help me identifying shruti

balchand · Post by **balchand** » 13 Dec 2009, 01:09

Is this song 3 kattai?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=us4Qgiv2 ... re=related

regs
bala

uday_shankar · Post by **uday_shankar** » 13 Dec 2009, 17:59

No, the AdhAra shadja for this recording is 6 kattais i.e., the A key. But considering that this particular song is being played in madhyama shruti, the sArani of the vina is tuned to 3 kattais (or the E key) and so 3 kattais would have been the AdhAra shadja for the other pieces in this concert.

By the way, it is reasonable to ask how do we know this is being played in madhyama shruti ? Because:

a) That's how jagadodharana is normally played
b) Listening carefully, anybody with some familiarity with the vIna can make out due to a variety of reasons (for example, the Shadja of an open string has a different timber than the shadja of the 5 fret, the way shri SB's glides from the lower register upwards, etc,etc..)
c) Listening to the mrdangam, clearly it is tuned to Pa as would be the case when playing madhyama shruti.

(Strictly speaking, the pitch is slightly lower than the exact reference but this is normal for Carnatic music where we really don't care about the exactness of the shruti with respect to some standardized pitch pipe; also it may be a case of recording induced pitch variation).

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 13 Dec 2009, 22:10

Uday
To start with it appears 5.5 kattai and then very soon it becomes 6 kattai. You are quite right about the slight ambiguity which however the CM ears cannot distinguish.

The point about madhyama shruti for Jagadoddhara is interesting! Is it strictlys followed?
I think KVN does not!

uday_shankar · Post by **uday_shankar** » 14 Dec 2009, 07:31

cmlji,

You may be misinterpreting the process as well as some of my words

. I hope you're not harboring some outlandish notions about "perfect pitch", etc...

First, it "appears to be 5.5 kattai" because the alapana starts with a curvy N3

. That doesn't make it "the shruti". The AdhAra shadja for the entire recording has always been at 6 kattais.

Also the phrase "CM ears cannot distinguish" is misleading and unnecessarily pejorative. A better phrasing would be "CM ears do not care about absolute pitch". So, while CM cares about aligning individual instruments and voices to the same reference, we don't care too much about what absolute pitch it is aligned to.

I used a pitch pipe to determine what shruti this recording was although I was able to "ball-park" it in the 5.5 to 6 kattai range. This "ball-park" skill is all there is to the famed phrase "perfect pitch" or absolute pitch.

Nobody, western or eastern, could tune up a string to some arbitrary pitch pulled out of the air and expect it to be in exact alignment with a tambura tuned elsewhere. Certainly not to the extent of exactness of alignment required in Indian classical music. This exact alignment process can only occur with a feedback mechanism between the instrument and the tuner. Therefore, all that the famed "perfect pitch" ability (which can, by the way, be cultivated) gives is an ability to get to the "ball-park" without any external reference.

srikant1987 · Post by **srikant1987** » 14 Dec 2009, 12:13

I didn't actually attempt to recognise the shruti (felt a little lazy and thought someone else would do it anyway

), but could see it's quite high for a veena! What kind of strings did Balachandar use?

Yes, thinking perfect pitch to mean accurate pitch is a mistake many people make. That said, western music employs perfect pitch and probably (due to practice) get a better sense of perfect pitch than those accustomed to only relative pitch. But all musicians need a very good sense of relative pitch; perfect pitch (also known as absolute pitch) sense is not a strict necessity even for western musicians. But a good (relative) pitch sense is very important in all rigorous music systems.

uday_shankar · Post by **uday_shankar** » 14 Dec 2009, 12:35

srikant1987 wrote:but could see it's quite high for a veena!

No srikant it is not "quite high for a veena" if you consider it is madhyama shruti and the open string is actually at E (in reality between D# and E as I said earlier), which is only a semitone (or less) higher than the nominal D# used by many vainikas.

So you need not go into research of Shri SB's string gauges on this account but that's a separate topic in itself consider the range of his pulling.

srikant1987 wrote:Yes, thinking perfect pitch to mean accurate pitch is a mistake many people make

Accurately stated ! This is the crux of my point.

Nick H · Post by **Nick H** » 14 Dec 2009, 14:31

srikant1987 wrote:That said, western music employs perfect pitch

You have confused the terms.

Western music employs, as has been said, "absolute pitch". That mean that, in theory at least, each and every note vibrates at a fixed frequency, and can be identified with an electronic device. That is how, and why, tuning meters work, and it is why one can bring two keyboards from any part of the world, put them together, and play together in tune.

If you hold down any one random key on of those keyboards, and someone who cannot hear see the key, and who has heard no melody to place it in context, can say, eg, "that is E-flat". That person will be able to accurately repeat this for any other key press --- that is a person who has (suffers from, some would say) perfect pitch. That person will also be able to tell if the instrument's tuning has been altered, perhaps to A=330 instead of A=440. It is very rare, and not at all required of a musician.

One such person once contacted the BBC to tell them that their GMT time signal tone (six beeps) had changed. They investigated, and fund that the electronic circuit producing it had aged and was not producing the same signal.

"Perfect pitch" is the ability to relate exactly to the Western musical scale with fixed shruti based on A=440. Those who have it often describe it as a curse, rather than a gift, as much western music (hence my "in theory") is not actually tuned to this, and they are always aware of that while listening. I have never heard the reaction of a Western perfect-pitch person to Indian music

uday_shankar · Post by **uday_shankar** » 14 Dec 2009, 16:19

Nick

I see what you're saying.

Both Srikanth and I conflate the terms "absolute pitch" and "perfect pitch" while you have made the distinction that the phrase "perfect pitch" is used to describe a person who has the ability to judge "absolute" pitches.

My only point, made a nauseum, is that no matter how keen a person's "perfect pitch", he/she could not tune a string to the level of accuracy needed for Indian music (i.e., down to a few cents) without a feedback mechanism of actual comparison, etc... In other words, "perfect" pitch is a gross skill while accurate relative pitch is a fine skill.

Another thing...there cannot be a legitimate "reaction" of a Western perfect-pitch person to Indian music because none of the compositions have an "original" key that the listener might be conditioned to. So key transposition is a way of life !

Even the A440 (C=262) standard of today has evolved over the centuries. I believe during Beethoven's time C was nominally 256Hz. So different generations of "perfect" pitchers were conditioned differently ! It is certainly a fixation worth losing.

Nick H · Post by **Nick H** » 14 Dec 2009, 18:00

no matter how keen a person's "perfect pitch", he/she could not tune a string to the level of accuracy needed for Indian music

I think you are wrong. One of the few with this "skill" can not only judge tuning exactly, but can do so without any external reference. They are as good as a tuning meter! Take my example of the BBC time signal: there are some pretty good ears in a place like the BBC, not to mention millions of listeners, but one man noticed that the pitch was slipping.

They may not even be musicians: it is something that some (very few) people can just do.

I wonder how it is that they become attuned to the present-day, tempered scale --- but my theory is that it is a kind of specialised memory, and that would explain the scale. It is just not possible that this phenomenon should be restricted to "westerners", so there must be differences in the way that it manifests, away from the western scale.

My point about "reaction" was to wonder how comfortable these people would be with Indian music, and how easily they could adjust to it.

The only way to answer any of these questions, or to confirm any of our observations, suppositions and suggestions, would be to experiment with real live people with this ability.

Volunteers?

edit...

This wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_pitch disagrees with my separation of the two words, but seems to describe the ability in much the same way, although it goes further (eg ability to name key, or identify component notes in a chord) than I knew about.

uday_shankar · Post by **uday_shankar** » 14 Dec 2009, 18:23

nick H wrote:I think you are wrong.

Perhaps. Until I see a "tuning meter" at work, I shall have to reserve judgment. And I mean tuning like an old-fashioned "by ear" piano tuner or an elite Carnatic/Hindustani instrumentalist.

Think about it --- it really doesn't make sense. Can these people do pitches in-between standard chromatic ones as we often do in Carnatic ? Again, in spite of the standardization there's much variation even in western music.

As for identification of specific elements of chords, I too can do it but it does not give me the ability to tune to perfection from memory - it makes no sense. In fact, even with complete motor control over the pegs of a chitravina, I have to go back and forth and worry about it quite a bit before I am satisfied with the tuning with respect to the tambura. So I really don't know what exactly you mean by "perfect tuning meters", Nick.

Nick H · Post by **Nick H** » 14 Dec 2009, 18:35

The mechanical difficulties of tuning a particular instrument are not relevant. If you are saying that there are not people who can do this, you are wrong. It is widely documented. I find, from google, that there even courses that claim to be able to teach the ability.

It is not productive to argue about it. I can't do it --- but have brought to the conversation what I know and have heard of others. It is widely documented. If a person can do it with "standard" pitches, then it makes every sense that they can remember and do it with "non-standard" pitches too. It's just human possibility we're talking about here, which is a thing that ever has the capability of dumbfounding with its possibilities!

new1 · Post by **new1** » 14 Dec 2009, 18:36

Firstly let me thank you guys for enlightening me to the fact that perfect pitch is a curse as much as a blessing. Me I cannot even tell when a musician makes an occasional 'abaswaram' let alone find which kattai etc..

Just from a mathematical perspective, I gather that in CM a singer can pluck a frequency at random (whatever his throat supports) and use that as the 'base Sa' and build the rest of notes above or below it in a certain ratio. Is that correct? The base does not have to relate to any fixed frequency western note such as C, C# etc. If that be the case what do we mean by '1.5 kattai' as that seems to have a 'base' to start with? Is that for convenience sake, same as western 'absolute' scale? I mean to say 2, 2.5 we need a base (of 1) right?

Can someone please educate me?

Also I was happy to hear that this is a cultivated skill...thanks for that comment..

uday_shankar · Post by **uday_shankar** » 14 Dec 2009, 18:49

Nick

I don't want to argue forever but...accuracy in tuning relative pitches is not a documented skill of absolute or perfect (yes the two terms are interchangeable as you yourself acknowledged) pitch perception. See the attached paper.

http://www.pnas.org/content/104/37/14795.full

And here's another excellent comprehensive paper:

http://www.nslij-genetics.org/apbib/takeuchi93.pdf

As you will see, the most they talk about is accuracy to about 0.2 semitones in rare cases and in most cases it is just down to a semintone and often with octave errors. This not very different from what many people can do with a reference. Now, in order to tune a string accurately with respect to a tambura you need accuracy down to probably a few cents or <= 0.05 semitones. This is precisely what I was trying to say.

Nick H · Post by **Nick H** » 14 Dec 2009, 19:31

How interesting it it would be if we could conduct experiments! Perhaps... one day

uday_shankar · Post by **uday_shankar** » 14 Dec 2009, 19:35

Actually we could do some of it right away.

We can readily estabish by measurement the extent of accuracy required for precise tuning. I'm ready if you're interested. We could measure amateur and professional subjects.

As for the perceptual accuracy of the perfect pitchers, we'll have to rely on experimental data.

Nick H · Post by **Nick H** » 14 Dec 2009, 19:58

It's just a shame that I wouldn't be able to hear any but the coarsest differences.

As you say, tuning can be learnt. To an extent, I learnt during mridangam class and with my morsing experience, but I use a meter for accuracy.

I wonder if the meter would be accurate enough for the purpose?

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 14 Dec 2009, 20:09

This is a fascinating subject! I look forward to the results of your collaborative experiments.
That may give us new insights into the role of shruti in CM.

uday_shankar · Post by **uday_shankar** » 14 Dec 2009, 21:08

nick H wrote:I wonder if the meter would be accurate enough for the purpose?

I don't know about that but not to worry, we can tap into the talents of forumite Arunk who's done a lot of work with pitch tracking software.

VK RAMAN · Post by **VK RAMAN** » 14 Dec 2009, 23:51

analytical software - interesting! Even better than brain!

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 15 Dec 2009, 03:28

If it is Uday/Arun/Nick team then it maybe a Nobel effort!

Nick H · Post by **Nick H** » 15 Dec 2009, 16:08

I'd agree for the first two names... but the last named is neither musician nor scientist!

balchand · Post by **balchand** » 20 Dec 2009, 23:57

hi, tnx for the all responses and sorry i hadnt checked them in a week. I am glad that it opened up such an elaborate discussion and like many other people, I got to learn a lot from these discussions. I think you all know it, but just did not mention it, the reason that the sArani of veena uses 'ma' of 3 kattai because it is same as 'sa' of 6-kattai (am i right?).

I am all game for a software. I dont have sharp ears like you people and need help identifying shruti everytime. I know some signal processing and I believe DFT (discrete fourier transform) is quite enough for the identification. It might require some careful windowing or use wavelets at an advanced stage. I can write a c-module in one day, but more important is that one should be able to feed any song and get the result using an user-friendly GUI. so java is a good bet so people can use it across platforms. so, once we decide abt, we can start the programming.

I was also reading about the raga hindustani kaapi in which this song is composed. It seems to have three bhashanga notes. In Dr. S. Bhagyalaksmi's book, the following prayagas are mentioned

note sanchara

antara ga mgm
sudha da pdpmgrs
kakali ni srsnSsgs

can anyone enlighten me on where these sancharas are used (or if they were used at all) in S Balachander's rendering.