Wednesday, February 14, 2007

The weather in Columbus

I have seen quite a few cold winters now, and by cold, i mean COLD! There have been cold winters, snowy winters, icy winters, windy winters, winters with not much 'winter' in them, and also some hot winters! This winter has somehow been a total enigma and is not really classifiable as any of the aforementioned types. This is not so much a local phenomenon, here at Columbus as this has indeed been with large parts of America. Thus, it has spurned on lots of discussions about Global Warming and such.
The winter started off almost like it was spring here or like an indian winter. the weather was so good, it seemed bad that it was so good! But towards the end of January, the weather began to assume a different form.
OSU has closed only thrice in the past 25 years, on account of bad weather because the state government and the facilities at the University are well equipped to generally deal with excessive snow, which is quite the norm here in Ohio. For the first time, OSU closed for two days in succession - yesterday and today.
The overall nature of the weather here has been such that our definition of what constitutes clement weather has taken a dramatic turn. our expectations from the weather gods have dropped drastically. we have now been used to having sub-zero (celsius) temperatures throughout winters. over the past week or so, all we really asked for was: Let the temperature stay above -10 C, thats all!
in fact a couple days ago, we (myself and a couple other friends) went to visit a local lake, in a place called Antrim park which is one of the few really nice places to see in Columbus. this is a lake with a border walking/jogging trail of 1.2 miles, so you can imagine how big it is. the whole lake was frozen solid! we walked ON the lake, took a few pictures and even had an idea of walking across the lake. but better sense prevailed and we decided against doing so, since this lake is quite deep. just a few feet away we saw a warning sign that told the tale of an unfortunate dog that had gone frolicking on the lake; its body is yet to be fished out.
starting day before night, there was suddenly an increase in snow precipitation. i went out today, off my usual trajectory of apartment-dept and vice-versa, to visit the local grocery store for a few essentials. perhaps they could have waited, but there is no use in cribbing over that now. what's done is done.
The first thought that occurred to me as I looked out was, That's why they say, 'as white as snow'! It was so white, it was blindingly bright! the whole terrain seemed completely altered. It seemed like i was now in the middle of a new place, with no idea about which parts are treacherous and which ones are friendly.
As, i got out onto the street, I saw for the first time, frozen snow. What i mean is this: when you walk on overnight snow, it is akin to walking on sand; the feet sink in just that wee bit and you have to literally raise your feet to shake off the loose snow, so to speak, before you make your next step. that is one of the pleasures of walking on snow for the very first time.
now, as i stepped on snow, my feet remained steady and firm on the snow; it didn't give way! i was literally walking at least 4-5 inches above the ground. and suddenly, the icy snow cracked and my foot sank in around 4-5 inches, so that my socks were now completely in snow. as i made the next few steps, i created a huge fault line. it was as if i would be held responsible for some huge disaster, so i decided to step onto the road instead.
the problem now was that, i just wasn't sure, where the road began! only the middle of the road had the tyre marks but the peripherals were so blurred with thick layers of snow, i just couldn't tell. there were no cars in sight; most people here heed the local news warnings, which seems to me now, a rather sensible thing to do. i saw a few of them trying to warm up their cars and start them but it seemed such a difficult task! to move a car out of where it was parked (along the street side) appeared like such a huge task, i was glad i didn't own a car myself!
walking here was now literally an exerting exercise; you had to raise your foot at least a couple of inches to make your next step. as i came back home from the grocery store, i had the feeling that the morning exercise routine had been totally unnecessary; i had burnt more calories making this trip than i had purchased from the store now!
the winter storm warning has been recalled for now, meaning, they do not expect any more heavy snow over the next couple of days. But a wind chill cautionary has been issued which basically forecasts temperature dipping to as low as -25 F!
it is indeed ironic that my mom - a woman who has spent most of her 58 years in places like Vellore, Chennai, and Hyderabad - found this winter, a particularly enjoyable one!

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Music and Language - an interesting nexus

I am not about to deliver a discourse on the nexus between music and language - that is way out of my league in any case and i have neither the knowledge, nor have I done enough research to propound theories. but one of the many advantages of writing a blog is that you are free to think out aloud.
Rather, I have here some interesting (in my view) questions that occured to me as i was walking back home this afternoon from the dept (the somewhat unfavorable weather rendered it almost impossible to have a desire to get back to the dept). and some loud thinking as a consequence.

many people have commented about a specific composer's work in several languages. in today's entertainment industry in india, it is markedly visible since some (film) composers have been able to cross the 'language barrier' while some others, though extremely appreciated by some have almost gone unnoticed by the others. if music were really universal language, why this anomaly, if anomaly is what it is?
in some sense, the 'appropriateness' of the score to the language seems to be entering the equation here. for instance, tamil and telugu, two languages i am well conversant with, almost form a clique of sorts; what works in one language (musically), works almost all the time in the other too. hindi seems to be a sort of antipode. of course, punjabi, gujarati, and some other 'north indian' languages probably would elicit the point better but i don't know any of those languages. bengali music is something that has almost gone synonymous with 'Rabindra sangeeth'; the influence of Tagore's work there almost seeps into all modern forms of bengali music. I am not sure how relevant my points might be in reference to music scored in bengali. but for the time, i shall concentrate on the tamil-telugu pair in contrast with hindi-urdu.

1) It is quite clear that music written in a classical carnatic mode works well for tamil-telugu but almost never for hindi, and almost certainly never for urdu. why?
2) An interesting counterpoint: carnatic music and its principles work well in the context of sanskrit, which is in many ways quite close to hindi. why this difference? note that while telugu in its literary form borrows liberally from sanskrit (so that the comparison between chaste telugu and sanskrit is appreciable), tamil does not. tamil and sanskrit are so distinctly different languages - any linguist will affirm the same -and yet the same principles (of carnatic music) work well in both langugages. why?

conversely, hindusthani music might work quite well in tamil-telugu (i haven't listened to any serious attempt in this direction, but it seems to me that it just might). why?

obviously i do not know the answers to any of these questions. nor am i attempting to answer them. i just wish to understand my questions a little better, invoking Polya's principle: if there is a problem you cannot solve, there is a simpler problem you cannot solve.

getting to carnatic music, one of the most important features of this style of music is of course, the presence of gamakas or what are called microtonal infuxions by musicians, especially in the west. This, of course is an attempt to describe what a gamaka is but it is my contention that this is not a very precise definition, despite the vagueness of language. Rock musicians certainly play a lot of 'microtonal influxions', especially on lead guitar (listen to some of Slash's work for GNR and you will know what i am talking about). but these, though terrific pieces of musicianship and no doubt exhilarating, will not qualify as gamaka-playing, so i guess my discontent with this description is not totally unfounded.

to understand what a gamaka really is, i make an analogy. while one lets the tones slip by freely (drop or ascend), one gets the feeling that the musician is tugging or reining his voice at certain places in a stronger fashion than at others. and it is there that the gamaka is really experienced. so i wish to define a raga per se as the following:
A raga is a ordered list of closed balls (as sets) of frequencies, each centered at a distinct frequency with the properties:
a) the last frequency = double the first frequency (though that is not necessary),
b) Each closed ball has a distinct set of distinguished frequencies.

condition a) is clear.
the closed ball reference is basically this: while we let a smooth transfer from one frequency to another, we allow for 'errors' within the context of each swara. this is not merely to allow bad singing into the equation! it is my experience (while playing on the keyboard) that sometimes a different key brings the flavor of the song better, even though the different note is not a part of the original raga. That is probably why, carnatic musicians feel the need to have 16-22 notes to describe all carnatic material, when the even tempered clavier model of a keyboard allows only for 12. i am also not being precise about how much of error is permissible because that would involve writing some concrete numbers here, and i don't. i am merely going by intuition.

the distinguished set for each note refers to frequencies where you sort of 'rein' in, or abruptly arrest the smooth flow. It is in these abrupt arrests that a gamaka is felt and that set of distinguished frequencies shall be called the set of gamakas.
this viewpoint has certain benefits. it explains why a certain raga can sound different from its parent raga, although they share the same set of notes. it also explains why two different ragas which share many similar notes are yet different in their renditions. for instance, it is easy to spot that one is singing/playing Kalyani and not Sankarabharanam, even without the only different note, namely, Ma(1 for Sankarabharanam and 2 for Kalyani) does not feature for a while. it also explains a point prasanna once made on his FAQ section: one of his readers had asked him why, the hawaiian or fretless guitar would not be a more appropriate instrument for playing carnatic. prasanna answered saying that the microtones are better brought out only with a fretboard - in my terms, i guess a fretted guitar can bring out the abrupt arrests better than a fretless guitar and i guess that is what prasanna too was saying.
so if we share this belief, a verse is better suited to carnatic music if in its flow, it allows for abrupt seizures.
I believe that tamil-telugu have that sense of staccato effect in speech and sound which is probably the reason why carnatic music works well in these languages. i suppose the same is true for sanskrit too though i have to think a little harder to justify the same.
what then, is the problem with hindi?
hindi is probably influenced more by urdu/persian which probably slice away at some of the 'sharp ending sounds' of sanskrit. urdu is as such such a soft language which is probably why the mode of 'ghazal-writing' is only for urdu. that should explain perhaps why carnatic music might work on tatsam hindi but almost never with urdu.
of course, i haven't proved anything but am just suggesting a line of argument. it would be interesting to have counterviews on this.