Hindustani 101
Hindustani 101 course comprises of the fundamental exercises that are needed to get you started with a lifetime of learning singing in the Hindustani classical music. It comes with the fundamental svara exercises that span all shuddha and komal svaras, simple and more complex paltas. These are the first exercises any student of Hindustani classical music would practise, and are necessary for taking any other course going forward.
This course consists of the following learning and practice modules.
1. Basic svaras
Hitting a svara accurately and sustaining it is fundamental to singing. This module contains long steady svaras to practise pitch stability and breath control. This module is a perfect starting point for absolute beginers.
2. Saptak
This module contains ascending and descending melodic progressions through 7 shuddha (natural) svaras. This module is ideal for improving the accuracy of singing shuddha (natural) svaras throughout an octave. The lessons in 3 different tempi (layas) that help improve your dexterity in pitch movement from one svara to another.
3. Basic Palte (slow & fast)
The lessons in this module contain simple svara patterns that are transposed and sung throughout the octave. These patterns will help you improve the svara accuracy and precision in moving from one svara to the next. The lessons in slow tempo will allow you to first perfect the svara patterns. The subsequent lessons in a faster tempo will help you master the fast transitions between the svaras.
4. Palte (slow & fast)
The lessons in this module contain zig-zag type svara patterns that allow you to achieve dexterity in complex svara movements. With this module you improve your svara accuracy, svara transitions (attack), svara pronunciation and attain a better control over your breath.
5. Advance palte
The lessons in this module contain advanced svara patterns that allow you to practice complicated svara movements. With this module you improve your svara accuracy, svara transitions (attack), svara pronunciation and attain a better control over your breath. More importantly, practicing compelx svara patterns will help you improve your musical memory and response time of your brain for a musical event. These lessons are in fast tempo.
6. Kharaj ka Riyaz
These set of lessons allow practising mandra saptak, the lower octave svaras. One should practise these svaras without straining their voice. Remember that unnecessary strain on your voice spoils your voice quality. Practising these lessons early in the morning make your voice more bassy with lower notes, and also enables you to sign higher notes with more ease.
7. Saptak with different svaras
This module contains ascending and descending melodic progressions of svaras in different thaats apart from the Bilawal thaat. Each lesson in this module employs a different set of shuddha and komal svaras, This module will help you in internalising these differences between suddha and komal svaras.
Originally published at Riyaz.
