Enigmatic Permutations

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In California, I had the fortune of living with American students of Indian music, Ross Kent and Megan Black. Ross had been studying sarode with Khansahib (Ali Akbar Khan) since 1966 and Megan had been studying kathak dance with Chitresh Das for about a decade. These two were important in my immersion into the music, as I would come home to resources, encouragement, and examples. In the first week of my arrival, Ross warned me that I was entering a world where coincidences and radical leaps of connection are abound. He painted a vivid picture of the Indian music pursuit filled with excitement, adventure, and surrealism in a very profound way. Though overly romantic and slightly paranoid, elements of Ross's warning came true through the enigmatic learning process of Indian music. I learned not only music, but also a process of finding significance in the culture of studying Indian music. Let me start with elements of the music.

MUSICAL ELEMENTS

Through my studies with Swapan Chaudhuri, I discovered that the classical music of North India is based on a highly complex system. The basic concepts of North Indian classical music are quite different from those of Western music. Terminology for many of its elements cannot be accurately translated into English. Therefore, for the most part, I will use Indian terminology that will afford insight into what North Indian Classical musicians themselves give significance to through music.

Rhythmic structures and concepts in this form of music are complex and exacting. The approach is very precise. Tabla players develop the ability to feel out complex calculations and permutations of material while improvising. Improvisation works off of large blocks of phrasing and algorithmic variation of material. There is less of a division between composition and improvisation due to the level at which the improvisation occurs. The following is a quote from the Swapan Chaudhuri on the intricacies found in the tabla repertoire:

If you look at the grammar, the way the phrases are coming in, and if you look at the rhythm, you can't even clap, you can't even keep the beat. How they composed, that's still a mystery to me. I tried to analyze it, how they did it. I couldn't figure it out. You know they were illiterate, they couldn't count. They didn't know how to count. And you hear all these compositions, it's so mathematical, . . . you miss one microbeat, you are out. It's impossible to make it back. Still now, when we play these compositions, we have to concentrate five hundred times more in order to play one composition, because you miss one microbeat, you are gone. It's impossible to make it back. So that's a mystery to me, how these people composed. And it's not only that they composed, but such a beautiful piece . . . and that's why I think it's the feeling that they had inside, the anticipation, and the balance between one beat to another beat. They had that, definitely. So they knew that when they are composing, it's going to work. (excerpt from tabla lesson, 5 October 1994)

In his classes, Swapan stresses this idea of balance. Balance is applied to many aspects of the art of tabla playing. In the sense of composing and improvising, it seems as if this balance is the ability to bypass the number crunching required to play in the classical style. Through practice, listening, and experience, the tabla student achieves the balance necessary for adherence to the mathematical rules. A simple example of this would be the ability to see four items or hear four beats and know that there are four without having to count each one. Just as mathematicians are able to ingrain certain calculations and perform higher calculations based on those ingrained, the tabla player can perform improvisation in the classical style based on ingrained mathematical permutations and algorithms. Just as the physicist calls upon mathematics to explore the universe, the tabla player calls upon mathematics to explore time within the format of North Indian music.

The fundamental aspect of Indian rhythmic structure is the conception and recognition of tal. Literally, tal means "clap." Repetition of a certain clapping pattern defines a cycle of beats and indicates important segments within the cycle. The cycle is called the tal. The segments are called vibhag, of which there are generally two to five. Within each vibhag, there are individual matras, or beats. Then each beat may be divided into smaller and smaller microbeats. The tal can range anywhere from six (dadra tal) to thirty-one (yog tal) beats. Tintal, which contains an even sixteen matras, is the most common. Tin means " three." Many tabla compositions are written in tintal and later adapted to fit other tals. The recognizable tintal theka, or pattern, is played on the tabla, divided into four vibhags of four beats each:

Sam, denoted by "+," is the first and most important beat in the cycle. Sam is the point at which compositions begin and also finish. The kali section is in the middle of the cycle on the ninth beat, marked with a wave of the hand instead of a clap. Three claps occur in one tintal cycle, one on the first beat, one on the fifth beat, and one on the thirteenth beat. By recognizing the clapping cycle and the theka, the listener is able to find their place in the cycle of sixteen matras. Each matra is given significance in relation to other matra in the cycle. The speed and underlying tempo is called laya, which literally means "motion." The matras can be anywhere from two seconds long to small fractions of a second long. Throughout the performance, the laya of the tal is increased in small increments at intentional points until the music reaches a very rapid tempo. At high speed the tal is usually recognized by the clapping pattern due to the uncountable speed of the matras. The theka may be ornamented and embellished as long as it serves to orient the performers and listeners within the time cycle.

This concept and use of underlying tal structure allows for improvisation and composition by establishing rules and regulations. These rules and regulations are imposed such that the new material references the tal's characteristic number of beats, subdivisions, and location of sam. For example, if the tabla player finishes a cycle of the theka and follows with a composition with thirty-five beats, then begins playing the tintal theka from the first beat, the tal is not constant, and the material does not make sense. The thirty-five beats include two cycles of tintal and an extra three beats that do not fit. However, if the material is thirty-two beats long (two cycles of tintal), the material fits and makes temporal sense. The thirty-five-matra phrase could work if the theka was played only to the thirteenth beat. In other words, the tal is still hypothetically cycling even when the tabla player stops marking the tal with the theka and plays the composition or improvisation. The material of improvisation or composition is constructed in a manner that references the underlying tal, even though the theka is not heard. Therefore, the material is often multiples of sixteen beats that fit over the tal cycle, depending on the speed at which it is played, relative to each matra. The sam on the first beat is the strongest and most recognizable beat, emphasized or de-emphasized according to the material being played. While the tabla player is soloing, the listener can become disoriented within the tal, and then led back to the recognizable tal structure by the material being played and the intention of the tabla player. There are different ways in which this occurs, the most common being a theme, variations, and rhythmic cadence which using processes of permutation to expand upon a single idea and bring that idea to a climactic close.

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