Another beautiful korvai (rhythmic composition) in adi tala (8-beat cycle) created by my guru Mr V. Raghuraman. I love this challenging piece as the sols (rhythmic syllables) get faster and faster at each of the three renditions!
Listen out for the sudden jumps in speed, and see how these wonderfully crafted syllables allow them to roll off your tongue with incredible speed and dexterity. That's why I love Indian classical music.
The theory is simpler than you might think. Let's break it down into simple mathematics!
Adi Tala:
The piece is in an 8-beat cycle called adi tala.
Renditions:
There are 3 renditions of the composition, each lasting a different number of cycles.
1st rendition (slow): 4 cycles or 32 beats
2nd rendition (med): 3 cycles or 24 beats
3rd rendition (fast): 2 cycles or 16 beats
Syllables per rendition:
In each rendition, consider that I'm speaking 96 syllables worth of stuff.
'thangita', 'thakathari', 'kitathaka' etc...
Subdividing beats differently per rendition:
We're going to cut up each beat into different number of subdivisions for each rendition.
1st rendition (slow): 3 subdivisions/beat
2nd rendition (med): 4 subdivisions/beat
3rd rendition (fast): 6 subdivisions/beat
Which gives us....
1st rendition (slow): 32 (beats) x 3 (subdivisions) = 96 subdivisions
2nd rendition (med): 24 (beats) x 4 (subdivisions) = 96 subdivisions
3rd rendition (fast): 16 (beats) x 6 (subdivisions) = 96 subdivisions
Our composition of 96 syllable length will fit into each rendition perfectly, each at a different speed taking a different number of cycles!
Thank you for listening in! Follow along my musical journey on my YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and website neilchanmusic.com as I share new music videos and lessons each and every week.
Until next time, I'll see you again!
By Neil Chan