#carnatic singing

On a gorgeous Sunday morning, I went to the Orlando Hindu Society’s choir rehearsal where I sat criss cross apple sauce, barefoot on a decadent carpet and in a rather large circle. Immediately I noticed the formation of the choir rehearsal setting as all the vocalists were angled towards the choir master. The Carnatic choir was composed of men and women, mostly women. One would think that they sang in hindi, but NO, they sung in Telugu. The women wore casual saris and the men wore casual tunics with jeans. Now, let’s talk about the music! The tonal system in Carnatic singing is microtonal, meaning that their tonal system does not apply to the western tonal system and there are pitches sounded in between notes. The notes were interlocking and the vocalists slid from pitch to pitch, making it microtonal. As the group sang together, I identified their texture as being homophonic because all choir members were singing the same notes, but all had different timbres creating one whole sound. Their timbres were incredibly resonate and sharp to the pitch and ear because their timbre's texture did not include vibrato, translating to all straight tone singing. The placement of their vowels were very forward and embedded into their third eye, which promoted even more resonance. As the icing on the cake, all vocalists were singing, impressively, in chest voice. If I was born into one of their families, I know I would fit it perfectly! While practicing with a drone at all times, their learning technique as a group was completely aural, meaning learning by ear. The group listened to the choir master who exemplified how the song is to be sung and the choir imitated until they were accurate. The Carnatic group worked on a specific composer from the 1400’s, by the name of Annamacharya. After witnessing the choir transverse about the meaning of the music, I honed in that the singers understood the general meaning of the music but did not know it word for word. They worked on various pieces and referred to Shravan, who I was sitting next to, who was incredibly knowledgable on the meaning of words in the text. Shravan shared with the choir the meaning of certain Telugu words that majority did not know. He made it clear that with slight changes to the words pronunciation that it would completely change the word’s meaning as a whole. While the choir was rehearsing, each member was keeping tala, which means time. The tala consisted different patterns, which varied for each individual song. Participating during the entire rehearsal, it was incredibly difficult to keep tala, read the lyrics to the song and sing at the same time. The tala consisted of various patterns to establish the beat and added extra taps to encourage the pick up beat to signal the transition into other verses. The choir master would also ad lib in between the verses, always ending on the drone pitch to establish the tonic. I remember thinking to myself that the choir master was like an Indian version of Mariah Carey, ad libbing like nobody’s business. Whether they knew the musical term or not, the choir knew where the tonic was, hence the drone was sounded at all times. Some of the pieces they practiced were “Andariki nekkudaina,” which is about the monkey god and means "Everyone expects." I also dedicated one whole song to keeping tala and focusing on how they moved the song, especially during “ Enta Mātramuna” and “Sandadi Sommula.” The tala for both of those songs had a pattern: Tap 1, count 2, 3, 4, tap 5, open 6, tap 7, and open eight. Now try doing that while singing. It was definitely the challenge. Overall, I enjoyed my experience at the Orlando Hindu Soceity’s temple, practicing my Carnatic singing and tala. I plan to revisit a rehearsal soon and attend their huge performance on May 10th of Annamacharya’s works.