Category: Carnatic world

Hadow/Sola at Pintotonics+1

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Pintotonics+1 is a great night organized by Raoul van der Weide in Huis de Pinto, a very beautiful old house in the middle of Amsterdam, converted into a cultural place. These nights are always very special, with the combination of one solo and a small ensemble. I already played solo there once, and now it was the turn of our duo with George. Björk Níelsdóttir joined us in one of the songs.

This is what we say about ourselves: Ranging vastly from heavy searing fissure to the most delicate, the duo works very much from a rhythmical standpoint; a twisting, turning discombobulation to a breezing zephyr and back again.

With: George Hadow (drums), Björk Níelsdóttir (voice)

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Unbowed – cello solo

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This is a double experiment on the cello. On one hand, I try to apply rhythmic techniques from the Carnatic music from South of India to a western context. For this propose, I used the transcription of an original solo on Mridangam by B.C. Manjunath* and composed a piece following the rhythm strictly. On the other hand, I explore the different possibilities of playing the cello without the bow, finding different sounds and textures on the instrument.

It was recorded on Oranjewoud gardens during the montage week of “Prikel”, that would be performed there afterward.

*You can find the transcription of the solo in the book “Applying Karnatic Rhythmical Techniques to Western Music” by Rafael Reina

Tongue Trainer 2 (konnakkol)

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Last year I became interested in Carnatic music, especially in Carnatic rhythm and konnakkol. In this category I will post some transcriptions of exercises and little solos that the incredible musician B.C. Manjunath shares on his Facebook profile. I’m not an expert of Carnatic music, so some of the explanations could be wrong. I will just share some transcriptions that I made for my own personal practice.

This exercise is an adaptation of another. I did an adaptation myself from Adi Tala (8/4) to Kadamba Tala (6/4) in order to practice this other exercise in Tisra.

Tala (cycle/bar): Kadamba Tala – L3 A D (3 – 1 – 2 beats = 6/4)

Gati (subdivision): Chatusra (4 matras per beat)

As the first Tongue trainer exercise I started in [1/4 note=70] and speeded up the metronome 10 points each time until I was able to do it at double the speed.

tongue-trainer-kadamba

Exercise Tisra in Adi Tala (konnakkol)

pausolaLeave a comment
Last year I became interested in Carnatic music, especially in Carnatic rhythm and konnakkol. In this category I will post some transcriptions of exercises and little solos that the incredible musician B.C. Manjunath shares on his Facebook profile. I’m not an expert of Carnatic music, so some of the explanations could be wrong. I will just share some transcriptions that I made for my own personal practice.

12 to 1 – 1 to 12 – 12 to 1

This exercise is really good to work in Tisra Gati (triplets/sixtuplets). It’s a phrase of twelve 16th notes that every time it is repeated it is reduced by one 16th note.

Tala (cycle/bar): Adi Tala – L4 D D (4 – 2 – 2 beats)

Gati (subdivision): Tisra – sextuplets (3/6 matras per beat)

Original Tempo: 1/4 note = 85

Practice tempo: From q.n. = 44 to q.n = 60 (my maximum)

Syllables: Ta-ki-ta Din Gi-ra-tha-ka (through all the exercise)

12-to-1-1-to-12-12-to-1

Here you can watch the exercise explained by B.C. Manjunath himself.

This exercise was posted on Facebook by Manjunath B.C. on the 3rd of January of 2017.

Exercise Khanda (konnakkol)

pausolaLeave a comment
Last year I became interested in Carnatic music, especially in Carnatic rhythm and konnakkol. In this category I will post some transcriptions of exercises and little solos that the incredible musician B.C. Manjunath shares on his Facebook profile. I’m not an expert of Carnatic music, so some of the explanations could be wrong. I will just share some transcriptions that I made for my own personal practice.

This exercise is to work Khanda Gati (quintuplets). Once you can do this exercise you really improve the internal feeling of quintuplets. It’s not an easy exercise and it can take some time to get it perfect.

Tala (cycle/bar): Khanda Chapu – one beat per bar (5/8)

Gati (subdivision): Khanda (quintuplets — 5 matras per beat)

Tempo: Every 5/8 bar=44-60

Syllables: Ta Di Gi Na To – Through all the exercise

exercise-khandachapu

This exercise is working in 4 speeds of quintuplets: 5/1 (bar 1); 10/1 (bar 5); 10/3 (starting in bar 6, but it only appears half cycle 5/1.5); and 5/2 (bar 13). The idea is to start in every speed with a whole quintuplet and then reduce every note of the quintuplet to a 16th note until the original quintuplet is transformed into the other speed.

Here you can watch this exercise starting from minute 0.54

This post was shared by B.C. Manjunath on the 24th of December 2016.

Tongue Trainer (konnakkol)

pausolaLeave a comment
Last year I became interested in Carnatic music, especially in Carnatic rhythm and konnakkol. In this category I will post some transcriptions of exercises and little solos that the incredible musician B.C. Manjunath shares on his Facebook profile. I’m not an expert of Carnatic music, so some of the explanations could be wrong. I will just share some transcriptions that I made for my own personal practice.

This exercise is to train articulation and clarity, and gain some tongue velocity when you are doing Konnakkol or Solkatu. It’s very simple, but useful at the same time.

Tala (cycle/bar): Adi Tala – L4 D D (4 – 2 – 2 beats)

Gati (subdivision): Chatusra (4 matras per beat)

You can start in 1/4 note=70 and then speed up the metronome little by little until you can do it at double speed.

tongue-trainer-manjunath

Here you can watch the exercise explained by B.C. Manjunath himself.

This exercise was posted on Facebook by Manjunath, B.C., August 30th 2016.