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Forums - Theory / composition / technique
Subject: eastern scales
Original Message Date: 05-Mar-02 @ 06:06 AM - eastern scales
i posted this up a while back and didn't really get much help. I love Indian music and have read about 7 tone scales and eastern modal scales. How do i take a song done in C and transpose it to this style I am just using c for simplicity. Coletrane played some crazy eastern modal scales . First what is a modal scale, and how do I determine one for a specific Key I am in, and secondly do it in an eastern way. I am familiar with the 8 basic Maj and Min scales C-B.
Message 11/32 08-Mar-02 @ 11:01 PM - RE: eastern scales
I don't know how Orbital does it but :P
In north indian music there is basically a 12 tone scale with some diversion from it. South India uses quarter tones so I'll stick to north. The bending of notes both in the scale and as embellishment is what does it mostly. You can't bend indiscriminately though as one might bend a blues guitar note for feeling. The notes are bent or slid seamlessy into eachother. Example: Say we're in the key of C. In Raag Jaijaivanti the notes D>F>E and holding E for a moment is done a lot. D and F must be given their full tonal value, in other words the listener has to hear them being touched clearly no matter how short or long the duration of the slide. During the slide one could almost say an infinate number of vibrations are being passed through, but clearly the notes that are heard by the listener are D, F, E. Raag Desh will do the same thing but land on D again. The sliding is what differentiates that music and western music in tonaly.
Scales: You have 5, 6, and 7 note scales, the rules of which are strictly adhered to in each given Raag. Example: Raag Yaman in C would be played (as the fundamental scale only) ascending: B D E F# A B D C. The 1st and 5th are skipped over when ascending. All seven notes are used in the descending scale.
Rag Puriya B Dflat E F# A B Dflat C. You skip the 1st ascending. All notes are taken in the descending.
Rag Todi Same as Puriya but with Eflat and Aflat instead.
gotta go.
I'll be back :P
In north indian music there is basically a 12 tone scale with some diversion from it. South India uses quarter tones so I'll stick to north. The bending of notes both in the scale and as embellishment is what does it mostly. You can't bend indiscriminately though as one might bend a blues guitar note for feeling. The notes are bent or slid seamlessy into eachother. Example: Say we're in the key of C. In Raag Jaijaivanti the notes D>F>E and holding E for a moment is done a lot. D and F must be given their full tonal value, in other words the listener has to hear them being touched clearly no matter how short or long the duration of the slide. During the slide one could almost say an infinate number of vibrations are being passed through, but clearly the notes that are heard by the listener are D, F, E. Raag Desh will do the same thing but land on D again. The sliding is what differentiates that music and western music in tonaly.
Scales: You have 5, 6, and 7 note scales, the rules of which are strictly adhered to in each given Raag. Example: Raag Yaman in C would be played (as the fundamental scale only) ascending: B D E F# A B D C. The 1st and 5th are skipped over when ascending. All seven notes are used in the descending scale.
Rag Puriya B Dflat E F# A B Dflat C. You skip the 1st ascending. All notes are taken in the descending.
Rag Todi Same as Puriya but with Eflat and Aflat instead.
gotta go.
I'll be back :P
Message 12/32 09-Mar-02 @ 12:14 AM - RE: eastern scales
Raag Puriya Daneshri is the same as Puriya except you take the 6th, A, is flat and you use the fifth, G, in the descending scale.
Raag Jog is C E F G Bb C ascending and C Bb G F Eb C descending. Both the major and minor 3rds are used playfully off of each other. One goes from F to E and F to Eb so it's sweet to slide from F to E at times but continue through E to Eb, which is a good example of what I mentioned before. When the skills are there one can slide from F to Eb without ever noticing there is an E in between, but one can also "show E" as they say on the way to Eb. It's effective when done at the right moments and brings exclamations of "Shabaaz" and "Khyabat-he" from the audience. They think you are stopping on E and then you don't. Bends the minds when all are expecting E and Eb to be in seperate phrases. Getting off on a tangent.
Raag Kalavati is a beautiful 5 note raag. C E G D Bb C. Up and down. Each raag has its own characteristic motif which I won't go into here.
I have to go again but in Indian music notes are sung and played in such a way that you can snake 5 or 7 or more notes in one successive try. Try it with a modwheel. It's difficult, at least with mine, to get the notes in tune. On sitar you can 8 notes. On Surbahar, the bass sitar, you can pull an octave.
I'll be back :P
Raag Jog is C E F G Bb C ascending and C Bb G F Eb C descending. Both the major and minor 3rds are used playfully off of each other. One goes from F to E and F to Eb so it's sweet to slide from F to E at times but continue through E to Eb, which is a good example of what I mentioned before. When the skills are there one can slide from F to Eb without ever noticing there is an E in between, but one can also "show E" as they say on the way to Eb. It's effective when done at the right moments and brings exclamations of "Shabaaz" and "Khyabat-he" from the audience. They think you are stopping on E and then you don't. Bends the minds when all are expecting E and Eb to be in seperate phrases. Getting off on a tangent.
Raag Kalavati is a beautiful 5 note raag. C E G D Bb C. Up and down. Each raag has its own characteristic motif which I won't go into here.
I have to go again but in Indian music notes are sung and played in such a way that you can snake 5 or 7 or more notes in one successive try. Try it with a modwheel. It's difficult, at least with mine, to get the notes in tune. On sitar you can 8 notes. On Surbahar, the bass sitar, you can pull an octave.
I'll be back :P
Message 13/32 09-Mar-02 @ 03:15 AM - RE: eastern scales
Woohoo!
Um....In raag puriya a very typical pull of the string would be A C B Db C B C, or start from the 4th and play F# B A C B Db C B C, or A C B Db C Db C B C, or another Db F# E F# E.
You don't really need to know all this except to understand the concept of sliding, snaking notes. When it's done slowly, like quarter notes at 100bpm maybe, it's called meend. When it's done quickly, like 16ths or 32nds at 100bpm it's called gamuk.
I clicked the notes of Puriya.
Um....In raag puriya a very typical pull of the string would be A C B Db C B C, or start from the 4th and play F# B A C B Db C B C, or A C B Db C Db C B C, or another Db F# E F# E.
You don't really need to know all this except to understand the concept of sliding, snaking notes. When it's done slowly, like quarter notes at 100bpm maybe, it's called meend. When it's done quickly, like 16ths or 32nds at 100bpm it's called gamuk.
I clicked the notes of Puriya.
Message 14/32 09-Mar-02 @ 03:16 AM - RE: eastern scales
| C | C# | D | D# | E | F | F# | G | G# | A | A# | B | C | C# | D | D# | E | F | F# | G | G# | A | A# | B | C | C# | D | D# | E | F | F# | G | G# | A | A# | B | C |
| x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x |
Forgot to click the Add keyboard...
Message 15/32 10-Mar-02 @ 04:19 AM - RE: eastern scales
And where's Marianimal these days. She could tell you a thing or 2 about indian music.
Message 16/32 10-Mar-02 @ 05:26 AM - RE: eastern scales
Thanks Sitar. Very helpful indeed. I was already kind of doing the slide thig when I was trying to create Indian riffs by using portamento and fingering from a note up a neigbor tone and pass it and comeback very fast. That playing with them so fast you only hit the 3rd for a 64th and you back to the nieghbor tone. So you could sequecne this stud out and use the porta knob to record when you want to slide and when you dont in theory. I'll experiment and see what I get. another thing would be to mark your pitch bend wheel with the notes and record it at that value. Then look at your event list and find out what value that note is and from then on sequence the pitch bend on the graphic editor. Just some ideas, but I did see some software that converts sung vocals to midi data and will play a synth back and uses pitch bend to make the synth sing the way the voice did. I'll have to track it down. If I find it I'll drop a link, the demos were convincing enough that it could be used as a tool on the way to getting good results.
Message 17/32 10-Mar-02 @ 12:26 PM - RE: eastern scales
Yea. Drop a link if you find it. I heard about something like that being around a couple of years ago, but heard it was still a bit rough at the time.
Going into the event list and/or drawing portamento would be the best way I think too. My pitchbend wheel mechanism would need much more resistance in it to make that kind of playing at all reasonable.
Going into the event list and/or drawing portamento would be the best way I think too. My pitchbend wheel mechanism would need much more resistance in it to make that kind of playing at all reasonable.
Message 18/32 10-Mar-02 @ 10:43 PM - RE: eastern scales
I am still looking, he demo i heard was just a month or two ago, and ironically was a middle eastern vocal played back in midi through synth patch and it did vocalize the in a way. At least you could see how itr did the bending and sliding and then recreate it manually.
Message 19/32 12-Mar-02 @ 10:29 AM - RE: eastern scales
Here is the link Sitar. i am checking out the audio demo now.
Message 20/32 12-Mar-02 @ 10:34 AM - RE: eastern scales
have a listen to the violin wave. Very nice. That is the kind of sliding i wanted. So I can use this to ge those eastern bowed sounds by just recording my vocalization first then runing it through this and then a nice string patch. and it has audio or pitch qauntizing, very cool. I bet my fm would sound good too with a little wind controler I could get some nice gritty avantgarde jazz horns. Through an acoustic model like the korg or yamaha, very authentic sounds could be had.
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