Saturday, February 28, 2009

Random!

Adhocism vs Structure!

One finds that innovation, radical thought processes, etc work far batter in a system of adhocism as opposed to one with structure. Age teaches you that consistency is better maintained through structure.

Man is inherently adhoc! Man's creations are structured to facilitate culture and well-being of all! What then happens to man? As one ages, man tends to align himself to his own creations by building in structure into himself.

This transformation causes a change in the entire life style of the person. It is therefore obvious that man, in general, becomes more serious and loses his "childishness".

This is often noticed even in the kind of music that one listens to!

There might be another reason to the change in musical inclinations. It might also be attributed to the fact that the more music one listens to, one's musical inclinations also change. From pop to rock to progressive to classical to jazz to carnatic and what not!

Friday, February 27, 2009

The stone is as true as what it stands for!

There have been millions of those so called "unconventionals" who believe that effigy worship must be eradicated and call it a bane to the world as the stone hides the truth that it stands for!

But the fundamental reason for the existence of the stone is that the need for it exists. Not everyone can understand what the great Vedas say! But order needs to be imparted on earth. How then would it be possible! The only logical conclusion would be a certain level of abstraction. Abstraction, for the uninitiated, means that only enough information is supplied that is absolutely necessary. The rest of the information is available on request only.

What that facilitates is effective functioning of systems without the need to understand how the system functions. But one would find that to be able to make best use of the system, you would have to know how it functions, hence one takes some extra effort to find out the nitty gritty. With some difficulty, he does figure out a certain information set that he can leverage to his advantage!

The parallel drawn involves the effigy that represents the abstractions and the underlying truth of the Vedas that requires the extra effort to understand!

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Music & Theoretical Musings!


What the hell is this idea / concept / phenomena, music? As much as one may ponder about the above, the conclusion that is likely to come out of the sequence of thoughts is that it is absolutely redundant to classify it in one of the above. Although, personally, I would call it a phenomenon as the other two would generally refer to something that is inherently humanly created, whereas, music is something that is inherently natural. The sounds around one in nature (stress on the word nature, which by itself is a rarity) is pure and pristine – easily the highest form of music.

What is it that draws us to music? There are multiple reasons, tune, rhyme, meter… what not! Let us take a look at each of the above one at a time shall we…

Tune! There is little that is more prominent in music than the tune of the number. There are multiple levels at which this tune exists. Most people hear only the lead. The lead may be either the vocals or the major instrument. For all you guys who are at this category, I beg of you to pay closer attention to the sounds of music (actually of silence as well!). Should one notice, the beauty is in the nitty gritty. Believe me guys, sometimes I feel that there is an entire universe in each song. Songs are inherently layered. The lowest and most inconspicuous level is that of the bass line. Modern day music sees this as the product of the bass guitar. Of course, there are multiple purposes to the sound of the bass guitar, but it is majorly used as the filler in a song. It is that part of the song that adds depth to the song. It also goes without mention that several instruments apart from the bass guitar may be used for the same. It generally holds what we call the root note or the most prominent note around which that segment of the song is centred around. Then comes the layer of chords that sets the progression of the tune. The lead tune is usually split into segments of a certain underlying progression. These segments are defined by chords. Then of course the top layer of the lead tune. This is only a broad basis for the split and is far from sacrosanct.

Rhyme! This will be majorly determined by the poetic capacity of the lyricist. This post is intended to center around music rather than poetry and lyrics. I could although tell you that a song is also centred around music rather than its poetry, although the poetry is nevertheless an integral part of the song for that is the first thing that one notes in a song. Does poetry support the music? Or does the music support the poetry? This is something that first timers at music composition generally have a problem understanding. First, the theme of the song is frozen. Then, the music and the poetry are created almost in parallel. Music is frozen and the poetry is suitably modified to fit the tune and more importantly, the meter!

Meter! This is the part of the music that is to me most fascinating. Here too, I’d like to look at it at different levels. The simplest is that of the beats. There is a misconception that beats are generated by percussion only. Percussion only assists and makes the meter prominent. Orchestrations of the western classical origin are brilliant examples of how beats are not necessarily originated in percussion. It must be noted that meter is an inherent in music and can almost never be escaped. If meter is completely absent, one would not call it music, but merely noise. There is another form of meter. The most fascinating numbers (classics) created have repeated strings of notes at regular intervals. Symphonies of Beethoven and the like again, serve as examples.

All this said, it is in the confluence of the detail that music is made! But unless the details are noted, the full flavour of the song is still left untapped!