triangle clock wise from 67.5-67.5-45

F Major
Swarams – ma2-da2-sa-ma1
Note - F-A-C-F
Position of key 6-10-1-6
Decree point 120-240-360-120
Inside angle of triangle clock wise from 60-60-60

G Major
Swarams – pa-ni2-ri2-pa
Note - G-B-D-G
Position of key 8-12-3-8
Decree point 180-315-45-180
Inside angle of triangle clock wise from 45-90-45

A Minor
Swarams – da2-sa-ga2-da2
Note - A-C-E-A
Position of key 10-1-5-10
Decree point 240-0-90-240
Inside angle of triangle clock wise from 75-60-45

B Diminished
Swarams – ni2-ri2-ma1-ni2
Note - B-D-F-B
Position of key 12-3-6-12
Decree point 315-45-120-315
Inside angle of triangle clock wise from 37.5-82.5-60

From this study we get lot of insights. If you see the above table there are 3 major chords, 3 minor chords and 1 diminished chord in the above C natural scale or sankarabaranam raga.

All the major chords have the keys position as 1-5-8
All the minor chords have the keys position as 1-4-8
The diminished chord has the keys position as 1-4-7

You would also notice from the inner angle of the triangle of the above 7 chords have the decrees 45 or 60 coming in all the chords. What does that mean? They mean that wherever the note ga2 (E) or ni2(B) is coming then it has 45 decrees in one of the angle of that chord triangle. The chord triangle of C Major, E Minor and G Major

They also mean that wherever the note ma1 (F) or da2 (A) is coming then it has 60 decrees in one of the angle of that chord triangle. The chord triangle of F Major, D Minor and B diminished.

And in the case of A Minor chord triangle since it has both ga2 (E) and da2 (A) that chord triangle has both 45 decrees and 60 decrees in two of their triangle.

Another very important aspect is that out of the 3 major chords F major is very unique. C major which produces the isometric right angle triangle as per the Pythagorean theorem which is 45-90-45 decrees. G major also produces a right angle triangle.

But the difference between these two chords are that in case of C major where 3 notes sa-ga2-pa (C-E-G) are involved the distance between sa-ga2 (C-E) is equal to the distance between ga2-pa (E-G) and the distance of sa-pa is the square root of the sum of sa-ga2 (C-E) and ga2-pa (E-G) since the distance sa-pa (C-G) is the hypotenuse which goes through the diameter of the scale or raga circle.

Where as in the case of G major where 3 notes pa-ni2-ri2 (G-B-D) are involved the distance between pa-ni2 (G-B) is not equal to the distance between ni2-ri2 (B-D) since the distance between pa-ri2 (G-D) does not go through the diameter of the scale or raga circle.

But both the above chords which are major chords produce 45-90-45 degree triangle and have the same relative key positions that is 1-5-8.
But compare to the above 2 chords the 3rd major chord which F major produces different triangle which is an equilateral triangle at 60 decrees each of the 3 sides. This is one of the beauties of the music’s nature.

It is because of this reason while the western basic chord progression music was composed it had the progression which starts with C major which produces 45 decree angles shift to F major which produces 60 decree angles and shift to G major which again produces 45 decree angle but not the same as C major as I have explained above then again comes back to C major. This is called a circular progression. That means you have started with C major traveled around with more chords and come back to the original. MSV’s songs have this feature in many songs.

That this character that is the note ma1 (F) which produces 60 decree angle would have influenced our Indian music and they came out with a concept called panchama shruthi ragas and madhyama shruthi ragas. The raga mohanam is a panchama shruthi raga and the equivalent madhyama shruthi raga is shudha saaveri. The song ‘Vanda naal mudal’ is basically in raga mohanam whereas the song ‘kannile kudiyirundhu’ (movie Imayam) is in sudha saaveri. The raga valachi is a panchama shrithi raga whereas the equivalent madhyama shruthi raga is Abhogi.

That MSV used this concept to a greater extent is an understatement. Since he did not have a raga in mind for composition baring some classical stuff he drew inspiration from the harmonic concept of the chord he had a greater flexibility by shifting the melody from a 45 decree angle melody to a 60 degree angle melody. That is he was producing a progression in the C natural scale from C major to F major and toyed it with many combinations.

Classical example is the song ‘amaidhiyaana nadhiyinile oodam’. The song starts with C major chord in the pallavi. He further goes to B flat (because he touches the swaram ni1 and hence many attributes this song to the raga ‘harikambodhi’) when he repeats the word ‘oodam’ and then goes back to C major when he completes the pallavi with the line ‘alavilladha vellam vandhal aadum’. This is in the principle of circular progression.

But shifting takes place in the charanam when he takes the line ‘thennai ilam keetrinile’ where he goes through F major route. A precursor to the shift takes place when the interlude of flute which goes through the same route of F major.

The same concept he uses for the song ‘mella po mella po mellidaiyaale melle po’. In this song again he starts the pallavi with C and lands at F by the time he competes the pallavi with the word ‘mella po’. This is not a circular progression as the pallavi started with C but lands at F.

And the charanam goes through the F route like the earlier song ‘kodaiyil nee tharum’.

The idea to shift the pallavi from a 45 decree angle to a 60 degree angle makes the melody of pallavi and charanam completely different to each other even though he follows a homogeneous scale for the whole song. (That is we are able identify a raga called harikambodhi). And it helped him in a long way to convey a feel for the situation. That the male singer who gives a statement to the female companion to go carefully with a melody and the female gives a counter statement with a completely different melody completes the feel factor.

Compare this with a recent song by a composer (no idea who) who composed the song
‘varuvaalaa? ‘aval varuvaalaa?’. In this line he makes a question. And there is a melody for that question. But then there is an answer. ‘Aval varuvaale’. This line also has the same melody as for the question. This makes the tune lifeless. The thing the composer should have given a different melody for answer compared to the question makes us feel that he has simply impregnated the music notes for the words and completely ignorant of the feel factor.

Leave this song apart the best and unbelievable trick MSV used is in the song ‘Maha raajan ulagai aalalaam’. He has definitely kept the raga ‘karaharapriya’ in mind for composition. He never deviated from that raga in the entire song. Yet he made a novelty.
What is the novelty?
The raga ‘karaharapriya’ is a panchama shruthi raga. In C scale the raga consists of the swara

Sa ri2 ga1 ma1 pa da2 ni1 sa

So it has C minor as the chord in 45 decree angle and F major in the 60 decree angle. Any normal composer who handles ‘karaharapriya’ would use the ‘pa’(G) note being a panchama shruthi raga that is in the 45 decree angle. But MSV used the ma1(F) and ‘da2’(A) note as the landing note in most of the lines and hence the chord used would be F major. In fact the song should have ‘C minor’ as the starter but it has ‘F’ major.
That means he has used the 60 decree concept for a raga which should be in a 45 decree which should have been used. THIS IN PURE CARNATIC TERMS HE HAS USED A PANCHAMA SHRUTHI RAGA IN MADHAYAMA SHRUTHI.

This is unimaginable for a composer who has not understood the power of chord based melody. The fact is MSV not only understood but also toyed this around in a pure classical carnatic raga is amazing.

N Y MURALI

To be continued.

[N Y MURALI]

Continued from part 2

Now let us deviate from the subject of western music and chords study and get in to the subject of Indian music and its nuances.

As explained earlier Indian music is about creating and playing individual melodies and not orchestrated music. Hence Indian music gives importance to the individual notes or swarams rather then the cluster of notes through which the chords concept got developed in western music.

I made an earlier statement that raga sankarabaranam is equivalent to the C natural scale but not the same. It is time to explain that. In order to understand the same we need to understand first about how Indian music treated the notes or swarams.

Like I have earlier explained that individual notes in C natural scale can be represented in terms of angle variation from the basic note C or satchamam, we can explain the same by means of cent values(units in terms of hundred) or the vibration numbers of each note.

The cent values of each note in a western music scale is given below

C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100

Now since C natural scale consists of the following notes the cent value will be as below.

C D E F G A B
0 200 400 500 700 900 1100

These are the cent values of individual notes for a C natural scale in western music.

Whereas the Indian music cent values for the equivalent sankarabaranam raga would be

C D E F G A B
0 204 386 498 702 906 1088

If you notice from the above two data you would notice that in the case of western music the difference between each note is equally distributed whereas in the case of Indian music the difference between each note is non equally distributed. The western method is called equal tone distribution method and the Indian music system is called as micro tone distribution method. The micro tone is called as ‘nutpachuram’ in Tamil.

That is the main reason why I mentioned that the western C natural scale is equivalent to the Indian sankarabaranam raga but not exactly the same as you will see the cent value changes for each note except the starting and ending note sa or C.

Why this change happens in Indian music compared to the western music is because the Indians especially the Tamilians have adopted the micro tones. But these micro tones can not be placed in a keyboard or an instrument like veena which will have only 12 keys as I mentioned above. So the micro tones are explored through a process called Gamaga which is very unique in Indian music. That means you cannot extract a micro tone by simply pressing a key because it can not be placed it has be extracted by pressing the nearest key and moving the tone either upwards or downwards depending on the micro tone who want to generate. In the above case of sankarabaranam raga what you need to produce the tone for the swaram ri2 (note D – 200 cents) which has 204 cents is that is you need generate the tone by pressing the key ri2 which is 200 and increase it to 204 by the gamaga. That is why you will see a Veena player would pluck the string by right hand finger and at the same time would press the key ri2 with his left hand and move his finger towards the direction of the key ga1 very lightly. In the case of keyboard there is a provision called pitch bender with which you have to create this gamaga.

We should be very proud of our people who founded this aspect in music when the whole world did not know about this until very recently.

How many micro tones are there? Our Indians have calculated micro tones or ‘nutpachurangal’ to be of 22. There are some other opinion that the micro tones are 24,27,32,48,53,96 etc. Though they remain as theories nobody has demonstrated practically. Means if you say there are 96 micro tones you must be in a position to play these tones in a veena.

But people have demonstrated the 22 micro tones and it is being used day in day out in our music.

In this connection I have a theory which should be that there cannot be more than 22 micro tones. That can be explained in a mathematical form. That scale of 7 notes is a circle because it comes back to the same place where it has started and that all the 12 notes in the scale sa-high pitch sa can be explained in terms of decree values makes this opinion stronger.

See what would be the diameter of a rod which is 22 feet longer if you turn it to perfect circle. The diameter would be 7.
Diameter = circumference/phi
Diameter = 22/(22/7)=7x(22/22)=7

That the swaram panchamam which is 180 decree from the satchamam which is 0 decree of a music scale sa to sa circle is the 7th note. If you have doubt check with you key board and you will notice that there are sa/ri1/ri2/ga1/ga2/ma1/ma2 when it reaches the note pa which are totaling to 7 notes and the straight line that connects the o decree satchamam and the 180 decree panchamam is the diameter. The balance 5 notes pa/da1/da2/ni1/ni2 are between 180 decree to 360 decree (or the 0 decree of satchamam). Why is that this is not equally distributed as 6:6 and distributed as 7:5. The reason could be that as the sound vibrations are produced at the beginning and becomes less vibrant and shriller as it approaches the end of a string.

So the Indians have understood the concept of these micro tones to be 22 because they knew that music notes do form a circle they must have known about the concept of phi which is 22/7.

Is it nor interesting!

N Y MURALI

To be continued