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Scales Used in TFM

Topic started by SRIKANTH (@ 161.225.48.3) on Tue Jun 9 11:37:13 EDT 1998.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

Hi ,

This is a technical topic. The MD's of TFM tend to use same scales for most of their songs.
Raja uses EMinor. He has done many songs in the E scale.
Why ?

AR. uses DMajor - Most of his songs are in the
D scale
Why ?

My answer to this is
Raja's natural singing scale is E ,
AR's is D ....


Shall we analyse more this


Srikanth

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Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: karthi (@ lab3.theatrium.net) on: Sun Feb 7 04:11:04 EST 1999
  
  RajaG & Srikanth,
  
  Whenever I sing in my normal voice, after a certain level, my voice becomes very thin, which I feel, I am not able to differentiate if it's a male or female voice. Not that I struggle to reach certain scales but it is just that my voice is not the same to hear. Is this ok or not ok? If it's not ok, what do I do to make it sound ok? Do I have to buy a keyboard and practice along with it? But then, I don't know to play a key board. Please advise me.
  
  
• From: aruLarasan (@ psiphi.umsl.edu) on: Sun Feb 7 14:54:10 EST 1999
  
  kArthi,
  
  contrary to all beliefs and hype, do not practise singing along with the piano or keyboard (actually do not
  play the kb itself unless you have a good ear!). the reason is something called tempered tuning by which
  various notes to related to each other "artificially" rather than harmonically. if you use a
  kb, just play one note, your sa, and try to sing all other notes relative to it. (many kb's have the
  ability to tune individual note, in which case you can have a note for note comparison.)
  
  
• From: rajaG (@ 207.43.195.202) on: Tue Feb 9 17:17:49 EST 1999
  
  aruLarasan,
  
  I am lost by your explanation. Could you please explain further?
  
  
• From: aruLarasan (@ psiphi.umsl.edu) on: Wed Feb 10 12:15:49 EST 1999
  
  rajaG,
  
  my reply was to kArthi's question whether he should buy a kb and practise singing along with it to get
  the high pitches correct. all i was saying was, one should not depend on kb-s or piano for voice training
  because the notes in the piano are tuned in geometric progression which is not what we call harmonics;
  i.e., the notes (frequencies) are arranged as C,Cx,Cx^2,Cx^3, ...2C where C is the frequency corresponding
  to the C note and x is the common ratio with which the other notes are derived, whereas, "natural" tuning
  is not a geometric progession. The difference is small but discernible. I learnt a trick from a book to
  demonstrate this. Play a note on the kb and sing that note; slowly increase the pitch of your voice; you
  will "hear" that you are not in tune; but as you keep increasing the pitch you would hear that at some point
  you lock in with the note you are playing on the kb. Usually the note you are singing is the panchamam
  relative to the note you are playing on the kb. Now identify the panchamam on the kb and play it; you could
  hear that you are slightly higher than the kb! voila! (this works very well with untrained singers
  because they are not fixated on tempered tuning of the piano.) you can, likewise, check the tuning of all other
  notes. If you tune the notes of the kb to the natural tuning (therefore you are fixed with a particular
  scale), of, say C, then and then play the C chord you would find the difference. it's much more pleasant
  and brighter.
  
  
  
• From: muthax (@ user-38ldchc.dialup.mindspring.com) on: Wed Feb 10 18:24:47 EST 1999
  
  Raja and others,
  
  If a song starts in the note ..... say E, does this mean that the song is in E Scale?
  or can a song in C Scale start with E note and later touch C and other notes in the C Scale.
  Why iam asking this is, incase the answer to my question is False, then i guess it is relatively easy to guess the scale of a song.
  
  
• From: Murali Sankar (@ 129.252.23.226) on: Wed Feb 10 20:23:10 EST 1999
  
  Dear Muthax,
  
  This question is probably the most difficult to answer. It is a rephrased version of the question I put in "Same Ragas for diff situations" thread. My question was a little more technical ie.. To put it blunt,I was discussing the way one could fix the scale note if there is a poosibility of two notes forming the base. eg.. Maargazhippoovey.
  
  Coming back to your question:
  
  The answer is "NO". A song may start in any of the notes different from the scale note. For eg.."Paruvame pudhiya" - It starts with "dha" though the "sa" appears at "padu" especially "du". By "sa" I mean the scale note. Suppose it is in C. Then the song starts at "A" with the chords Am and F being played successively. The C chord appears at "du" chord.
  
  The speculation is purely intuitive and aural. One must listen to many songs to fix the scale of any song.
  
  Another eg is "Hotel California". From the chord progression it is difficult to say in which scale it is set. But once we reach the words "Hotel California" we can intuitively say that the scale is "D"
  
  Hope this helps
  
  
• From: Sayee (@ taylor.che.ufl.edu) on: Sun Feb 14 14:35:17 EST 1999
  
  Is it true that a song may not start with the tonic(Sa) of the scale note but should definitely end with the tonic(Sa) of the scale note ? What I mean is this: A song in 'Am' can start with note C (say), but it definitely has to end in A.
  
  
  
• From: Murali Sankar (@ 129.252.23.226) on: Mon Feb 15 05:15:09 EST 1999
  
  Dear Sayee,
  
  No, it can end in any note. eg "Nila kaaigirathu". It neither starts in Sa nor ends in Sa. But Sa comes in the middle.
  
  
• From: pae (@ global25.citicorp.com) on: Fri Feb 26 16:34:47 EST 1999
  
  How to determine Scale / Chord , if the song doesnt use Ga and Pa notes.
  
  
• From: Murali Sankar (@ 129.252.22.112) on: Sat Feb 27 15:56:02 EST 1999
  
  Hi pae wondeful question. Can you give an eg of a popular ragam which does not have G and P ? We can proceed with that then.
  
  
• From: pae (@ globalb25.citicorp.com) on: Mon Mar 1 13:18:58 EST 1999
  
  Murali Sankar, honestly, I dont know any raga that does not use G & P. I just threw this question to find out if such raga exists, how to determine Scale/ Chord:))
  
  
• From: padagan (@ ss08.nc.us.ibm.com) on: Fri Mar 5 16:20:50 EST 1999
  
  Hi can anyone tell me whether we can improve our scale with istruments like chromatic tuner(i think i got the spelling right!).
  What it does is if we play a note or sing a note it would tell you which note(it deciphers throught the frequency with which we sing/play) and sharp or flat.
  
  
• From: Meetpar (@ globalb25.citicorp.com) on: Thu Mar 11 09:02:42 EST 1999
  
  rajaG, Srikanth... enga poiteenga ?
  
  
• From: rajaG (@ kcecfp02.sprint.com) on: Thu Mar 11 11:17:01 EST 1999
  
  Meetpar,
  
  Sorry for the long absence. TFMil sirandhaver IRaa, MSVaa, ARRaa endra kELvikku badhil theda, imayamalaikku sendru indhiranai kuriththu thavam seiyyap poyirindhEn. Avar manamirangi ezhundharuLi, "appaa bhakthanEy! naanEy, dEvalOgaththil sirandha dancer rambaiyaa, oorvasiyaa, alldhu mEnakaiyya endra charchchaiyil kuzhambik kondirukkirEn. I can't help you" nnu sollittaar. I had to pack my bags and come back.
  
  Ga, pa illaadha raagam..hmm.. Let's take lavangi (created by Dr. BMK) I believe the notes are Sa, ri, ma, dha, Sa (aarOhanam = avarOhanam). If you are singing in the C scale, the possible chords are C# major and F minor. However, your best bet is to sing with just the Sa (C) as sruthi. However, if you have to sing a light/film song in this raaga, I guess F minor would be the base chord in which you will sing the song. My guess is, if no chords are dominant in a song then singing with mere Sa is the best alternative.
  
  padagan,
  
  Any kind of tuner will always enhance your sense of sruthi (and the relative note within the sruthi) and can only help you. However, one exception is if you are trying to sing typical carnatic raagas like say bairavi, thodi etc which use a lot of gamakaas. In that case, the raaga saayal is such that one has to sing notes which are sharper or flatter than the keyboard notes (because of the gamakaas). Using a tuner, in that case will restrict you in presenting/practicing such raagas.
  
  
• From: pae (@ globalb25.citicorp.com) on: Thu Mar 11 11:24:05 EST 1999
  
  rajaG:))) ella logathilum prachanai thaan.
  
  Thanks for the non G/P raaga chord info.
  
  
• From: rajaG (@ kcecfp01.sprint.com) on: Thu Mar 11 13:44:19 EST 1999
  
  Hi Guys,
  I was talking about pae's question (about raagas without G/P to Sanjeev Ramabhadran, a very good friend and an extremely talented musician/singer. We digressed into related topics on scales for raags without pa. It seems in the Hindusthani classical tradition it is common to tune the tanpura to say, ni Sa Sa sa tuning for a raag where ni is dominant and pa is non-existent. He also posted the following commnt to my e-mail and I wanted to share this.
  
  From: Sanjeev
  How about the raga Ranjani?
  S R2 G2 M2 D2 S (no major minor there, only diminished is possible, i.e.
  C D# F# A C (this chord, you will note, has the property that it is shift invariant...whatever graha-bhedam you do doesn't change the nature of the chord))
  have fun,
  
  sanjeev
  
  
• From: Srikanth (@ slip-32-101-16-108.il.us.ibm.net) on: Fri Mar 12 07:39:35 EST 1999
  
  Hamsanandhi - this does not have pa.
  
  
• From: pae (@ global22.citicorp.com) on: Fri Mar 12 08:36:05 EST 1999
  
  Srikanth, Hamsanandhi has GA
  
  
• From: MS (@ 129.252.22.112) on: Fri Mar 12 23:40:25 EST 1999
  
  I request the learned junta to throw more light on ragas without G and P
  
  Thanks
  
  Murali Sankar
  
  
• From: Geetha (@ gatekeeper.oracle.co.uk) on: Tue Mar 16 10:56:41 EST 1999
  
  Repeat posting from the Hub....MS, this is a Raga and info, without G and P....I don't know of a TFM song in this Raga....Any takers?
  
  PRIYADARSHINI RAGA
  
  ArOHana: S R2 M1 D1 N3 S
  AvarOHana: S N3 D1 M1 R2 S
  
  The Ragam Priyadharshini can be placed under Keeravani (21) or Sarasangi(27). It is noted in the Raga Pravaaham Book, Sambamoorthy's texts and various others.....
  
  There is a cassette of Dr K J Yesudas where, he has sung "Karunai ganapathiyE, en karuvinai thIrkum guna nidhiyE" in Priyadharshini. There is a good Alaabana before the song and lot of swaras he sings, this brought out the essence of the Raga. I chose to render this piece at the beginning of one of my concerts and got a very good response to it.
  
  MLV and Sudha R have rendered Rukminipadhe, with Raga and Swaras in their albums. It would be interesting to hear an RTP in it, did Sudha put it on Cassette or CD, RR?
  
  
• From: MS (@ 129.252.22.112) on: Tue Mar 16 16:24:32 EST 1999
  
  Geetha,
  
  Thanks. I was indeed thinking if there could be rags having the above mentioned combinations. But I chose to be silent because what I intended to say was hypothetical.
  
  Can you think of a "pashanga" ragam (ie with aarohanam and avarohanam different) without G and P. If it exists, IMO it must be a piece of great imaginative output.
  
  
• From: Ragapriyan (@ 202.54.37.18) on: Wed Mar 17 22:15:04 EST 1999
  
  Just like ragas without ga and pa, are ragas
  without dha and ni also rare?
  
  

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