Misra Ekam ---------------- Prologue: If you dont follow me in this post, doesnt matter.. Listen to this song anyway.. It has marks of classics written all over it and some great lyric. youtu.be/_OO2PuGz-H8 People generally label any 7 beat per cycle as Misra Chapu while completely ignoring the concept of accents which is at the heart of giving a Talam its character. Here is a gem from Peter Gabriel that can be used to illustrate this. (I have not gone passed Follow You, Follow Me from Genesis, but this is the solo from the bands original vocalist and it is unlike any western song Ive heard as far as the rhythm is concerned). The beat cycle of this song is made of 7 crotchets, each of them as regular as the other and not screaming for any attention unto themselves. You cannot split this beat pattern as 123 1234 or 123 12 12. There are no stress points on any beat within this cycle. If you want to count the Talam of this song, you have to simply clap and go on counting sequentially - just like a regular laghu of 7 counts. Its just 1234567. Thats it. Going by carnatic parlance, I would simply say this is a Misra Eka Talam. What makes this song a bit special is, the cycle starts with a Synth melody lasting for 4 beats and the song starts on the 5th count and lasts for more 4 beats. (The vocal track has an Anagata Eduppu of after 4 beats). If you are shrewd, you already got that the last beat of the vocal track intersects the synth track of the first beat of next beat cycle. That is, The song is set to a 7 beat cycle but still gives a feeling of regular 4/4 because both the instrumental half and the vocal half of each line has 4 crotchets. In this duality, lies the uniqueness of this composition. Note: The last line momentarily shifts to a regular 2* 4/4, but that is just to offset the stanza and mark the logical end before the next stanza starts I think its easy to follow this song and understand the concept simultaneously because of the easy symmetry it provides. Its still primary school level of rhythm material as far as the Carnatic system is concerned. Nevertheless you can use it as a learning exercise to move beyond your regular Aadhis or Rupakams or the Misra Chapus and improve your inbuilt Laya by taking one step at a time. Hope I have managed to explain it simple enough. If you understood, share it with someone else who wants to learn as well. Happy learning ! CC: Palakkad Sreeram who inspired me to use the intuition to decipher the not so obvious.
Posted on: Wed, 07 Jan 2015 00:03:01 +0000
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