info about 22 shrutis
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mohan
- Posts: 2808
- Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 16:52
There is only one Sa and one Pa. For a table of the 22 sruthis see http://www.carnaticcorner.com/articles/sruthis.html
One must remember that although people refer to Begada Ma or Gowli Ri, these notes must be rendered with gamakam and hence it is very difficult to fix a specific sruti value to the notes.
One must remember that although people refer to Begada Ma or Gowli Ri, these notes must be rendered with gamakam and hence it is very difficult to fix a specific sruti value to the notes.
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arunk
- Posts: 3424
- Joined: 07 Feb 2010, 21:41
It is not really a misprint but one has to look at it in the proper context.
In the very old system (from beginning of 1st millenium to about 13-14th century AD), there were two panchamas of two gramas - sadja-grama and madhyama-grama to which all ragas were then assigned to. The 2 gramas were the big 2 umbrellas which encompassed all melodic entities then. It is difficult to unambiguously the swaras in the gramas to swarasthanas used today. There are different theories of course.
Some later works in that old system (in particular Sarangadeva's Sangitaratnakara in 13th century) called two of the 22 sruthis as cyutha sadja and cyutha panchama - these are the ones immediately lower to the sadja and to the panchama (of the sadja grama) respectively. The second one was the original panchama of the madyama grama (if i remember correctly).
Later on (or may even in Sangitaratnakara - dont remember now), e nomenclature changed so that cyutha sadja become cyutha sadja nishada (i.e. considered a flavor of nishada) and cyutha panchama became cyutha panchama madhyama (i.e. associated with madyama).
But the fact that there were 2 panchamas in the old system is indisputable. What exactly that means in today's terminology i.e. within the context of ragas and swarasthanas today is a bit muddled. In fact some would argue that is true even most of the 22 sruthis (i am also in that category). While certain parts of the old works do talk about sruthis as intervals, I do not think they say "this raga uses this sruthi". That came later but had a lot of misinterpretation starting from the medieval works themselves (which just went more and more overboard with time)
Arun
In the very old system (from beginning of 1st millenium to about 13-14th century AD), there were two panchamas of two gramas - sadja-grama and madhyama-grama to which all ragas were then assigned to. The 2 gramas were the big 2 umbrellas which encompassed all melodic entities then. It is difficult to unambiguously the swaras in the gramas to swarasthanas used today. There are different theories of course.
Some later works in that old system (in particular Sarangadeva's Sangitaratnakara in 13th century) called two of the 22 sruthis as cyutha sadja and cyutha panchama - these are the ones immediately lower to the sadja and to the panchama (of the sadja grama) respectively. The second one was the original panchama of the madyama grama (if i remember correctly).
Later on (or may even in Sangitaratnakara - dont remember now), e nomenclature changed so that cyutha sadja become cyutha sadja nishada (i.e. considered a flavor of nishada) and cyutha panchama became cyutha panchama madhyama (i.e. associated with madyama).
But the fact that there were 2 panchamas in the old system is indisputable. What exactly that means in today's terminology i.e. within the context of ragas and swarasthanas today is a bit muddled. In fact some would argue that is true even most of the 22 sruthis (i am also in that category). While certain parts of the old works do talk about sruthis as intervals, I do not think they say "this raga uses this sruthi". That came later but had a lot of misinterpretation starting from the medieval works themselves (which just went more and more overboard with time)
Arun
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vasanthakokilam
- Posts: 10958
- Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01
The 22 sruthis concept has been debated quite extensively whether they are present in today's CM practise or not. One common thought is, Begada Ma, Saveri Ri, Gaulipantu Ma (?) are possible candidates to explore if they use the extra 10 sruthi intervals. They sound different and in fact are characteristic of those ragas but are the swaras sharper or flatter than the 12 swarasthanas? Extensive computer analysis of the waveforms of recordings of masters playing or singing these ragas do not seem to reveal any flat note renditions of the theoretical 22 sruthi frequencies. In fact, what was found is that all these involve oscillations ( no surprise there ) and the particular type of oscillations as a whole give the unique 'color' to these ragas. This makes sense and using this one can describe and explain what a Begada Ma or Saveri Ri is without resorting to the 22 sruthis with the current day CM practise.
If one buys into this, and evidence points to this strongly, then what do we do with practioners saying 'The D of this raga is a bit higher than the D of its janya cousin . I am not sure if anyone has really spotted a clean flat note rendition of a swara that matches anything outside of the 12 swarasthanas. What complicates matters is, in addition to the gamakapradhanam of CM, even with ragas that fit in the 12 swarasthana scheme, it is hard to see a musician strictly sticking to that swarasthana from one place in the rendition to another. There are some deviations that are hard to hear and some of the 22 sruthis are different from the 12 swarasthans by the same margin of error. But if there is a kArvai of a note whose frequency matches one of the 22 sruthis, then we have something to chew on.
One way to perceive the different 'coloring' of ragas like Begada with its unique Ma is to think in terms of 'human perception of pitch'. We are all familiar with 'timbre' which is what causes the same note played on two different instruments to sound different and tell us which sound belongs to which instrument. This is due to vertical layering of frequencies that are multiples of the base frequency of the swara in question ( harmonics ). Now consider its cousin, oscillations, which can be considered horizontal layering. It is still the same pitch but the width of the oscillation, the speed of the oscillation and the nature of the sweep ( skewed more in one side of the swarasthana than the other ) produces a psychoacoustically unique perception similar to the timbre. That is what we perceive as the unique Begada Ma or the Saveri Ri. etc. If this theory has any validity, this can be termed 'horizontal timbre'.
If one buys into this, and evidence points to this strongly, then what do we do with practioners saying 'The D of this raga is a bit higher than the D of its janya cousin . I am not sure if anyone has really spotted a clean flat note rendition of a swara that matches anything outside of the 12 swarasthanas. What complicates matters is, in addition to the gamakapradhanam of CM, even with ragas that fit in the 12 swarasthana scheme, it is hard to see a musician strictly sticking to that swarasthana from one place in the rendition to another. There are some deviations that are hard to hear and some of the 22 sruthis are different from the 12 swarasthans by the same margin of error. But if there is a kArvai of a note whose frequency matches one of the 22 sruthis, then we have something to chew on.
One way to perceive the different 'coloring' of ragas like Begada with its unique Ma is to think in terms of 'human perception of pitch'. We are all familiar with 'timbre' which is what causes the same note played on two different instruments to sound different and tell us which sound belongs to which instrument. This is due to vertical layering of frequencies that are multiples of the base frequency of the swara in question ( harmonics ). Now consider its cousin, oscillations, which can be considered horizontal layering. It is still the same pitch but the width of the oscillation, the speed of the oscillation and the nature of the sweep ( skewed more in one side of the swarasthana than the other ) produces a psychoacoustically unique perception similar to the timbre. That is what we perceive as the unique Begada Ma or the Saveri Ri. etc. If this theory has any validity, this can be termed 'horizontal timbre'.
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vasanthakokilam
- Posts: 10958
- Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01
Arun, indeed. I had Arvind's research in mind when I wrote this. I did not want to go too deep into the specifics of Arvind's conclusions since that always generates some heat for some reason 
But the idea that the 22 sruthis, atleast as practised today, are psychoacoustical phenomena generated by oscillatory gamaka is an interesting topic in itself.
But the idea that the 22 sruthis, atleast as practised today, are psychoacoustical phenomena generated by oscillatory gamaka is an interesting topic in itself.