What are the fundamentals of deshaadi and madhyaadi Talam

coolcrave · Post by **coolcrave** » 16 Jul 2006, 00:36

As above and also how is it constructed i have heard abt deshaadi talam in thyagaraja krithi's . Could someone throw some light on this thanks

mohan · Post by **mohan** » 17 Jul 2006, 12:40

In common usage, desadi refers to krithis in Adi talam where the eduppu is one and half aksharas from the start of the talam. The strong beat of the song will take place on the first dhrutam (or fifth beat).

Thaygaraja and Patnam Subramaniam Ayyar have used this talam extensively. For example in:

Raghunayaka, Hamsadhwani
Manavyala, Nalinakanthi
Bantureethi, Hamsanadham
Marivere, Shamughapriya
Aparadha, Lathangi

coolcrave · Post by **coolcrave** » 18 Jul 2006, 17:17

thanks alot mohan...

srinidhi · Post by **srinidhi** » 19 Jul 2006, 11:54

Madhyaadi, correct me if I am wrong, is where the edduppu is 3/4 aksharas from the start of the talam. e.g- Rama katha sudha- madhyamavati

mohan · Post by **mohan** » 19 Jul 2006, 17:16

Madhyadi is also Adi talam but krithis have an eduppu half an akshara from the start of the talam. Again, Thyagaraja has used this tala widely.

For example:

Merusamana, Mayamalavagowla
Mokshamu, Saramathi
Enduku peddala, Sankarabharanam

Vocalist · Post by **Vocalist** » 03 Sep 2006, 11:09

Earlier this year at the Sangeetham.com BBoard, I'd opened a discussion on RTPallavi and thala help (thankfully, it was one of the threads i'd saved before the site and discussions went offline ). I'd asked the question about Desaadhi. My questions etc. have a ">" before them, while the answers were given by vasanthakokilam at the time. (Thank you vasanthakokilam)

>Can someone please tell me how "Desaadhi" is put....
>in simple terms? (similar to my description above)

It is done in the traditional Adi way... But, the structure of the compositions in Desaadhi seems like a simple 4 times 2 per Avarthanam. I do not know how a Kriya for such a thing would be, but if I need to pick one, it will be a 'thattu and a veechu' ( corresponding to the major pulse minor pulse in the song ), four times per avartha.

Since tradition demands that we keep thala for this using Adi kriya, the eduppu becomes more complex than what it should be. For whatever reason, it is commonly set to an eduppu of 1.X when transformed to Aadi. It would fit nicely even if the eduppu is 3.X, 5.X or 7.X for desAdi tala. If you want to convince yourself, try the various eduppus ( 3.X, 5.X and 7.X ) with many popular songs in the traditionally 1.X Desadi songs. It will flow nicely, no problemo.

Given that there are so many pleasant, catchy and simple krithis in desAdi format, for beginners it will be easy if they are asked to sing it with a simple 'thattu veechu' format and not worry about the precise eduppu on 1.X. They still need to have the eduppu so that the major stress of the song falls on the Thattu but that will come naturally while singing or playing.

Let me add a big disclaimer: It is all my conjecture and I should add "it seems to me" to every sentence above.

>I'm still unsure about desaadhi....perhaps a direct example of a song i know and have
>a fair idea about (otherwise, i have the notation of) would make it easier.....(below)
>Shankari Shankaru-Saveri-Desaadi-Syama Sastri
>For the pallavi, how would it correspond to each syllable/phrase/word?
>(eg; in the adi taala krithi "Dhevi neeye thunai" (keervani-papanasam sivan) the first
>clap corresponds with "Dhe", the first finger corresponds with "e", the second finger
>corresponds with "vi", the first dhrutham corresponds with "nee-ye" and the second
>dhrutham with "thunai"-likewise, for shankari shankaru....how would it be done?)

Back to desAdi, your example of 'sankari sankuru' may not be correct. I just listened to it and the laya there sounds lot more complex than what I consider to be the simple structure of desAdi. When I seached for info on 'sankari sankuru', one source tags it as Trisra gathi Adi,(http://www.carnatica.net/newsletter/sav ... letter.htm) though I could not feel the 'thisra' gait myself in a rendition of that song by Vedavalli.

I wrote before that for me, desAdi is used in simple, catchy and 'hook'sy songs. Here are some desAdi examples with indication of where the beats fall. ( you can possibly check them out at musicindiaonline.com )

a) Yenthavedukondu - Saraswathi Manahori
The mid point is stressed in this song and so it is easy to feel it. The mid point falls on the 'Ko' of kondu. Rest of it should fall into place. That will fix the eduppu as 1.X ( meaning between little finger and the ring finger, the ring finger coinciding with 'tha' of yentha. )

b) Marukelara - Jayantha Shri. The mid point falls on 'ra' of marukela'ra' and the ring finger falls on 'ru' of Ma'ru'kelara.

c) Eppo Varuvaro - Jon puri - mid point on 'va' in eppo varu'va'ro and the ring finger falls on 'o' of epp'o'.

When I say mid point, that is the 'thattu' of the drutham following tha laghu.

Corrections welcome.

rbharath · Post by **rbharath** » 04 Sep 2006, 10:21

i have watched Smt Vedavalli sing 'mEru samAna' and Smt Seetha Rajan sing 'nAmakusumAmula' both are sung in Adi tALam in mordern days, but, these two vidhushis donot put Adi tALam while singing the kriti. The kriti starts in the middle of a veechu and there are three beats after that. two such cycles form one Avartanam of the 2 kaLai Adi tALam.

i thought it is some version of dEshAdi. could anybody correct?

thenpaanan · Post by **thenpaanan** » 05 Sep 2006, 18:01

Hi

I have been taught Deshaadi taalam as a veechu followed by a thattu and counting of two fingers. So what is called "3/4 idam" would translate to off-beat start on the thattu. It is to be understood that the strong beat in the cycle is the thattu. In practice, if you are used to Adi taalam it is awfully hard to remember that the talam starts on the veechu.

I do not know if there is any such equivalent for Madhyaadi taalam.

Best regards,
Thenpaanan

msakella · Post by **msakella** » 21 Apr 2007, 14:19

Dear brother-member, thenpaanan, Please refer 105th page of South Indian Music-Vol.3 of Prof.P.Sambamoorthy for Deshaadi and Madhyaadi-talas. Each of these two has one Visarjita and three beats and consisting of 4-units each. Compositions start after Â¾ of the 1st Visarjita in Deshaadi and Â½ of the 1st Visarjita of Madhyaadi. Ex. Entovedukondu-Saraswathimanohari, Bhuvinidasudane-Shreeranjani, Sitapathe-Khamas for Deshaadi and Merusamana-Mayamalavagoula, Endukunirdaya-Harikambhoji for Madhyaadi. Both are almost replicas of Adi-tala. Adi-tala is the basic for these two Talas. amsharma.

sureshvv · Post by **sureshvv** » 09 Sep 2007, 02:01

I am not sure I understand this properly. Is Desadi talam the same as Adi talam except that the kriti starts at the ring finger beat? I was under the impression that any kriti could be sung either ways - starting at the beat, or little finger or ring finger - depending on the mood of the singer

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 09 Sep 2007, 04:07

sureshvv, the 'stress' structure of a song determines if the song starts on the beat or off the beat. So eduppu is in the particular way of singing a song and you can not change it since there is nothing to change really. Of course, if the singer so decides he or she can change the manner of singing the song by changing the stress structure of the song but that will definitely come off different. See here for some discussion on it: http://www.rasikas.org/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=57474#p57474

With respect to the numbers 1/2 and 3/4, that is definitely confusing in the context of an 8 beat Adi thalam. One can wonder: 1/2 and 3/4th from where? Confusion arises since if you start counting from 1, 1/2 seems to indicate it is before the thalam which is not correct obviously. One way to resolve the 1/2 is, start counting the Adi thalam from 0 thru 7 instead of 1 thru 8. Then 1/2 can be interpreted in a numerically correct way as the song starts 1/2 beat length from the beginning of the thalam.

3/4 is still not right in the context of Adi even if you start counting from 0. 1 1/2 is the numerically correct way to denote it since the song begins 1 1/2 beat length after the thala begins.

I guess the 3/4 terminology can resolved correctly if one considers the desadi thala as a 4 unit structure as shri. msakella pointed out. Then to be consistent, the madhyadhi should have been denoted as 1/4 eduppu. Am I correct?

sureshvv · Post by **sureshvv** » 12 Sep 2007, 04:03

vasanthakokilam... thank you for clarifying. I was able to follow the link but not much more after I got there

Most of it went over my head.

In any case, at the risk of dating myself, having programmed both in FORTRAN and C your clarification helped me.

However, can you help me with what the technical term would be for a kriti that starts at the ring finger or the little finger? I guess that would be the eduppu. How is it properly described?

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 12 Sep 2007, 12:49

I think the technical term you are looking for is: Anaagatha eduppu

If you want to be precise, none of the eduppus we discussed in this thread really starts on a finger, whether it is little finger or ring finger(?). The practical way to keep track of a 1 1/2 eduppu song ( deshaadi ) is, you start the song after tapping the little finger. If it begins on the tap, it will just be 1 eduppu. In the western rhythm terminology of downbeats and upbeats, 1 1/2 eduppu song starts on the 'second up beat' of a measure and the 1/2 eduppu song starts on the 'first up beat' of a measure.

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 12 Sep 2007, 20:35

vasanthakokilam wrote:3/4 is still not right in the context of Adi even if you start counting from 0. 1 1/2 is the numerically correct way to denote it since the song begins 1 1/2 beat length after the thala begins.

Actually, there are 3/4 take-offs, if I am not mistaken. Atleast one song was taught to be me with this - SaravaNabhAva.

It starts sort of like

, ; Sa | ra va Na bha | va , | en um | ...

(| => akshara delimiter, underline => mEl kAlam).

The krithi is not of course in 2-kalai Adi. In mEl kAlam, each akshara here contains 4 mAtra/sub-beat (catusragati). In regular it is 2 sub-beats per akshara. Here, it starts on the 4th such sub-beat and hence is/can-be viewed as 3/4 after start of first-akshara i.e. tala cycle.

Arun

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 12 Sep 2007, 21:55

Arun:

Sure. I will take your word for that is how 'SaravaNabhAva' starts. And you can have 1/4 as well theoretically. Are there any examples for that.

(But that 3/4th is not how songs in deshaadi thalam start but people still commonly call the deshaadi eduppu as 'mukkal' idam )

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 12 Sep 2007, 22:04

vk - that is how the version taught to me starts. As you may know, there are sometimes variations in different versions.

1/4 - i don't know of examples but I won't be surprised if there are.

And yes - I was not talking in the context of deshaadi. Just that in Adi, it is possible to have a 3/4 start. 1.5 becoming 3/4 I guess makes sense only if you treat in 2-kalai (?)

msakella · Post by **msakella** » 15 Sep 2007, 06:22

Dear brother-member, vasanthakokilam, For Deshadi and Madhyadi-talas the eduppu is Â¾ & Â½ of the 1st Kriya respectively and in its corresponding Adi-tala the eduppu is 1 Â½ & Â½ -kriyas respectively from the beginning. amsharma.

chidambaramridangam · Post by **chidambaramridangam** » 19 Jan 2009, 11:43

If 1.5 edam is Desadi and 0.5 edam is Madhyadi then what about 1 edam?
Songs such as Endaro Mahanubhavulu
I am wondering if there is a adi talam name version for this edam too...
Anybody?

thenpaanan · Post by **thenpaanan** » 19 Jan 2009, 21:04

arunk wrote:
vasanthakokilam wrote:3/4 is still not right in the context of Adi even if you start counting from 0. 1 1/2 is the numerically correct way to denote it since the song begins 1 1/2 beat length after the thala begins.
Actually, there are 3/4 take-offs, if I am not mistaken. Atleast one song was taught to be me with this - SaravaNabhAva.

It starts sort of like

, ; Sa | ra va Na bha | va , | en um | ...

(| => akshara delimiter, underline => mEl kAlam).

The krithi is not of course in 2-kalai Adi. In mEl kAlam, each akshara here contains 4 mAtra/sub-beat (catusragati). In regular it is 2 sub-beats per akshara. Here, it starts on the 4th such sub-beat and hence is/can-be viewed as 3/4 after start of first-akshara i.e. tala cycle.

Arun

Another example of this would be Tyagaraja's kriti in Todi "kOtinadulu". A way to think about the eduppu is to sing (thakita)kOtina... where the syllable 'kO' is still within the first aksharam. Any rendition of the kriti would show without doubt that the kriti is not in 2-kalai because it is rendered quite briskly.

-Then Paanan

ajaysimha · Post by **ajaysimha** » 19 Dec 2019, 23:44

I have a question about the eduppu of dudukugala Krithi.
Does it have two pathAnthrams wrt to eduppu ??
First one being: 0.5 akshram thalli eduppu (madhyadi)
And second one: 1 akshram thalli eduppu (like endaro mahanubhavulu)

What are the fundamentals of deshaadi and madhyaadi Talam

Re: What are the fundamentals of deshaadi and madhyaadi Talam