Day 1 notes

There are 7 notes in Carnatic Music - they are shadja (S) rishaba(R) gandhara(G) madhyama(M) panchama(P) dhaivatha(D) nishada(N). A set of these seven notes consitute an octave. There are usually 3 octaves (Mandra sthayi -lower, madhyasthayi-middle and thaarasthayi - upper). The frequency of the notes double from octave to another. The frequency at which you sing the adhara shadja ( the S of the middle octave) is called the sruthi or the pitch. A drone or tambura is used to help the musicians maintain the pitch. Common male pitches range from 1-3 and female pitches range from 4-6 or 6.5. A pitch of 1 corresponds to adhara shadja at middle C of the piano (440 hz). A pitch of 5 corresponds to G, 5.5 is G# and so on.

A concert usually begins with an invokation to Lord Ganesha and/or a varnam (more about varnam later). This is followed by krithis of alternating fast/slow short/long krithis. Thillanas and thukkadas are sung towards the end before finishing the concert with a piece or small verse in Madhyamavathi.

All beginner lessons are in a raga called Mayamalava gowla. The scale of any raga is expressed as the arohana (ascend) and the avarohana (descend). For Mayamalava gowla it is SRGMPDNS and SNDPMGRS respectively. The arohana and avarohana need not be symmetric. EX. Bilahari is a raga where arohana is SRGPDS and avarohana is SNDPMGRS. In such a raga PMG (use of M when descending from P to G) will be allowed but not GMP.

A krithi or main song in Carnatic Music is structured as Pallavi (Opening), maybe followed by Anupallavi, followed by 1 or more Charanams. For film music the in between spaces are filled with interludes of background music(BGM).
The main constituents of a krithi are lyrics (known as sahityam), the beats/rhythm (known as tala) and the tune in form of notes (swaras). (A raga is the scale on which the tune is based). The most common tala is adi tala. It consists of 8 beats per cycle (structured as 4 + 2 + 2). The format is 1 beat + 3 counts, 1beat+1flip, 1beat+1flip. A beat + count is called lagu and a beat + flip is called a dhrutham. So adi tala has 1 lagu and 2 dhruthams. At the 1st tempo, we sing 1 swara per beat as follow

S R G M |P D |N S ||(where I indicates a change from lagu to dhrutham, and || the end of the tala.)

In 2nd tempo this becomes
SR GM PD NS |SN DP |MG RS ||

And in the third tempo it becomes
SRGM PDNS SNDP MGRS |SRGM PDNS |SNDP SNDP ||

Here are links to the songs that we heard today in Mayamalavagowla




And here's the link to Vathapi Ganapathim by the one and only MS amma
http://www.musicindiaonline.com/p/x/KUf2mNSWIS.As1NMvHdW/