What is chatusra tisram?

[vasanthakokilam]

gn.sn42: Thanks for raising that question. As a side effect, we got a great lesson from sr_iyer on how these things work in practice.

sr_iyer has addressed your question substantially. When I read your question, the first composer that came to my mind was OVK as well. There is an album by TNS of OVK compositions. What a great match-up!!

While pondering your question, I thought of the following:

sr_iyer had nicely built up the kaNakku from Sarali to varnam to pallavi. And you were wondering about pre-composed music. And the biggest one of them of course is the krithis.
As Sri. Srikantan says, traditional thinking is krithis represent the rakthi bhakti sangitam. Whereas this would be rakthi kaNakku sangitam
That is on a lighter note of course, but that may point to the standard thinking on the differences in aesthetic goals of pre-composed music vs manodharma music.

Not that they can not be reconciled, I am sure people can relate to bhavam/emotion induced through music that provides for kaNakku based speed variations.

As you and sr_iyer covered, jatiswarams, tillAnas and orchestral pieces can definitely make use of these for good effect.

Here is the main point I wanted to write about as a possible direction of thinking for your question. There may actually be not that much difference in aesthetic goals between those sub-genres.

What we are basically talking about is syncopated speed variations in pre-composed music.

Manodharma aspects including niraval readily accommodate such things. What is the equivalent of niraval in pre-composed music? It is of course Sangathi. May be that is one place where chathusra-thisram type speed variation can find its place. In many thyagaraja krithis, the sangathis are built up with speed variations. You see a pattern where he sometimes speeds up the pUrvAnga while maintaining uttaranga and vice versa in other krithis or both in some krithis. They are normally 'power of 2' speed variations which are not normally syncopated. And Thyagaraja was a master at using off-beat and syncopated constructions. I do not see why chathusra-thisram type speed variation can not be accommodated in such sangathi construction. It is really not even gathi-bedam as sr_iyer observed earlier, just an illusion while still in chathusram.

[gn.sn42]

Yes, sr_iyer has given us quite a bit of useful and thought-provoking information.

I'll set about listening to all the OVK I can find! That should be fun. And I appreciate your point about sangathis, especially in Thyagaraja's compositions. There are definitely speed variations in many cases, and I'll need to listen to those more carefully and try to understand how they work. I agree that many of them are probably multiples of two (Thyagaraja's beat tricks are hard enough as they are - in my imagination he's standing there grinning as musicians screech round each next corner).

TNS/OVK should definitely be a good combination - could you give me details on this album?

[vasanthakokilam]

sr_iyer: That answers my question about the 'nI padamulE' pallavi. I got the split mixed up. Thanks for clarifying it. The rest of your additional description is very informative, as always. Much appreciated.

gn.sn42: I understand now where the 'double speed' vs 'triple speed' difference comes from. The first step of the exercise uses a 0.75 - 0.25 split whereas the second step uses the 1.5 - 0.5 split. sr_iyer is referring to the second step when he mentioned 'double speed'. I mistook that as a reference to the first step. Thanks.

[vasanthakokilam]

sr_iyer, I just read your PS in your post #55 and the additional notes in your post #51. Understood.

I tried the step-wise process you suggested to get to the chathusra tisram. I used the step 3 below to get that 1/4th split right. It was initially hard to go from two 0.5 splits to three 0.25 splits.

This is what I did. ( All the avarthanams below are of the same time duration.)

1) s r g m |p d |n s' ||s' n d p|m g |r s ||

2) s, r, g, m,| p, d,| n, s', ||s,' n, d, p,|m, g, |r, s, ||

3) s,,, r,,, g,,, m,,,| p,,, d,,, |n,,, s',,, ||s,,,' n,,, d,,, p,,,|m,,, g,,, |r,,, s,,, ||

4) s,, r,, g,, m,, p,, d | ,, n,, s',, | s'ndpmgrs ||s,, r,, g,, m,, p,, d | ,, n,, s',, | s'ndpmgrs ||

5) s,, r,, s,, r,, s,, r |,, g,, m,,|s,, r,, g,||, m,, p,, d,, n,, s',, | s'ns'ns'ndp| s'ndpmgrs||

The third step set the stage for the syncopated fourth and fifth step by changing from chathusra karvai to thisra karvai as per your plan.
Though I got the kAlapramANam reasonably tight after 9 or 10 tries, I found it hard to do steps 4 and 5 while keeping the thalam. I brought in a metronome program to keep the thala.

I put in my own syllables to each swara in step 1 for a 16 syllable pallavi. Step 4 and 5 sounded awesome like a real pallavi .

It is a fun exercise Thanks sr_iyer.

[sr_iyer]

Vk, you are welcome. Just so that there is no confusion in the notation you are expressing, I would recommend that you ensure that all Avartanas in your sequences 1 through 5 occupy the same time-duration. If this is not the case (let us say, in your post, you intended that Avartana time-duration in #1 is half of #2 is half of #3), please indicate that explicitly in your post so that I can mentally map your notation without any gap.

As an example, I would normalize and express (a) first, (b) second and (c) third kAlam in notation by fixing say four inner units per kriyA, and indicate: (a) --- s,,, r,,, g,,, m,,,|p,,, d,,, |n,,, s',,,|| (b) --- s, r, g, m, p, d, n, s', | s', n, d, p, | m, g, r, s,|| and (c) --- srgm pdns s'ndp mgrs| srgm pdns'| s'ndp mgrs|| (Akin to how books normally notate varNams and Krtis set in 1 kaLai ...)

This is a minor point -- just to avoid any gap.

Having normalized the notation thus, I would recommend that for all the numbered items in your post (esp for # 4 and 5), you could use an Avartanam that spans 6 to 8 seconds to get a feel, i.e. about three fourths to a one second to a kriyA. (It is not intended that you use 2 kaLai, in which case, the exercise would be easier)

_________________


To hear a sample of caturas'ra tis'ram used in a performed pallavi, please refer to http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=b016 ... f6e8ebb871

I excerpted just the multispeed rendition part from a pallavi I found at sangeethapriya, rendered by Sri LGJ (in a duet with Sri N Ramani).

The pallavi is in khaNDa tripuTa, 2 kaLai. eDuppu is 1/4. (I have retained the initial announcement by the maestro, cut out the initial niraval portion and spliced the initial part directly into the multispeed rendition part. The maestro declares quite precisely, that the take off point is 'half a division of the first beat where every beat has two divisions'. These divisions are the kaLai subdivisions. This makes it a 1/4 beat skew, i.e. 1/4 eDuppu).

The pallavi, indicated in 4 inner units per kriyA-beat (or 2 inner units per kaLai-beat) of 2 kaLai khaNDA tripuTa, is:
, s p m g , , - (r) m g s , , , - r s , , , , (d)- n| s , , , , - s' , , | d p , , m g r s || n- (pallavi wraps around from eDuppu here as s p m g , , again)

Note: The underline indicates swara in the lower octave. The italic coloured swaras in brackets do not have any tangible duration towards tALa-unit count and have been only indicated to show the key grace notes involved in transitions. The hyphens show the spits between phrasings.

In the portion (spmg,, -> mgs,,,-> rs,,,,->n) ... notice the progression from 3 to 4 to 5 units of kArvais in the pUrvAngam forming a yati pattern, leading into the arudi subsequently. The prefixes of the single units swaras that lead into these associated kArvais in the pUrvAngam taper from 3 to 2 to 1 single unit swaras accordingly.

Approximate timelines (started with higher resolution, but later annotated at lower granularity of indicated time-lines:-). This annotation is just indicative to help the reader map the obviously perceived speeds, and different audio players may show +/- 0.5 seconds difference I think...

1:23.5 to 1:37.75 base speed in 2 kaLai
1:37.75 to 2:01.75 slow (1/2 of base peed)
2:01.75 to 2:20 iteration 1 caturas'ra tis'ram
2:20 to 2:38 iteration 2 caturas'ra tis'ram
2:38 to 2:50.5 iteration 1 base-speed
2:50.5 to 3:03 iteration 2 base-speed
3:03 to 3:26.5 four iterations of fast (second wrt base) speed

Followed by return to base speed -- this is actually a composite formulation of speeds in pUrvAngam (base followed second speed of pUrvAngam) -- not important for elaboration for our context here ...

PS: Have excerpted only the relevant portion from sangeethapriya clip and uploaded purely for illustrative purposes. If there is any inadvertant copyright violation, please let me know.
____
More later. I will also briefly comment on why caturas'ra tis'ram is used in some naDai pallavis (i.e. non caturas'ra naDai pallavis) later ...

[gn.sn42]

sr_iyer, thanks for the terrific annotated example. (As far as copyright is concerned, this is a textbook example of fair use - you've excerpted a small portion to illustrate your article, edited it to focus on one aspect, annotated it, and provided credit.)

[vasanthakokilam]

sr_iyer, I just got back to this thread. In the 5 steps in my post, yes, all the avarthanams are of equal length. I have added a note to that effect. I did not understand clearly what you were saying with the "---" ( three dashes ) before each step. What does that signify?

Thanks for the annotated example. I have listened to that a few times but it requires a few more listens to get the feel for chathusra thisram right. Thanks for marking the times with much care and accuracy. That helped a lot.

[vasanthakokilam]

TNS/OVK should definitely be a good combination - could you give me details on this album?

gn.sn42, I looked for the official title of the album but I could not find a definitive one online. One or two looked promising but I could not get the song list to verify.
May be others will know. I have the songs and listen to it quite frequently and I know it came from an album.

[SrinathK]

Ok, I just looked at KBMK's lec dem up there and I realized the Sri mahAganapatiravatumAm recording of Lalgudi sir is using it.

It is very simple in principle. There's just one more detail.

He's just singing triplets (t,,k,,d,,m,,) in chatushra nadai at 8 counts or 16 counts a beat - this is no different from counting triplets at 4 counts a beat - just the speed got doubled or quadrupled. 

Basically 1) t , , k | , , d , | , m , , || (counting 3 patterns in chatushra nadai) became

2) t,,k,,d, | ,m,,t,,k | ,,d,,m,,|| next degree of speed (8 counts per beat)

If that's too much just do the above in 2 kalai and it's the same thing, just at 50% tempo.

One can do this for 16 counts per beat if one is good enough. What that looks like is this

t,,k,,d,,m,,t,,k | ,,d,,m,,t,,k,,d, | ,m,,t,,k,,d,,m,,||

If you don't get it, do it in 4 kalai at 25% tempo and you'll see it's the same thing as example no. 1.

But do not openly stress the commas. If you say t k d m - you sound as though you are counting in groups of 4, while you are in fact taking 4 triplets in a group.

There is a laya exercise of counting patterns of 3,4,5,6,7,8,9 notes in chatushra nadai, which is basically this. Its in AMS exercises and taught as a basic laya lesson. At 4 counts a beat the concept is simple. The difficulty only arises at much slower or faster degrees of speed.

Similarly they can actually be done for any nadai.

[SrinathK]

From the other thread : viewtopic.php?f=8&t=29132#p339093 - A demo of K Gayathri doing chatushra tisram and tisram for a pallavi

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=29132#p339236 - Some more points

All possible cross pattern variations :

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=29132#p339251
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=29132#p339252
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=29132#p339255
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=29132#p339258
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=29132#p339260

[Sath]

Just saw this great, concise explanation here by Shri Sunil:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJBJNdZZVf8