Teed Rockwell
31st August 2002, 8.08 pm
Two ragas that work in Western music.
by Teed Rockwell
Here's another one of my Old Touchstyle Quarterly Columns. Enjoy!
Two ragas that work in Western music.
by Teed Rockwell
Bhoophali C D E G A c
1 2 3 5 6 8
Hindol C E F# A B A c c B A F# E C
1 3 4# 6 7 6 8 8 7 6 4# 3 1
Bhoopali is called the Pentatonic major scale in western music, and is used a lot in country music. If you want to make it sound like Indian Folk music instead, stay on one chord (country music usually modulates the pentatonic major to follow the chord progression). Another thing is to frequently play every other note in the scale, like this.
C E D G A d c e e c D A G D E C
Indian Musicians often say that this scale sounds Chinese to them, and when you put these leaps into it, it sounds Chinese to me, too.
Hindol is another Pentatonic scale, but a very strange one because it has no 5th, a raised 4th, and a lot of leaps. It is supposed to be a spring raga but it doesn't sounds like spring in America. It does remind me of spring in an Indian rain forest: steamy and seething with unpredictable life. I have also seen some evidence that this Rag has healing powers, so perhaps it does have mystical connections to the forces of natural growth.
This Rag also has what the Indians call Vakra Chal (zigzag movement). In this case, it means that instead of going straight up from 7 to 8 (B to high C), you must go from 7 back down to 6 and then up to 8. (B to A to high C). You can go from 8 to 7 in a descending scale, however, which is why I had to list the notes for hindol in both directions. Many Indian Scales are very different in the ascending (arohi) and descending (avarohi) note patterns. No one is going to force you to follow those rules, of course. But they are the only reason that any two rags are different from each other, because there is no set melody in a rag that is always played the same way twice.
The thing that is especially cool about these two Rags is that both of them are contained in Lydian Mode, and yet they sound completely different from each other. To hear Lydian mode, play a C chord in your left hand, and then play a C major scale with an F# in it instead of an F. You'll hear that it sounds kind of space-jazzy, because of the F#. Once you get comfortable with that, try playing in Bhoopali for a while, then in Hindol. You can alternative between these two scales at any time, because both of them are contained inside Lydian. Yet your solos will sound radically different, and probably make some people think you're actually changing keys.
If you were playing a country tune that had a chord progression like C-F-C-G, you would change scales to follow the chords: play first in C pentatonic major, then in F pentatonic major, then back to C, then G pentatonic major and so on. F and G pentatonic major start on F and G, and then use the same spacing relationship as the C pentatonic major.
by Teed Rockwell
Here's another one of my Old Touchstyle Quarterly Columns. Enjoy!
Two ragas that work in Western music.
by Teed Rockwell
Bhoophali C D E G A c
1 2 3 5 6 8
Hindol C E F# A B A c c B A F# E C
1 3 4# 6 7 6 8 8 7 6 4# 3 1
Bhoopali is called the Pentatonic major scale in western music, and is used a lot in country music. If you want to make it sound like Indian Folk music instead, stay on one chord (country music usually modulates the pentatonic major to follow the chord progression). Another thing is to frequently play every other note in the scale, like this.
C E D G A d c e e c D A G D E C
Indian Musicians often say that this scale sounds Chinese to them, and when you put these leaps into it, it sounds Chinese to me, too.
Hindol is another Pentatonic scale, but a very strange one because it has no 5th, a raised 4th, and a lot of leaps. It is supposed to be a spring raga but it doesn't sounds like spring in America. It does remind me of spring in an Indian rain forest: steamy and seething with unpredictable life. I have also seen some evidence that this Rag has healing powers, so perhaps it does have mystical connections to the forces of natural growth.
This Rag also has what the Indians call Vakra Chal (zigzag movement). In this case, it means that instead of going straight up from 7 to 8 (B to high C), you must go from 7 back down to 6 and then up to 8. (B to A to high C). You can go from 8 to 7 in a descending scale, however, which is why I had to list the notes for hindol in both directions. Many Indian Scales are very different in the ascending (arohi) and descending (avarohi) note patterns. No one is going to force you to follow those rules, of course. But they are the only reason that any two rags are different from each other, because there is no set melody in a rag that is always played the same way twice.
The thing that is especially cool about these two Rags is that both of them are contained in Lydian Mode, and yet they sound completely different from each other. To hear Lydian mode, play a C chord in your left hand, and then play a C major scale with an F# in it instead of an F. You'll hear that it sounds kind of space-jazzy, because of the F#. Once you get comfortable with that, try playing in Bhoopali for a while, then in Hindol. You can alternative between these two scales at any time, because both of them are contained inside Lydian. Yet your solos will sound radically different, and probably make some people think you're actually changing keys.
If you were playing a country tune that had a chord progression like C-F-C-G, you would change scales to follow the chords: play first in C pentatonic major, then in F pentatonic major, then back to C, then G pentatonic major and so on. F and G pentatonic major start on F and G, and then use the same spacing relationship as the C pentatonic major.