culture specific music information...
TRANSCRIPT
CULTURE SPECIFIC MUSIC INFORMATIONPROCESSING: A PERSPECTIVE FROM
HINDUSTANI MUSIC
Suvarnalata RaoNational Centre for the Performing Arts, Mumbai
India 400021
What is music?Music is the sound that we enjoy listening toWhich of the following can be regarded as music?
Sound of the chirping birds, gentle breeze,gushing spring, temple bellsMother’s lullaby, nursery rhymeA great piece of poetry set to melodious tuneCollective sound produced by an ensemble ofmusiciansSound that comes out of the speakers when weplay a CD or tune into the radio
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What is music?The fundamental aesthetic intent sets the artapartMusic can be considered as an art and/orindustryTotality of a music tradition comprises of thefollowing ten aspects that are integral to everytradition:
compose, perform, receive, perceive,teach, learn, preserve, access, disseminate& shareThese areas are interdependent yetmutually influencing
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This presentationA perspective of a practitioner andmusicologist Examine mainly five aspects:
listening
intonation
improvisation
instruments
notation
A short discussion of research project AUTRIM(automated transcription system for Indianmusic), developed in collaboration with Uni ofAmsterdam
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Man & MusicHuman being is intrinsically musical“Music is humanly organised sound &product of behaviour of groups”.......John BlackingMany cultures and as many musicsCreation, performance, significance,and definition of music vary according toculture and social context
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Man & MusicAny assessment or study of a musictradition must take in to account
its tonal and rhythmic structures,grammar and aesthetics and also processes and domains that are extra-musical such as history, sociology,psychology, philosophy, economics,physics, technology etc. having bearingon the deep structures of music
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Indian music: identityThe term Indian music implies the music of Indiansubcontinent as a whole, including seven nations -India, Pakistan, Bangla Desh, Afghanistan, Tibet, Nepal& BhutanThe classical or art music of India as we know today,traces its origin to Samveda, comprising the lyricalhymns of Rigveda composed between 1500 - 900 BCUnlike the music traditions of ancient Greece, Egypt,Sumeria, Israel and rest of the Middle eastern world;elements of ancient and medieval Indian music are alivein contemporary practice and are documented in thetreatises dating back to pre-Christian era
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Indian music:identityContemporary art music is a confluence resulting from
cultural exchanges operative over centuries within the culturalzone consisting of Greek, Arabic, Iranian and Indian people.
Music traditions in these civilizations had or have thefollowing common features to varying proportion: oraltradition, primacy of vocal music and microtonality.
Music in the Indian subcontinent is a reflection of the diverseelements; racial, linguistic and cultural, which make up theheterogeneous population of the area.
The extraordinary variety of musical types is probablyunparalleled in any other equivalent part of the world. Musichas a vital role in the religious, social and artistic lives of thepeople.
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Indian music:identitySix categories of music have flourished side byside: primitive, folk, religious, art, popular andconfluence. The Sanskrit word Sangit, an exact cognate of theLatin concentus - sung together, conveys the coreof the ancient Indian conception of music. The English word ‘music’ fails to capture the exactsense of Sangit just like that of Greek mousike.Understanding of religion, philosophy, aesthetics,history and culture is necessary.
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Indian music:identity
The immediate goal is sensory pleasure but itsultimate goal is regarded as the spiritual release.Pre-eminently vocal; instrumental music is lookedupon as tangential.Based on melody and rhythm; harmony andpolyphony have no part Modal in character and is often accompanied by adrone, which establishes a fixed frame of referenceand precludes key changes.
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Art music:characteristicsIts patently aesthetic intention sets the artmusic apart from the other categories. Governed by two main elements: raga andtala.Raga is a tonal matrix & tala is a rhythmicframework, which unlike in many othertraditions is cyclic, and not linear in nature.Two streams: performing and scholastic. Thelatter follows the former, leading to codificationof pertinent rules, methods and techniques.
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Art music:characteristicsPrimarily a tradition of solo performance,affording scope to innovate and interpretHence methods and techniques aredeveloped to this end. Consequently, thisleads to emergence of various musicalideologies and family traditions (gharana/bani).There is an abundance of musical forms withspecific structures based on patterning ofmusical elements (notes, rhythms & tempi).
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Art music:characteristicsModes of expression are deliberatelycultivated and hence necessitate a highlystructured teaching-learning process.Audiences are supposed to be educatedabout the art form and are expected tocontribute to music making.Quality of the audience and theirresponse could bring about qualitativedifference.
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Listening:pitch identification
Multi-layered listening required with a complexsoundscape comprising voice, tanpura, melody &rhythm accompanimentTanpura: the drone
reference for the fundamental pitch4/6 strings tuned to tonic, fifth below, and anoctave belowrich envelope of overtones & harmonics
Other string instruments -difficulty of pitch detectionwith multiple main strings & sympathetic strings
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Tanpura/Tambura & Sitar
IntonationThe exact pitch of the notes has never beenstandardized in frequencies or ratios.actual position of the semitones excluding the tonicand the fifth can vary slightly. The flat notes can belowered by about 20 cents.Shruti - a concept to describe subtle divisions of anoctaveproblem arising from thinking of melody in terms offixed positions of intonation. Whereas, experimentalstudies provide evidence for flexible intonation,ruling out the notion of pitch as fixed points.
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IntonationExperimental studies provide evidence forflexible intonation, ruling out the notion ofpitch as fixed points. Modern scholars have observed intonationas a statistical phenomenon in which thenote densities occur, not as exact points butrather as limited ranges within a certaintonal region. The influence of melodic context on thepitch is also clear from these studies.
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IntonationNote connections & the “music between the notes” issignificant.Specific intonations & ornamentations become highlycharacteristic in some ragasMicrotonality in Indian music a reality and not a mythbut the formulation needs to be understood more asmelodic shape or contour rather than discrete points.To describe intonation in the contemporary ragaperformance, we need a more comprehensive modelincluding acoustic parameters of not only pitch butalso volume & timbre in relation to the temporal axis.
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Improvisation
It does not imply an impromptu expression or arandom arrangement of notes or melodic phrases.The process accepts creativity within the boundsof raga grammar and aesthetic norms of theperformance practice. Based on permutation and combination of notes,varying accent & volume, use of ornamentsImprovisation w.r.t.matter (what / content) &manner (how /technique)
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Improvisation
Speed /time crucial to the study ofmelodic shapesA specific raga and /a well-structuredcomposition form the basis forimprovisationStory-telling logic leading to raga-specific atmosphere & aesthetic emotion
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InstrumentsDespite primacy of the voice, abundance ofinstrumentsPresent solo, provide drone, or melodic/rhythmic accompanimentFirst ever classification by Bharata (200BC-200AD) on the basis of sound producing agent-string, wind,solid body & membraneForms the basis for modern day classificationby Sachs - Hornbostel (1914)
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Instruments
C V Raman in 1920s discovered theunique properties of the Indian stringand percussion instruments by the virtueof the peculiar bridge surface andloaded membrane respectively. Quality enhanced by specialperformance techniques
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Instruments: characteristics
Instruments: characteristics
Instruments: characteristics
InstrumentsSpectral analysis, identification and synthesis of soundof specific instruments.Study of the bridge surface, especially for stringinstruments like tanpura & sitar, with a view to haveautomated process for its manufacture andmaintenance.Manufacture of standardized instrumentsStudy of the wear & tear behaviour of a string on agiven surface so as to identify alternate material for thebridge surface. Development of electro-acoustic and electronicinstruments
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Notation - roleThe relationship of notation to performance in the Indiantradition different from that in the West. Indian musical notations are oral in origin, andmnemonic in function; while the Western staff-notation,is graphic in origin and prescriptive in function.The system uses mnemonic syllables, which basicallymeans that sounds are given names by which they arereferred, essentially to help talk about, think, discuss aswell as transmit both melodic and rhythmic music. Independence from written notation allows, or is afunction of, a high degree of variation, embellishmentand improvisation practiced in the performance.
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Notation - advantageFor musicians, there is a direct connection betweensounds and mnemonics, and hence they resort tosargam/bol for musical thinking- teaching andcomposing. The sketchy notations are an aide-memoirespecially to keep record of traditionalcompositions. From the late 19th century onwards, compositionswere printed & published with notation for thepurpose of instruction, dissemination andpreservation of traditional repertoire.
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Notation-limitationsAlthough there is a direct connectionbetween sounds and mnemonics, theways in which the mnemonics of Indianmusic can be interpreted are diverse.During the process of writing, the ‘extra’information in terms of various inflectionsis never written; rendering the systeminadequate for visual representation ofmusic.
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From notation to transcription
Notation is prescriptive whereastranscription is descriptive.It provides a graphic interpretation of theessential concepts and logical principles of amusical system.Manual transcription has a limitation - thecoder is a black box, the inscrutable humanbrain. If we would know the functioning ofthis black box, we can make the decoder atthe other end to work reliably.
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Computer-aided transcription
Coder-decoder system is transparentReliable, objective & consistent
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Automated Transcription system for Indian music (AUTRIM)
Premise of the project: Sound and sight constitute one of themajor synesthetic pairs of senses. Auditory perception combinedwith a simultaneous image of melodic shapes can be moreeffective.
It can help to “see” notes as well as their intricate movements.Graphic contours are useful in understanding the “sound” ofmusic, which is otherwise assimilated only by repeated learningand practice.
It reveals what we do not “hear”, what we change in the process of“hearing” or what we take for granted. It can also provide aninsight in to extremely subtle elements of music that we cannotreadily distinguish aurally, but which might nevertheless influenceour perception of the music on a subconscious plane.
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AUTRIMOngoing project at the National Centre for the PerformingArts, Mumbai and the University of Amsterdam (Prof. Wimvan der Meer)Evolved a process of developing PRAAT (developed byBoersma and Weenink) into a full-fledged music analysisprogram for Indian music, and have processed a largevolume of music. The final output is a video (720 p HD) showing melodicgraphs corresponding to a mini raga performance of 10-12min duration; superimposed on a tonal grid andsupplemented with the rhythmic and poetic information,displayed simultaneously with the corresponding audio
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AUTRIMA vertical cursor corroborates the visual andaudio information.At present we have a data comprising of 110compositions in 85 ragas. Out of these,videos corresponding to 25 ragas are alreadyavailable with the full details of the raga, thecomposition, the performer and analysis ofthe performance.http://autrimncpa.wordpress.com/
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ConclusionSeveral components of art music are rule based andmodel based phenomena. Hence, technology couldplay an important role in understanding, analyzing,documenting and development of these facets. It is crucial to involve musicians & musicologists toensure aesthetically meaningful and culturally viableendeavours. Music an enigma, on one hand, as organized sounds itis an intentional and rule based activity. On the otherhand, it is also governed by culture specificphilosophical tenets rather than universally standardquantifiable parameters.
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Conclusion
Software to meet the ‘mindware’ ofmusic makers“Trying to characterize all the musicalcognition in terms of computationsalone, is bit like trying to paint all thelandscapes without using green.” -- John Myhill
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Acknowledgement
Dr. Jamshed J, Bhabha, FounderChairman, NCPASir Dorabji Tata Trust
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