How I improved my sense of rhythm: Part 3
I went to my first music lesson when I was 4 years old. It was a guitar class after school hours in one of our classrooms at St. Patrick’s Convent. I remember struggling with maintaining awareness of both hands while my teacher constantly reminded me to focus. After a few classes with limited progress, my teacher announced that the goal of these lessons was to be able to play nursery rhymes on the guitar. Whether it was conceit or a clear mind that triggered it, I decided then and there that I didn’t want to continue with guitar lessons any longer and promptly faked an upset stomach when my parents were getting ready to take me to the next class, and the next, and the one after that, until my parents got the message and thought it wise for me to drop out.
That wasn’t the end of music for me though, and my next teacher, this time for voice and harmonium, came home a few months later to begin teaching me Hindustani classical music, the north Indian style of Indian classical music. I loved these classes, even though they sometimes clashed with playtime in the evenings, and I dove into the world of Hindustani classical with all the enthusiasm of a child. I even tried to make my own raga (a melodic framework used in Indian classical music) though all I could muster was a name, my own first name. I should mention that my experience with Hindustani music back then was so strong that in recent times, I’ve taken the decision of dropping everything and learning Dhrupad, the progenitor of Hindustani music.
During the course of my childhood lessons I was introduced to a system of organising rhythm called tala. Tala is a cyclic repetition of beats arranged in a certain sequence of accents and verbalised using bols, which are syllables used to describe the sounds made by Indian percussion instruments like the tabla and pakhavaj. For example, I learned to verbalise the 16-beat tala called Teentaal as DhaDhinDhinDha | DhaDhinDhinDha | DhaTinTinTa | TaDhinDhinDha ||. I learned to sing compositions called bandishes set to talas like Jhaptaal, Rupak and Teentaal. They all had different lengths and accent patterns that were visually demonstrated by my teacher with a sequence of claps, waves and finger counts. It made intuitive sense to me but I didn’t explore it much. To me, the raga was the music. The tala remained in the background of my perception.
18 years later, after I had quit my job to take up music full-time, my curiosity led me to explore the Indian system of rhythm. For no good reason, I chose not to learn under the able guidance of a teacher at the time but decided to learn with the help of books and the internet.
I soon found myself learning the system of rhythm as used in Karnatik or south Indian classical music. It shares many of its features with Hindustani rhythm. Mastery of one system can translate very well into the other. Having found a lot of helpful resources online, I went in headfirst.
In Karnatik music, the performance of spoken rhythm is called konnakol. Just like their north Indian counterparts, south Indian musicians use a set of syllables that are used to quite literally speak the rhythm. I use this system to this day to understand any rhythmic passage I come across while learning and listening.
Why verbalise using syllables? Why not use numbers? The reason I personally prefer syllables over numbers is because you can join syllables into phrases, which turns this system into a language of its own, a language you use to talk rhythm. I find it far easier to say TaDheem-TaDheem- (where “-“ extends Dheem by 1 beat) instead of 12(pause)12(pause) to count out two accents in a triplet rhythm.
As an example, the song Don’t Phunk with My Heart by Black Eyed Peas has as its main refrain, “No no no no, don’t phunk with my heart.” I would translate its rhythm to TaKiTaDheemKaTaKiTaDheem (if I were to note that exactly it would become Ta — Ki — Ta-Dheem — — -Ka-Ta — Ki — Ta-Dheem — — — -). You can listen to the song to get a better idea of how this fits.
There are 3 concepts of Karnatik rhythm other than tala that still continue to show me just how intricate rhythm can be. They are gati, jati and yati. Of course, there are things like kanakku, koraippu, mora and sarvalaghu that I’m not detailing here in the interest of brevity (plus they don’t have the same ring as gati-jati-yati).
My command over subdividing the beat (Part 1) was deepened by formally practicing it through the prism of gati. The number of subdivisions you use to divide each beat determines the gati. The most common subdivision that we’re accustomed to, 4 subdivisions in a beat, is called chaturashra gati. Karnatik musicians learn to divide a beat into 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 9 subdivisions, and most go further with 11 and higher subdivisions. In their improvisations, they might change the gati from one cycle of the tala to the next, from the triplet jazz feel of 3 subdivisions in a beat (tishra gati, TaKiTa) to the exotic groove of 7 subdivisions in a beat (mishra gati, TaKaDiMiTaKiTa) to the familiar chaturashra gati (TaKaDiMi). This was incredibly complex for me to fathom at first but with time and patient listening, I was able to appreciate the beauty that Karnatik masters brought to rhythm using mood-initiated changes in gati.
This brings me to something I have thought about time and again. It is not that we naturally don’t like some styles of music; it’s just that we listen to music with our minds conditioned to our current tastes. This can cause us to lose out on so much of the beauty that is inherently present in other styles of music. In my own case, I have tried to constantly mould the unconscious parameters I impose on what I’m listening to by keeping myself completely open to sound. From there, I can work my way up into the musician’s frame of mind and appreciate all the inventive patterns in sound. This has given me immeasurable learning and pleasure while listening. Of course, this is just my opinion based on personal experience and I may be entirely wrong. I’d love to know what you think about this (subtly asking for your comments).
Gati was easy enough to explain. Jati may take up a little more space. Please bear with me. There are song examples after the explanation (carrots?). If you’re familiar with polyrhythms then you know that you can play something like a 3-beat cycle over a 7-beat cycle and have many intermediate accents until both cycles meet again on the 22nd beat (after 21 beats of the polyrhythm). If that went over your head, please read Part 2 to get a feel for polyrhythms.
Let’s consider 21 beats of a 3–7 polyrhythm as one whole cycle. Now we can verbalise this in 2 easy ways:
- TaKiTa (tishra, 3 syllables) recited 7 times for a total of 21
- TaKaDiMiTaKiTa (mishra, 7 syllables) recited 3 times for a total of 21
By treating these beats as 21 subdivisions instead, we can either have 7 beats divided into 3 subdivisions each or 3 beats, each divided into 7 subdivisions.
What would happen if we were to do both simultaneously? If we accent the 7 beats in tishra by clapping our hands on the first Ta of every TaKiTa while simultaneously reciting TaKaDiMiTaKiTa over it, we’d be changing the pulse of the rhythm dramatically. The emphasis we would place on the first Ta of TaKaDiMiTaKiTa would contrast with the accents of TaKiTa and what we’d essentially have is a 3–7 polyrhythm. In this case, we’re using mishra jati over tishra gati. To make it easier to see, take a look at how mishra jati-tishra gati lines up:
TaKiTa|TaKiTa|TaKiTa| TaKiTa|TaKi Ta|TaKiTa|TaKiTa (Ta clapped)
TaKaDi MiTaKi Ta|TaKa DiMiTa KiTa|Ta KaDiMi TaKiTa
[Spaced out for clarity]
You can spot the similarity between this and the polyrhythm I had described in Part 2. You can think of jati as a method of introducing a polyrhythm into an otherwise straight, linear rhythm. The straight rhythm here is TaKiTa, repeated 7 times. You can think of it as 7 beats divided into 3 subdivisions each. We introduce mishra jati into this and get a 3–7 polyrhythm.
Before talking more about jati, a breather. All this business of gati and jati might seem downright unnecessary…until you realise that this is used in so many songs and really pumps up the rhythm. We seem to love this kind of effect in songs, even if we don’t quite know why. I could give the example of Tool again, with their song Aenima, in which the ending section is chaturashra jati-tishra gati (4–3 polyrhythm) or I could talk about their song Forty six & 2 with all the polyrhythms in it, or I could name other bands like Dream Theater and Porcupine Tree. Instead I present to you Till the World Ends by Britney Spears. It’s hard to get more pop than that. In the main hook of the song, you can hear tishra jati-chaturashra gati being used, especially in the part “Woah-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-ohh.” Have a listen and you’ll probably agree that this rhythm adds incredible groove to the song.
Using gati and jati, we can construct practically any polyrhythm we like but listening to 63 straight, even pulses with interspersed accents in a 7–9 polyrhythm is hardly anybody’s idea of music. Musicians change it up by applying remarkable phrases to gati-jati combinations. This is where creativity begins.
If I were in tishra gati and used the rhythmic phrase TaDheem-TaKiTaTa-KiTaTa- (where “-“ indicates an extension of the previous syllable by 1 beat) I’d have used 12 beats in a roughly linear way. If I were to use chaturashra jati in the same context with the phrase TaDheem — KaDheem — Ta-Thom-, I would be giving the illusion of being in a gati of 4 subdivisions while still following the 3-subdivision gati.
From this vantage point, we can see that a polyrhythm creates the effect of being in a different gati while the actual gati continues sounding its accents in the background. The jati we introduce into the rhythm masquerades as the new gati. This ambivalence of gati is the polyrhythm effect that throws people off when they listen to it in practice. I’ve come to admire how Indian classical musicians perform this extraordinary feat with incredible skill and make it look pitifully easy at the same time. The next time you have the chance to attend an Indian classical concert, try to observe the artists’ rhythmic mastery in action.
After getting through jati, yati should be a breeze, but I think we can both agree that this part has gone on long enough. Let’s leave yati and tala for a time when we feel more refreshed.
In the meantime, try this simple exercise: on any surface, count loudly to three using 1 clap and 2 finger counts (little finger and ring finger), one number for each action:
{1, 2, 3} for
{clap, little finger, ring finger}
Now replace the numbers with TaKiTa. This makes it:
{Ta, Ki, Ta} for
{clap, little finger, ring finger}
Once you’re comfortable with that, keep up the clap and 2 finger counts but start saying TaKaDiMi, one syllable for each pulse. You’ll end up with:
{Ta, Ka, Di, Mi, Ta, Ka, Di, Mi, Ta, Ka, Di, Mi} for
{clap, little finger, ring finger, clap, little finger, ring finger, clap, little finger, ring finger, clap, little finger, ring finger}
The hardest part is intuitively saying Mi on the second cycle’s clap and following it up with Ta on the little finger. If you can say 3 cycles of TaKaDiMi while using 1 clap and 2 finger counts, you’ve managed to pull of a 3–4 polyrhythm. Until next time!
