Chords in CM - a brand new approach!

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 28 Apr 2006, 21:50

I wish to welcome Vishnampettai Jayendran to the Forum who is a wonderful singer of melodies with WM bent. Just listen to her
http://freepgs.com/carnatic/viewtopic.php?p=10040#10040

I am requesting her to post more examples so that we can learn, experiment and enhance our modern approach to CM. This will be a great novel learning experience for all of us in the CM field. Though IR was a pioneer in this area, he had been ignored for long by the CM die-hards but time has come for us to waleup to advancing CM using the WM (and HM) idioms. Good luck and once again a very warm welcome!

Suji Ram · Post by **Suji Ram** » 28 Apr 2006, 23:49

I think VJ is playing the chords and not singing...

mohan · Post by **mohan** » 29 Apr 2006, 03:43

Yes and Jayendran is a he.

Vishnampettai Jayendran · Post by **Vishnampettai Jayendran** » 29 Apr 2006, 06:17

The singer is Chandana Dixit, a bollywood playback singer.
she is trained in hindustani music.

Vishnampettai Jayendran · Post by **Vishnampettai Jayendran** » 29 Apr 2006, 06:20

here is another carnatic-fusion piece i like.
i got this mp3 form a friend, its by a madras band named the Banned (maybe they got banned by all the local sabhas for playing chords and using distortion guitar

)

its a nice jam on malaya marudham. I like the metal lead, which is totally chormatic and dissonant seemingly, but to my ears stays true to the raaga.

http://vorlon.cwru.edu/~jayen/J/exorcis ... 5b1%5d.mp3

Vishnampettai Jayendran · Post by **Vishnampettai Jayendran** » 29 Apr 2006, 06:37

another cool film song based on raaga is Kandukonden kandukonden by ARR
i belive raaga is nalina kaanthi
http://geocities.com/kishmu/MIDI/KandukondenGM.mid

this song highlights lush harmonies with out-of-raaga notes.. and more importantly the use of bass guitar to accentuate a raaga.

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 29 Apr 2006, 06:53

Here are my thoughts on these pieces...

They all sound great on their own merit and I enjoy listening to them.

With respect to whether they are true to the CM raga...

1) I always had a problem with Ninnu Kori being Mohanam. It is a catchy song, no doubt. I have never analyzed the notes ( not that I can very readily ) to see how it fits with Mohanam or not. But it was not too much in the Mohanam camp for me. But I do not know why. Is it because of the foreign notes, or chords having non-mohanam notes or it does not have mohanam gamakam or prayogams, or me just not tuning to it properly.

2) The Bhoop one is interesting. I can see she is singing the Mohanm arohanam and avarohanam. In some cases even Mohana gamakam too ( but restrained to some extent, intentionally I think). One thing I have not felt yet is about the effect of the harmony on the raga. Meaning, in terms of what it adds. It gives it more texture for sure and a feeling of 'coming together'.

3) The Madras band Banned ...I did not hear much malaya marudam in there. May be some of it occasionally. I had to really listen very intently to get even that. But it is pretty dynamic and has a nice vibe to it. Instead of blindly being a copy cat hard rock hand, they seem to have some individuality. Started off with some jazzy lines, had its share of screatching guitar work and ended it nicely with an Indian Filmy touch. It also had the familiar mayamalava gowla/middle eastern feel to it ( my prototype example for that is the One Night In Bangkok song ). Whenever I hear such a sound I sort of put it in the basket of Harmonic Minor ( whether that is correct or not!!

)

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 29 Apr 2006, 08:38

Jayendran:

Thanks very much for your participation so far. It has been illuminating. The Kandukonden kandukonden piece is in the direction I was thinking but not quite there. To me, it is still not heavy enough, it has a feel of Muzaak, like the light versions of heavy songs they play in doctor's offices and elevators. ( not that there is anything wrong with that ).

Is the following feasible?:

My objective is to keep it with in classical boundaries as much as we can, as heavy as a typical carnatic song would be ( at least as a goal ).

To achieve this:

1) A keyboard solo to test out these building blocks
2) Take characteristic raga prayogams: sequence of characteristic phrases of the raga. Hypothetically, say: J K L M N O P Q R S T U
3) Challenge is, find a chord sequence in that prayogam where the dominant sound of each chord maps to the swaram in the above sequence. For example, find a chord sequence whose dominant notes in each of the chords are J M Q R T U . Let us call it CH1 CH2 CH3 CH4 CH5 CH6 respectively.
4) Substitute the chords for the corresponding notes in the original sequence. So it becomes
CH1 K L CH2 N O P CH3 CH4 S CH5 CH6 ( The non CH notes are non-chorded standalone notes )
5) For the notes K L N O P and S apply pitch bend to get the necessary classical gamakas. We can use principles of "skip" and "step" when transitioning between chorded notes to the non-chorded notes. And to a certain extent, the necessary "take-off" and "landing" gamakas can be applied to those transition points as well.
6) I have not really picked out what these alphabets represent in terms of notes and what the chords are, so there is considerable flexibility. Only requirement is the original sequence has to be a characteristic dominant sequence ( prayOgA ) of a specific raga.
7) I am curious how this will sound. How close will it be to that raga? If it sounds alright then if we can discover such building blocks for a few prayogams of a raga then they can be used in combinations like it is done in a typical alapana to give the raga the true classical shape and majesticity.

Vishnampettai Jayendran · Post by **Vishnampettai Jayendran** » 29 Apr 2006, 09:08

^^^
I am not that learned in carnatic music to understand everything you said...
but regarding swara seqeuence to chord mapping,
it would be a one to many mapping.

plus we are using the term chord loosely here...
if i understand correctly, we are talking about vertical intervals aka harmony in carnatic music. In my humble opinion, I think harmony is implicit in carnatic music, which is why when someone like guitar prasanna or a r rahman tries to harmonize in a raaga, he is able to do successfully.
indian instruments have rich subharmonic overtones, we hear multiple notes, and many times notes not in the raaga, when we think we r hearing one note,
the intruments also have resonance and sustain, so when u play the next note in the melody, the previous note lingers on.. one can try this experiment,
do vocal alaap in a simple raaga like mohanam, but add a delay effect to your vocals, something like the edge-u2 delay. thensay if u sing s g p s for eg, it will be over layed with s (gs) (pg) (sp) and would sound cool... that can be a way of coming up with chords for a raga, by examning the adjacent notes, alternate notes etc..

the delay i was talking about.. kinda happens naturally in group singng when everyone is not totally in sync.. it kinda adds to the appeal i think.

That said and done, I am not a carnatic purist, my knowledge of carnatic music is very peripheral, I can grasp vertical and horizontal intervals when i hear them (chords,melody)
But my raaga vocabulary is very minimal, though i may know what notes i am hearing, i may not know the name of that raaga.

I have also noticed learned individuals in this forum nickel and diming raagas and discussing and criticising small nuances which i am totally unfamilar with; my ears are not trained to catch that kind of carnatic stuff, and all such discussion goes above my head unfortunately.

lets take example of mohanam..
yea i know the aroganam and avaroganam.. and i also know the basic gamakkas of that raaga..
but i also know something more than the above 2 has to make mohanam what it is.. for example.. when i listen to chinese pentatonic melodies.. they do not sound like mohanam all the time to me.. i dont know why.. when they ought to..
using the same argument, when i listened to IR's ninnu kori, though i noticed all the notes which shouldnt be part of mohanam, somehow it still felt like mohanam to me.
I do not know what the reason is.. and half the time when I am tryign to harmonize some carnatic piece, its just intelligent trial and error.. and if it feels good to my ears i keep it, else i drop it. But I have no answer to why my ears feel something is right and something else not, and i cant be the judge of whether what i feel is good would be perceived similarly by others...

Vocalist · Post by **Vocalist** » 29 Apr 2006, 10:30

Vishnampettai, I admire your frankness. A lot of rasikas have the same experiences as you, but find it insignificant. It reminds me of myself, before having any knowledge in CM. (Btw-I hope you won't mind if i refer to you as "VJAY" in the future).

VK, I think you might find it's a little more complex to get the right sort of chords. Of course, I had a little trouble understanding your steps. (Maybe the letters were confusing, like many hypotheticals). Perhaps a direct example might make it easier to understand?

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 29 Apr 2006, 11:37

Agreed. A ready example would have been better, though tough to come by for me. I will post if I can come up with a realistic example.

VJ, I am using the term 'Chord' as it is normally defined and as you understood it ( vertical intervals ).

A chord is a combination of three or more notes
Chords are built off of a single note, called the root
Triads: A type of chord, created with a root, third, and fifth.

And, I agree with the point you made about the natural harmonics that exists. But the self-harmonies that result are not that strong since the amplitude of those harmonizing notes are less and less with the high octave harmonic frequencies. But that is true no matter which instruments one plays, whether it is CM or not.

The following may be a first grade level example, but it is just to illustrate what I am saying..but working backwards compared to my previous example.

( Here is the audio for the above notation. A very small file.
http://rapidshare.de/files/19178642/Cho ... e.wav.html
It is simple enough, one can easily hear the first chord, then the two non harmonic notes followed by the second chord)

This example consists of a chord( CH1 ), 2 non-harmonic notes ( CT1 and CT2 ) and another chord(CH2).

So the sequence is: CH1, CT1, CT2, CH2

I do not know how to tell the Dominant note of the chords CH1 and CH2 are( my deficiency ), but let us say they are DN1 and DN2

So the non-chordal sequence is: DN1, CT1, CT2, DN2

If there is a raga whose characteristic prayoga is DN1 CT1 CT2 DN2 then play on a keyboard with pitch bend the following:

Play CH1
Smoothly traverse to CT1 the same way you would from DN1 to CT1
Execute CT1 and CT2 with the individual gamaka as well as the transition gamaka of the raga
Smoothly traverse from CT2 to DN2 as required by the raga
Play CH2

How will it sound? This may be too short a sequence, so in between this set have some more non-harmonic notes but come back to this. I have a feeling that it should still sound like the raga in its classical form and I am curious what the chords do to the raga sound.

Vishnampettai Jayendran · Post by **Vishnampettai Jayendran** » 29 Apr 2006, 12:22

ok i think i am gettign it.. but pardon me, i dont understand some of theterms which i am guessing are very common in carnatic circles.. what does prayoga mean?

Vishnampettai Jayendran · Post by **Vishnampettai Jayendran** » 29 Apr 2006, 12:28

if i understand correctly, a simplified more generic version of your question
could be,
given any melody, what could be the possible undelying chord progressions?

Did I get you correct?

VS Jayendran Iyer

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 29 Apr 2006, 12:40

if i understand correctly, a simplified more generic version of your question
could be,
given any melody, what could be the possible undelying chord progressions?

Did I get you correct?

VS Jayendran Iyer

Most Probably. I am hedging a bit because I may not understand all the implications.

But let me state it this way: What I am NOT after is the end result of playing the melodic line over the chord progressions. But the chord progressions with the intervening non-harmonic notes making up the characteristic swara sequences of the raga. Is that a distinction without a difference? I do not know.

Just to clarify the word prayoga, I guess the literal translation is "Usage".
So for Mohanam, it can be : GA DA PA GA RI SA. The swara sequence that reveals the identify of the raga ( executed with all the necessary gamakas, oscillatory as well as the transitional ones ). For Kambodhi: It will be MA GA PA DHA SA NI DHA PA DHA and so on.

Vocalist · Post by **Vocalist** » 29 Apr 2006, 12:52

Good example. I think bhairavi would be more obvious with the gamakas.
PA DHA NI, NI, DHA PA DHA MA ,

As SRJ, S.Ramanathan etc. once mentioned, it is not the notes that reveal the identity of the rAgA. Rather, the gamakas.

Vishnampettai Jayendran · Post by **Vishnampettai Jayendran** » 29 Apr 2006, 12:54

lets try some fun chords for g d p g r s in the C scale

Code: Select all

one without breaking any mohanam rules:
g   d    p      g        r       s
C  Am Am7  C    Cadd9   C

but the simplest one would have been

Code: Select all

g   d    p      g    r    s
C  Am Am7  C    G   C

I used Gmajor for r, which has ni, but sounds perfectly gine as G is dominant of D or r here

if we wanna get funky here are some other possibilites that I can think off:

Code: Select all

g       d p      g  r        s
CM7   Dm7     E7      Am

Em    Am      C          Dm7 (Dm/C)

etc
there r endless possibilites, if u increase the voicings of ther chords

Vishnampettai Jayendran · Post by **Vishnampettai Jayendran** » 29 Apr 2006, 12:57

sorry my chords are not alligned. I do no know how to allign them.

Vishnampettai Jayendran · Post by **Vishnampettai Jayendran** » 29 Apr 2006, 13:55

so i just played g d p g r s on the elec piano, then looped it,
and harmonized over it..
i dunno what part of it is mohanam and what part isnt anymore.. if u jam long enough, u can then go back and get some part of it that sounds cool.. and use it somewhere

anyways i was using 4 and 5 note harmonies over the mohanam riff, mainly started with the stuff i played for chandana boop song, and then improvised and deviated from it...

check it out..
http://vorlon.cwru.edu/~jayen/jjjjj-mp3 ... ohanam.mp3

drshrikaanth · Post by **drshrikaanth** » 29 Apr 2006, 15:56

VK
The example you posted are "G3 , M1 R2 G , ; ;" which maps to the SankarAbharaNa scale. Apart from the parent rAga itself, I also got a feeling of nIlAmbari(May be I filled in the gaps

) By the way, how did you post western notation here? You may send me an email so as not to lead the discussion astray.

drshrikaanth · Post by **drshrikaanth** » 29 Apr 2006, 16:18

The "Banned" piece is quite nice. It is malayamAruta neatly handled. In places I got shades of Ahirbhairav although I couldn`t pinpoint the madhyama. Both map to the 16th mELa(cakravAka/vegavAhini). The guys have used carnatic, folk and filmy styles to good effet and combined to give a jazzy effect. The AlApane has some colouring of hindUstAni as well while the last bit is clearly folk- sound like a mATTu saNDai sequence- fight shown in films done on bullock carts. It also seemd to have some kathakkaLi touch to it.

Vishnampettai Jayendran · Post by **Vishnampettai Jayendran** » 30 Apr 2006, 04:04

The "Banned" piece is quite nice. It is malayamAruta neatly handled. In places I got shades of Ahirbhairav although I couldn`t pinpoint the madhyama. Both map to the 16th mELa(cakravAka/vegavAhini). The guys have used carnatic, folk and filmy styles to good effet and combined to give a jazzy effect. The AlApane has some colouring of hindUstAni as well while the last bit is clearly folk- sound like a mATTu saNDai sequence- fight shown in films done on bullock carts. It also seemd to have some kathakkaLi touch to it.

^^, yes the banned are very talented indeed. The bassist if my understanding is right is keith peters, who a big session bassist in the film music industry and has played for ARR a lot.
what is aaroganam avaroganam for malayamAruta ?

The notes i hear in the banned performance are E F G# B C# and D

and they have used chords like Emaj E7 E7b9 C#maj etc

and someone told me its malaya marudam a while back, so i posted it. I am sorry if that was wrong.

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 30 Apr 2006, 05:24

DRS, In the banned piece, the first minute there is that repeated melodic theme, and at 1:03 it changes ( till the AlAp ). Is Malayamarutham more pronounced in the first minute or the second one? The second theme reminds me of the middle eastern music.

After that they lanuch into the screaming distorted guitar. Any raga resemblance there? I can't figure it out but if there is, that would be a blast, I will listen again.

I also liked the change in the drum playing to an almost mridangam like style around 3:15. Nice contrast right after coming out of the screaming guitar!!

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 30 Apr 2006, 05:25

BTW, the Banned piece reminds me Johnny A's Oh Yeah, in the overall jazzy style flow. Listen here for a sample. http://www.johnnya.com/mp3s/stm/02.mp3

drshrikaanth · Post by **drshrikaanth** » 30 Apr 2006, 05:45

DRS, In the banned piece, the first minute there is that repeated melodic theme, and at 1:03 it changes ( till the AlAp ). Is Malayamarutham more pronounced in the first minute or the second one? The second theme reminds me of the middle eastern music.

I can hear the malayamAruta throughout except in the AlApane around 1:45 where it goes off key(So it sounds as it is AlApane). It is during the AlApane that I get more of a sense of Ahirbhairav(recall alabElA sajan AyOrE from hum dil de chuke sanam)

After that they lanuch into the screaming distorted guitar. Any raga resemblance there? I can't figure it out but if there is, that would be blast, I will listen again.

There is malayamAruta throughout except from 2:45 to 2:55 when the gutar howls like a wounded dog

and reaches a crescendo.

I also liked the change in the drum playing to an almost mridangam like style around 3:15. Nice contrast right after coming out of the screaming guitar!!

Actually I felt it sounds like tavil at that point more than mRdanga. That and the sound of the other drum which is sounded by rubbing a stick on the hide. Just think of those people who whip themselves and beg- thats the sound

(Only trying to jog your memory).

The mRdanga sound is more pronounced in that part staring at 1:03 which repeats at the end.

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 30 Apr 2006, 05:52

VJ, your looped GA DHA PA GA RI SA with chord playing is interested and fun to listen to.

Relating to what we are discussing, the GA DHA PA GA RI SA dominates the things so much that the chords are too much in the background. So, for my ears, I can not tell if the chords add to Mohanam or distract from Mohanam etc. They for sure add something to the background which changes the texture of the overall sound. ( BTW, you whipped up that hip hop Mohanam in no time!! ).

Now, DRS has identified the dominant notes of the chords in that sample notation and mapped it to Shankarabaranam. So we are half way there. Is there an official definition of a dominant note of a chord? Or it is just by feel? Like in a triad, which is normally considered the dominant note? The root, the third or the fifth?

In this case, we already have it: G3 , M1 R2 G , ; So putting my example on a firmer ground, what I am after is not playing this over a sequence of chords. But the chords themselves participating as a first class citizen, peer to the non-harmonic notes, in making up the sound of the raga.

a) Play The first chord, b) transition from G3 to M1 c) play M and R2 d) transition to G3. e) Play the second chord. Execute b, c and d as if one is playing classical shankarabaranam as much as possible.

( This is still an example. If we do not get much classicism soaked shankarabaranam out of it, we need to find a sequence that does. )

drshrikaanth · Post by **drshrikaanth** » 30 Apr 2006, 06:00

The odd thing about that triad VK is that they could also be "PD1M1P" but that was not what I heard first. I immediately sensed G although the AdhAra ShaDja is not indicated. It was only after thinking intently I got the other sequence. There may be seveal other sequences that could fit but I would go with "G,MRG,". Thats what sahana heard at first shot as well. Of those 3 G is definitely the dominant note.

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 30 Apr 2006, 06:11

There is malayamAruta throughout except from 2:45 to 2:55 when the gutar howls like a wounded dog and reaches a crescendo.

LOL... I heard that again after reading your post and I heard the wounded dog howl !!

Actually I felt it sounds like tavil at that point more than mRdanga.

Absolutely!! I hear it as Tavil as well. I do not know what I was thinking when I wrote mRdanga.

drshrikaanth · Post by **drshrikaanth** » 30 Apr 2006, 06:19

I think that swara sequence at 1.03 and at the end is

"S;S S, R, | S;S S, R, | S, G, | R, P, | G , D, | P, R, |"

I think (I may be wrong). Repeated listening gets irritating after a point

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 30 Apr 2006, 07:00

The following may not add directly to the example I have been constructing but this is to convey what I mean by 'Chords as first class citizens'.

Here is the audio for this... Playing the above notation three times
http://rapidshare.de/files/19232674/OCanada.wav.html

(BTW, the audio as well as these notations are not mine...just in case any of you thought so

)

This is an excerpt from O Canada.

Until I saw and heard this a few days back, I was under the mistaken impression that chords are something in the background providing support for the melody in the front. But here the melodic line is completely carried by the chord progressions. As you can see, this does not have any non-harmonic notes. So there is no possibility here of bringing gamakams into the picture to make it sound like a raga. So this is just an example to show how the chords can carry part of the melody. Bring in some non-harmonic notes with gamakams and we may have the raga sound in tact.

Vishnampettai Jayendran · Post by **Vishnampettai Jayendran** » 30 Apr 2006, 10:48

it is very interesting that you had such an opinion (melody= primary, chords = secondary) to begin with, but i am guessing thats how CM makes a person think. I do not have a CM background, and play keyboards for a prog-metal band. While composing new songs, sometimes the vocal melody comes last..
there r so many examples where melody plays second fiddle in popular music, in fact that even becomes a necessity in the new teeny bopper genre, when your have vocalists who r not strong in singing, but sell due to sex appeal.. for (britney spears etc etc)

but even other wise, an underlying chord progression can make a melody sound different, and that has been a standard practice in jazz improvizations.. addtion of new harmonizations and voicings..

I read a thread about changing raags for kritis and varanam, and how that changes the complexion of a song.. this is analogous to that.. U keep the melody constant, but change the harmony, in fact that is one of a standard song writing method, and helps construct a song with repeating phrases of melodies..

for example a famous pop song from the 80s movie Pretty woman (or was it early 90s)
It must have been love by Roxette from Sweden.

the melody line for the first 2 3 lines is the same, but the chord changes underneath to give it a different feel..

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 30 Apr 2006, 11:17

VJ: Chiding fully accepted

It may not be a case that CM made me think that way. But it is more of an erroneous notion that chords are "accompaniments" ( which they are in many cases aren't they, even if the chords are figured out first? ) but ignoring the other idea that one can build a whole musical phrase with just harmony without any overlaid separate melodic line.

The one place where that actually fell apart for me quite a while back ( which I did not follow through and resolve properly ) was while listening to a Piano solo of Duke Ellington. There I had a tough time even separating the harmony from the melody, there were so intertwined. Wild stuff!!

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 30 Apr 2006, 12:12

an underlying chord progression can make a melody sound different, and that has been a standard practice in jazz improvizations.. addtion of new harmonizations and voicings..

.... U keep the melody constant, but change the harmony, in fact that is one of a standard song writing method, and helps construct a song with repeating phrases of melodies..

.....the melody line for the first 2 3 lines is the same, but the chord changes underneath to give it a different feel..

I do not tend to notice these changes if they are small. If it is dramatically different, yes that catches my attention but otherwise I automatically latch on to the melody and I hear the harmony as "fill". I guess you already figured that out since all your examples above address that spot on. That tendency is probably conditioned by prodominantly listening to melody based music like CM.

I need to listen to the instances you mentioned where the harmony changes beneath exactly the same melody and see if I hear the change in "feel" or still latch on to the melody too strongly.

Vishnampettai Jayendran · Post by **Vishnampettai Jayendran** » 30 Apr 2006, 13:01

girl from ipanema, by antonio carlos jobim is another good example with a simple melody, with cool harmony giving the melody a different feel at various points,

here is a version i had recorded while jamming with my friend's kid sister:
http://vorlon.cwru.edu/~jayen/jjjjj-mp3 ... panema.mp3

Her melodic and hramonic improvizations also highlight how both melody and harmonic can be something of a spontanoues dynamic thing which you just make up real time

and here is a composition of mine, where i used the same song writing technique i mentioned, using the same melody line over a I vi IV V chord prog

http://vorlon.cwru.edu/~jayen/J/attic.mp3

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 30 Apr 2006, 21:36

I agree that the chord does interact and change the melody even when it stays the same. Just listen to the ever-famous
http://rapidshare.de/files/19277427/bob ... r.mp3.html

The pure melody to start with followed by the same melody with chord progression and finally as the trumpet(?) joins in reaching the crescendo you are carried to the heights of ecstasy.

But I am sorry to say such experiences are not found with the mix of CM melodies in the fold. ARR is too western and the deluge of instruments tends to 'mask' the melody than enhance. We need some clean exampls of chords with CM. Your mohanam aalap with chords does not give the right mood since the phrase GDPGRS without the gamakams does not evoke the right mood. We need a more elaborate example if you please!

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 30 Apr 2006, 23:40

vk

here is a quick and dirty analysis of what you posted and queried on the 'OCanada' sample. First I MIDIFied the sample taking care to eliminate the two repetitions. here it is
http://rapidshare.de/files/19284782/OCanada.mid.html
You can play it in the Noteworthy but the notations look different since it is all in Trebleclef. But sounds just the same. The notation that you posted is only 1and1/4 measures whereas the piece plays for 4 measures. So I had to trim it to extract the segment displayed in your notation. Here it is:
http://rapidshare.de/files/19284941/Canadabit.wav.html
You can hear your CH1 CT1 CT2 CH2.
When I analyze it in cakewalk I am able to resolve the innards of the chords and notes. They are:
(Eb6 Bb5 G5) (Bb5 A5) (Bb5 A5) (Eb6 C6 G5)

hence the changing tone (CT) is actually composed of the non-harmonic combination of N2 and D2. That is a surprise.

Now you do not hear any particular raga here. Hence I analyzed it heuristically. The dominant note in the first chord is indeed Pa(G5). Hence I extracted the sequence which is here
http://rapidshare.de/files/19285042/PDNS.wav.html

I can clearly hear kharaharapriya in it. If you agree then we can say kharaharapriya is hiding inside those chord sequence which certainly do not sound like it (by my stretch of imagination!).

Now where do we go from here!

Vishnampettai Jayendran · Post by **Vishnampettai Jayendran** » 01 May 2006, 02:29

The O canada midi you made is totally wrong. If this were to happen with indian national anthem, 100 indians would be after your head by now

Thankfully Canadians are less aggressive

in anycase I suggest that you correct your mistake, especially as it happens to be a national anthem for a nice country.

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 01 May 2006, 02:41

notation that you posted is only 1and1/4 measures whereas the piece plays for 4 measures.

CML, the notation and the piece are the same length.

Also, the OCanada excerpt does not have any non-harmonic notes.

I will have to listen to your conversions again a bit leisurely... but one point in the mean time... This does not have any CT1 and CT2 etc. since there are no non-harmonic notes.

But, if I understood what you have done, you have picked out the dominant notes of some of the chords, stripped out the harmony out of it and thus converted to a non-harmonic note. Hey, I did not think of that since I did not approach it from that direction. So that is possible a possible way to generate those, though I am not sure what rules of 'good and consonant' chord progressions we will be violating. ( VJ may squirm at all this

).

Remember, for my half-baked scheme, we need some non-harmonic notes so CM gamakas can be applied to them surrounded by chords which together they make up the raga swara sequence.

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 01 May 2006, 04:19

Vk

I made a big mistake. I confused your original ChordCT1CT2Chord sample with the OCanada. That is the reason for the whole confusion.

Vj
Here is the original OCanada posted by VK
http://rapidshare.de/files/19308976/OCanada.wav.html
and here is the MIDI
http://rapidshare.de/files/19284782/OCanada.mid.html
(computer generated)(with acoustic guitar)
Though not xactly the same, I fail to understand your 'accusation'!

Vishnampettai Jayendran · Post by **Vishnampettai Jayendran** » 01 May 2006, 04:36

i am not making any accusations

all i am saying is the midi file doesnt sound like O Canada. Its got everything wrong, melody and chords. maybe while keying in the transcription you made a typo.. thats all i am saying, I am not accusing u of anything, dont get me wrong.

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 01 May 2006, 04:55

So, we are on two tracks here. One is to see how to make the chord sequence plus intermingled non-hormonic notes sound like a CM raga while retaining the classicism and raga identity.

Second, to get a feel for the change in underlying harmony while the melody remains the same.

Towards the second aspect, VJ, I listened to your composition as well as your jam session with Swati. Good stuff. There is quite a bit going on for me to isolate the chord changes and also to determine if the melodic line stayed the same or not. May be, for illustrative purposes, you can point out a time line, or as an alternative post a simpler piece to demonstrate this. I guess what I am looking for is: the same exact melodic notes are played, no key changes but with different chords.

CML, I listened to the bobbydarin-ComeSeptember.mp3. I see the melodic color changes when the same theme is played again due to addition of instruments but here also it is hard for me to pin point precisely where the chord changes caused the same melody to sound different.

Vishnampettai Jayendran · Post by **Vishnampettai Jayendran** » 01 May 2006, 05:35

CM Lover:
I recorded the first line of the Canadian national anthem, First I play only the melody, then I add the chords in the second iteration. It is a very simple melody, yet soulful, as you can see the midi file is totally wrong (it should have been evident by comparing it to VK's wav file as well). That is the reason I asked you to fix it.

http://vorlon.cwru.edu/~jayen/jjjjj-mp3/O%20Canada.mp3

VK:
here is an example for you

http://vorlon.cwru.edu/~jayen/jjjjj-mp3 ... ration.mp3

I recorded just the right hand parts first, as you can see initiallly its the same melody repeating again and again and gets monotonous,
in the second iteration i added the left hand parts, just addition of simple bass progression makes the melody sound non repititive.

Jay

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 01 May 2006, 06:17

Vj

Here you go
http://rapidshare.de/files/19315191/OCa ... t.mid.html

This again is a straight machine conversion. Of course the file you provided was less noisy compared to the one VK loaded. Ihave left out the chord part! Comments!

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 01 May 2006, 06:26

vj

That is a nice example. But the CM trained ear only seeks the underlying melody and will consider the chord progression as a distraction. Most definitely it kills the monotony.

Could you post the notes for the basic melody?

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 01 May 2006, 07:07

VJ: Thanks for that illustration. I get that totally. It does reduce the monotony and adds a bit since it fills in the gaps as well. Thanks, that is very useful.

A question regarding the Oh Canada you played, linking back to the other track idea: For the melody alone, is it correct to think of that as playing just the dominant note of each chord? If so, in this particular case atleast, is there an automatic way of picking out the dominant note (like the root note or the fifth note of the Chord)?. I am asking this mainly because the non-harmonic notes by themselves and the chords by themseles sound the same ( the former sounding stripped down ).

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 01 May 2006, 07:11

But the CM trained ear only seeks the underlying melody and will consider the chord progression as a distraction.

CML, the other idea running through our conversation here will examine if this is indeed true. The thing that makes me believe that it need not be a distraction is the Oh Canada chord progressions.

Vishnampettai Jayendran · Post by **Vishnampettai Jayendran** » 01 May 2006, 07:58

VJ: Thanks for that illustration. I get that totally. It does reduce the monotony and adds a bit since it fills in the gaps as well. Thanks, that is very useful.

A question regarding the Oh Canada you played, linking back to the other track idea: For the melody alone, is it correct to think of that as playing just the dominant note of each chord? If so, in this particular case atleast, is there an automatic way of picking out the dominant note (like the root note or the fifth note of the Chord)?. I am asking this mainly because the non-harmonic notes by themselves and the chords by themseles sound the same ( the former sounding stripped down ).

Dude, i know the melody of O Canada, just like we all know the mleody line of jana gana mana, so in this case, i didnt have to pick anything, my ears heard the melody all along,because they knew what to look for.
maybe we should post the following midi to a canadian , and ask him to figure out the melody line

http://vorlon.cwru.edu/~jayen/jjjjj-mp3/in.mid

which brings us to an interesting point, instead of using O Canada, the canadian anthem as an example,
lets use our Jana gana mana as an example...

the melody line for jana gana mana in my opinion is only 10-20% of the compostion, the melody alone does nothing to bring patriotic emotions in me, i always have to listen to the military band playing it.. thats what my ears and brain tend to associate with india.. not lata maheshkar or someone just singign the melody., no doesnt do it for me.. sorry.

Also when someone comes up with an alternate arrangement, like how ARR tried to do in his album.. where he added random chords and experimented with it.. it was all musicially cool and correct, but it ceased to be the national anthem to my ears...

Vishnampettai Jayendran · Post by **Vishnampettai Jayendran** » 01 May 2006, 08:12

CM Lover:
I did not realise that you were converting the wav files into midi using some util.I thought you hand transcribed the midi file.
So i apologize for any misunderstanding.

Wave to midi converters never do a good job when the polyphony is high. They work well only for monophonic sources like melody.

the notes in my meldy are

this is the repeated pattern
%pn%ps%pn%ps%pn%

%= silence

u can replace the % with the bass notes which will break the monotnous nature..

i will add the bass in capital letters

SpnPpsSpnPpsSpnP x2
DpnGpsDpnGpsDpnG x2
MpnSpsMpnSpsMpnS x2
PprRprPprRprPprRprP x2

its the shankarabaram kindascale.

i am not using the r2 d2 kinda notation.. because quite honsstly i dont know what the right nomenclature is..
i ve seen notation like r3 etc.. and i dont know if r3 is like in nattai or r3 is because some people say there r 22 shrutis.. etc..

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 01 May 2006, 08:23

VJ, Understood what you say about how you "know" the melody by the ear. My question regarding the dominant note in each of the chords is then: If you compare the notes of the melody to the corresponding chord, which note of the chord do they map to? Is that then the definition of the dominant note of the Chord ( if such a term is even meaningful to talk about )?

Vishnampettai Jayendran · Post by **Vishnampettai Jayendran** » 01 May 2006, 08:48

i dont know what your looking for out of this..
i must tell u upfront, i am an illitrate. I have not learnt any kind of music... carnatic or western.. I do not know how to read staff notation. i just play by ears... and have picked up the colocial way of writing western music chord Progs.. in english...

a melody note need not always be the dominant, why shoudl it be?

a note can be part of infinite chords theorictcally ... if we we dont restrict ourselves to fixed octaves..
in real life, while working with 2-4 octaves,and given the range of human hands, voice and musical instruments, u can probably compute a finite numbrer of chords possible per note.. but that would be a useless exercise,as that would not help u come closer to your goal or composing a melody for a chord progression or vice versa

I am not an expert in Chord theory, you can google and start reading about music theory and chord theory, concepts like circle of fifths, if u dont know about them already.. thats all I can say.

Lets take the example of the o Canada melody. though the song is in Eb (or sometimes the militar Band plays it in Ab), lets analyse it in C major.

the mleody and chords go something like

melody:E--------G---G-------C-----|D--E--F--G--A--D
chords:C----------G/B------Am----| G-C--F--C--F--G

melody: E--------F#--F#----G-----|A-----B-B--A-A--G--
chords: C---------D---------G-----|D7/C--G----D-----G

so in the above example u see sometimes the melody and the underlyign chords may not be what u would expect

A over D7/C for example.

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 01 May 2006, 10:31

VJ: Your disclaimers aside, you know stuff, man!! And great ears. As far me, the western music staff notation and english equivalent terms are all totally new. I have been teaching myself this in the past two weeks, a little bit at a time. So, for each little thing you write, I have to go look it up. Which is perfectly OK, it is just slow and sometimes I may not get it right.

OK, the correspondence you have established between the two is what I am after. To save me the effort of looking up things, take it one step further. First, let us synchronize a few things. Check me on this. ( sorry for being a pest about this ).

In this particular case, when I first heard the chords by themselves, without any non-chordal notes, that sounded like the song itself. ( this is from the recording I uploaded with the notation ). Let us call it item A.

You played the melody alone, all non-chordal notes. It sounded the same as the above ( notwithstanding the stripped down nature of it ). Let us call it item B.

You have already provided the mapping between item A and item B ( Chord to Note correspondence ). Great. I may not have understood what each letter in the Chord row represents. That represents a chord, a set of vertical notes, right?

Question 1: I am conjecturing that since item A sounded just like item B, atleast one of the notes in that vertical set of notes of each Chord in item A has to be same as the corresponding note in item B. Is that true?

Question 2: If true, which one of the notes from that vertical set it turns out to be, the root, the third or the fifth ( in the case of a triad )? Is there a consistent rule that is obeyed?

Even if no such rule is obeyed, as long as answer to Question 1 is true, we will call it the dominant note of the chord. If this is true even in limited contexts such as the first four bars of Oh Canada in our excerpt, then I have some basis to advance my idea on the raga relationship.

We are almost there, I feel. Where is there, that is a different question.