HINDU/INDIAN TUNES

[talasiga]

I am working with Mitch at Oz whistles on an Indian set of whistles designed for playing traditional Indic Raaga music using Poorvi/Bhairav/Hijaz tunings.

......

It depends on what you mean by traditional. There is heavy classical. light classical, semi classical, different folk idioms. All involve raags because they contain melodies. It is how a melody is treated that makes something traditionally classical or not.

Now, if you make a pipe with the intervals pre set for the scale you will have the intervals for the raag's scale but the playing of it will require further shading in performance depending on the demands expected of the type of music. That means, you won't ever be able to just pick up a customised scale pipe and play it and lo! claim that you are playing traditional classical raag music anymore than playing an Irish flute makes one, automatically, an Irish musician (I remind myself! )

Having said that I want to say this:-

A few years ago I had an inventive flute repairer make me a PVC fife for playing the Bhairav and Pooravi scale music with "XXX OOO" tonic. I have used this instrument at concert performances and done some studio work for others on it and it is appreciated by Westerners and indo music lovers at well. I use it for gypsied jazz, middle eastern dance accompaniment, indo spirituals (semi-classical to folk tradition) and indo pop. I would not claim traditional full blown indo classical on it. That would require a traditional bansuri (diatonic pipe like the tin whistle or Irish flute) with large tone holes to facilitate half holings not just to acheive half notes as per a keyboard but shading to acheive subtle microtonal values so necessary in distinguishing one raag form another within the same notional scale.

If you settle XXX OOO as your tonic or keynote
you should get pooravi if you flatten XXO OOO
and XXX XXO
and you should be able get bhairav scale by xfingering or half holing the all finger off note OXX OOO

ie.
pooravi - 1:3:2:1:1:3:1
bhairav - 1:3:1:2:1:3:1

(Interestingly bhairav is a symmetrically intervalled scale. See that 2 thats the perfect fifth and on either side is 1:3:1
The only mode relative to the major scale that is symmetrical is the dorian
2:1:2:2:2:1:2 See that - either side of the 2 is 2:1:2.

Tittilating stuff! )

[Mitch]

That means, you won't ever be able to just pick up a customised scale pipe and play it and lo! claim that you are playing traditional classical raag music

Exactly The set will come to life with the life of the player. It will be 3 whistles: one standard high D, one Bhairav raag in G with a D bell, and one Durga raag in G with a D bell - you could also say: a diatonic High D, A hijaz in G and a minor pentatonic in A. Instruments do not make music, musicians do - an instrument is just a vehicle. This vehicle has turned out to be something of a cultural SUV.

I commissioned this set from Simon (Jetboy) based on a thread started here by Chief Wanganui. I set out to tell the story of the wood which came out of India with the Brittish Raj. So I began researching the Mysore region, this lead me to much reading of the local customs and culture, and to a bit of a journey of understanding of how culture and mythology and philosophy and music all knit together. There is a wholistic element to it. The histrory of the wood resonates with the history and mythology of the region - a cycle of conquest and expulsion, purification and the overcoming of challenges. This is a spiral motif that threads identically through the legend of Mahishhah/Shiva/Durga, the rise and fall of the Brittish Raj, the wood itself and the progress of the whistle project. I expect it will continue with the use of the instruments.

I hope the whole thing will be saying something like: "mortals cannot take heaven, imortals cannot take heaven, Music took heaven long ago and the song winds-on."

[talasiga]

...... A hijaz in G ......

G Bhairav scale = G Hijaz scale. There is no A in it
G Ab B C D Eb F# G+

or was that capital A a typo?

Good Luck with your fantasy venture Mitch.
I wonder what Irish wood Irish flute makers could use
to invoke the mythos of their ethnos and the overthrow
of the British raj in Eire?

[Mitch]

...... A hijaz in G ......

G Bhairav scale = G Hijaz scale. There is no A in it
G Ab B C D Eb F# G+

or was that capital A a typo?

Typo - yes

Good Luck with your fantasy venture Mitch.
I wonder what Irish wood Irish flute makers could use
to invoke the mythos of their ethnos and the overthrow
of the British raj in Eire?

I'd not be the one to lay an axe against a sacred tree, but if one were to blow over in a storm ...

Willow has been suggested as a suitable timber - imagine a fife made from the Don's cricket bat!

Fantasy? Yes. All stories are fantasies - the important thing is to ensure they contain a curl from the dragon's tail, somewhere in that space where minus one squared equals minus one.