I have playing Indian raghas the whole day. 5th position and then some Indian scale, don't know what it is. I have really got into this, it has something similar that the european gypsy melodies, but it has some different elements too. I have felt that music the whole day and it somehow resonates with me - hard to describe.
Anyway, I have used my self-customized C-harp and then at some point I tried out my ohter harps in all the keys I have - for my great surprise I noticed that I could OB most of them. Some gaps weren't close enough in all the reeds, but I have never been able to OB all the harps from A to F. So I really think that my techniques has beed improving a lot since I started to play the gypsy music.
Do you have any Indian tunes that you play with the harp? Who would be a good player to listen?
Harry Manx. I saw him at Old Town School of Folk Music opening for Richie Havens. He mixes blues with traditional Indian music. His live album "Road Ragas" is outstanding, he blows some harp on the record. I don't know if this is what you are looking for, but he plays a 20-stringed Mohan Veena that you can probably practice to.
Thanks! I was able to find Harry Manx's record "West Eats Meet" from Spotify. Great music! At least this record seems to be more blues with some eastern sounds in it - not the other way around. I'll have to check out the other records too, it would be interesting to hear how the ragas sound with some blues in it.. :)
@ Apskhap Plain and simple, you'll never be able to play a raga on harp.
BUT ragas may be a good source of scale material, they're for you to digg into if you're interested. Playing a raga and playing a tune based on a raga are two very different things. e.g. The fine example given by Diggsblues is a famous tune based on raga Desh, but it's not raga Desh.
I suggest you have a look at : http://www.soundofindia.com/raagas.asp
That's a list of common ragas with, for each one, a simple description and a very useful mp3 of "aroha/avaroha" (ascending/descending) nicely sung. It will give you a taste of what it sounds like, and if you want to go further, you'll just have to find the right position on your harp to play the notes written down in the description.
In this site, Indian notes are notated : S – C r – Db R – D g – Eb G – E m – F M – F# P – G d – Ab D – A n – Bb N – B S' – C Some more useful terminology : "pakad" are typical phrases (very few are given here), "vaadi" and "samvaadi" are the two most important notes of the raga (after the root, S). Approximate translation would be "speaking" and "co-speaking" notes, the ones you typically begin or end your phrases on.
I guess you already know how to play tunes based on raga Bilawal ; that's our major scale ;-) There must be other ragas that you can cleverly use on a harp (I've never cared to check). That website should be a good starting point if you're willing to explore new possibilities. And keep us informed of your musical adventures...
@ Buddha
« Anything pertains to the harmonica if you want it to... » Sadly and definetly : No.
« If you want to get started with Ragas you must first study Konokol. » ??? guess you missed something.
@ Buddha You may be right about my mind. But i was speaking Music, and I may know what I'm speaking about. I suggest you first try to understand what a raga is, and what it musically implies in term of instrument ability.
What's your point about Sandip Burman ? My point is konokol is totally irrelevant to learning a raga.
drats, foiled again... I posted this before, but if you use Google to translate the word harmonica or harmonica related terms and then cut and paste the translation into YouTube you can find neat videos you can't find with just the word harmonica. You can also get the Roman versions of foreign alphabets. (I didn't do that on my original document. I'll try to expand it in a bit.) If you were to paste those words into your tag words for YOUR videos, you could become a harmonica hero in some far off land!
If ryhthm is considered a prerequiste fo learning a raga (I've never heard of someone taught that way, but why not) then he should have taught you Talas, which are the basic rythmic cycles.
Konokol is just basically a way to memorize by vocalization the strikes on tabla (or pakhawaj or whatever percussion). You may have mixed up the terms.
@ Buddha Whatever the use, that's still a nice little piece of musical knowledge to have. Do you use those snippets of rythmic patterns in your playing ?
@ Buddha Vocalization of strikes and rhythmic patterns is not specific to India. Even our drummers use it somehow, even if it's not that formalized (even if it goes "tchak-ping-pam"). It's a great way to learn and a great way to picture rhythym without being led only by your ability on the instrument.
I just borrowed the "Raga Guide" from the local library. (Pretty amazing that they have that in there, btw ;-). Last night I read the beginning chapters of it and understood what the ragas actually are. Very hard to explain but not so hard to understand intuitively. Ragas are a form for music - stricter that just the modal scales but way more flexible than a tune or melody.
So I think that I should be able to play many tunes that are based on the ragas with the harp. I can't see no reason why that could not be done. But to master a raga is in no doubt something that would require many years of practicing with the help of a master musician. You never know what happens in the life, but at least from my current viewpoint, that is not something I would likely to be doing - I'm not even sure if I would like to do that as my interests aren't so much in learning frameworks than in expanding my musicality. And I do think that getting into the ragas will do that.
Perhaps that's what you, Saregapadanisa meant when you said that the ragas are a great material for scales. However, I do think that I will get lots more than just scale material out of those. I have just started to get familiar with the ragas but they already give me emotions, rhythms and something that is related to the deeper levels of mind. Perhaps it is the meditative quality of that music that talks to me, I don't know. As Harry Manx said "Indian music moves inward, it’s traditionally used in religious ceremonies and meditation, because it puts you into this whole other place."
saregapadanisa: "Konokol is just basically a way to memorize by vocalization the strikes on tabla (or pakhawaj or whatever percussion)."
I think (correct me if I'm wrong) that you may be confusing Konnakol with tabla Bols. Bols, which are used in Hindustani music,indicate the finger placement to be used by a percussionist. While konnakol and bol have some similarities, konnokal syllables (as far as I'm aware) are not used to indicate finger placement/strikes on a tabla (or other hand percussion instruments).
Once again, please correct me if I'm wrong, you seem to have a much deeper understanding of the subject than I do.
@ Ryan You're absolutely right, the proper term is Bol. I kept using Konokol (which is more or less how Bols are sung together) for the sake of the discussion, because Buddha did use that term first. Interestingly, the term Bol first applies to the lyrics of a song. Singing is very much considered as the mother of all instruments, even percussions. There's actually one syllab for each strike, describing where you hit (border, center...) and how (palm, tip of fingers...) : left hand (Ke Ge Khe...), right hand (Ta Na Ti Tin Te...), and both (Dha Dhin Dhi...). For example, the strike combining Tin and Ghe would be Dhin.
@Apskharp There's nothing you could have made better than borrowing The Raga Guide. If your library is that good, you may also find a great little introductory book called Music in North India by George Ruckert (Oxford University Press, 2004). It's from the brilliant series « Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture » (that says all) and comes with a cd. For a more musicologist approach, Music in India – The Classical Tradition by Bonnie Wade is a good choice : it parallels western and indian music and helps to understand the music in a very matter of fact way.
Whatever your purpose, don't be put off by the supposed complicacy of indian music. That's just music. And from what you're saying, you've begun to crack the code. I'm walking the same road as you, only in reverse, learning blues on my harp.
As I am at vacation currently I was able to play a lot of this stuff today. I played some variations inspired by the Bhairav raga, I was actually able to improvise almost for an hour with that. And in the morning I used slide guitar too with the same scales.
It is funny how your ears change when you open to the different musical styles. When I was listening some Romanian gypsy music in my car it it sounded very different now as I was able to find some common ground with the Indian tunes.. I am really enjoying this musical adventure I'm having! :)
I actually found the Bonnie Wade's "Music in India - The Classical Tradition" from the library. I already started it and it really seems to be an interesting book to read! Thank's for the tip!
@apskarp: Have you continued down this path in the last three years? I'm just starting to dip my toes into this type of music, and was wondering if there are any "secrets" you've figure out that you'd be willing to pass along....
Anyone else have additional knowledge or input? ----------
Interesting reading the past comments from Buddha and Saregapadanisa on this thread.
I believe it is possible to play Indian classical music authentically on harmonica, but it requires special harps. Ragas are essentially scales, and there are hundreds of them. The key thing to be able to do if you want to play them in the same way as Indian singers and instrumentalists is to be able to bend notes down from and up to every note of the particular raga.
I have explored this a little by creating harmonicas that can do this for two common ragas, Bhairav (called Mayamalavagowla in Carnatic music), and Bhopali (called Mohana in Carnatic).
I made both out of chromatic harmonicas with only draw notes, all of which bend (slide in or out).
I certainly do not claim to play Indian Classical music at all, but I wanted to see if it was possible to get that special Indian 'flavour' with these unique harmonicas. As a test, I played along with this great Bollywood song from the 1950s, following the human voice, the basis of Indian melodic styling. It uses the Bhairav scale:
I don't get it all exactly, but I think this clip proves that specially-tuned harmonicas are capable of emulating Indian melodic inflections. Just as other foreign instruments have been adopted by great Indian players (Carnatic violin, bottleneck guitar), I think the harmonica is capable of playing Indian music authentically too.
It would take many years of study to learn to play even one or two ragas well on harmonica, but I believe it's possible and will happen. I hope to make these harps available in a few ragas at some stage for those who want to try.
Last Edited by Brendan Power on Jan 15, 2014 1:18 PM
@Bart: I've definitely watched your video from SPAH 2010 multiple times! Thank you for the inspiration!
@Brendan and garry: I fully agree that special tunings are really needed. I think that's what saregapadanisa (who's username is the Indian version of Solfege!) was getting at: Raaga's are much more than scales. They are are actually melodies of which you play parts of, in specific orders which ascend and descend according to the rules of the particular raaga form. The raaga's are partially musical and partially "spiritual", in the sense that many of them are used in specific devotional contexts...
That all being said, one can certainly play the "notes" of a raaga, in the correct order, on an ordinary diatonic or chromatic harmonica, no matter what tuning layout it is in. I, in fact, have translated several common raaga's to diatonic scale degrees, and have played them on several different diatonic tuning systems (I play several alternate tunings). While the notes sounded fine, it certainly didn't sound "right". That's because (I think) a major part of Indian music (either Hindustani or Carnatic) is microtonal, especially wavering between two adjacent notes of a raaga. On a diatonic harmonica, there are two ways of doing this: two hole "head shakes", and quick bending back and forth. These require the notes to be in particular places on the layout of the harp (either right next to each other in the same breath direction, or in the scope of a bend). Most "normal" diatonic tuning systems don't have enough of the "right" notes in the "right" spots for this part of Indian music to be played convincingly.
Alternative tunings could really help this, IMO. Whether it's Brendan's chromatic tuning systems, or a tuning for the diatonic, there's got to be ways of putting the "right" notes in the "right" places for playing particular raagas. The issue is that there are soooo many raagas that you'd almost have to make a specific layout for each of them! Luckily, there are a few raagas that are more common than others, which is what it seems Brendan's tunings are geared for...
On a side note, I'm actually not interested in classical forms of Indian music at all. What I'm interested in are various folk music forms of Bengal and Bangladesh (where my family is originally from). These forms of music are a bit "simpler" than the very complex classical forms, so I feel a bit more hopeful for actually learning to play some of them. I'll just post a little video of a Bengali folk tune, played on a local instrument called a "Dotara", which is a little four string lute:
I do have a Dotara. It's unfortunately in storage back in Arizona right now, but I'm going to try to learn to play it when I get back to AZ this summer. In the meantime, I'm trying to immerse myself in this folk music. To my ears, there is huge similarity to West African styles of music (which I've been learning on guitar), Appalachian folk music, and old-time country/folk Blues. The scales in Bangla folk music are simpler than the classical raagas, although they clearly share elements. I'm fairly convinced that most of Bangla folk music is essentially pentatonic, although probably of a variety of "different" pentatonic scales....
I'm aware that this is a LOT to dig into, but hopefully it'll be an interesting and very enlightening journey for me! Any help along the way will be very appreciated! ----------
The rhythmic aspect of Indian music(s) is very highly evolved - plenty of room to study for a lifetime.
@Brendan: Nice playing! Why all draw chromatics? Are you changing the offset of the blow notes? Or perhaps you're more interested in the bent notes for microtonal or expressive playing? Thanks.
Last Edited by blingty on Jan 14, 2014 9:10 AM
Great info here! I've always wondered what the doors where doing here just before the song kicks off. And I think it's what you guys mentioned earlier …..Bol. Am I correct?
---------- Sun, sun, sun Burn, burn, burn Soon, soon, soon Moon, moon, moon
Last Edited by JInx on Jan 14, 2014 6:05 PM
"Great info here! I've always wondered what the doors where doing here just before the song kicks off. And I think it's what you guys mentioned earlier …..Bol. Am I correct? "
Actually,it's Ray and Robby chanting "Yapa Tapa Ti Tar"
"It has something similar that the european gypsy melodies, but it has some different elements too."
I went to see these guys recently. No harp, but they are fusing Sufi Qawwali music from Pakistan with Andalusian Flamenco.
There are some theories that gypsies emigrated from the East, through the Middle East to Western Europe bring with them and integrating many musical traditions along the way. Was an amazing performance.
@Blingty: yes, the blow reeds act as x-reeds only on my all-draw custom chroms.
Another good way to go for Indian ragas or any kind of Arabic & Asian music is to retune the Hohner XB40. I did that for playing a couple of tracks on my "New Chinese Harmonica" album. Much Chinese music uses the pentatonic scale, which is the same as Bhopali or Mohana raga. Retuning the XB40 to this or another raga gives you the same result: being able to bend up to and down from every note of the scale. You can play faster also, which is useful.
