[linux-audio-dev] ragas and talas

Tim Goetze tim at quitte.de
Mon Dec 16 21:54:01 UTC 2002


for no special reason and with the intent of public delight, 
here's an excerpt from "The Raga Guide", published by Nimbus 
Records in association with the Rotterdam Conservatory of Music, 
by Joep Bor, Suvarnalata Rao, Wim van der Meer and Jane Harvey,
musicians on the CD set are: Hariprasad Chaurasia, flute,
Buddhadev DasGupta, sarod, and Shruti Sadolikar-Katkar,
Vidhyadhar Vyas, both vocal. 

5 Talas in performance

[...] A composition in Hindustani music is set to a particular
rhythm cycle (tala), which consists of a fixed number of time
units or counts (matras) and is made up of two or more sections.

[...]

Among the talas which are in common use, the sixteen-beat tintal 
(or trital: 4+4+4+4) is perhaps the most popular today [33].
Other common talas are:
 
 dadra - six counts: 3+3
 rupak - seven counts: 3+2
 kaharva - eight counts: 4+4
 jhaptal - ten counts: 2+3+3+3
 ektal and chautal - twelve counts: 2+2+2+2+2+2
 dhamar - fourteen counts: 5+2+3+4
 dipchandi - fourteen counts: 3+4+3+4
 addha tintal or sitarkhani: sixteen counts: 4+4+4+4

[33] Over eighty-five percent of the ragas on the CDs have been
performed in tintal.

tim




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