An online baithak was organised by SPICMACAY Europe on 28 July 2024. The topic was “Laya : the heartbeat of Indian classical music “. It was a rich discussion on the aspects of time, time measurement and their complex relation to Indian classical music. It was attended by SPICMACAY volunteers across Europe, including a German enthusiast of Indian classical music.
The baithak started with Abhinand asking the participants if they are well versed in musical notations as it was inevitable that “laya” could not be talked about without using technical notations used in Indian classical music. Most of the participants seemed quite familiar to the basics of Indian music terminologies.
The baithak was moderated by Yash and Abhinand, Yash from the lineage of students versed in Hindustani music while Abhinand coming from the family of students trained in Carnatic music. Yash was participating live with his tabla while Abhinand proposed to illustrate the baithak discussion with his mridangam.
LAYA AS A MESSAGE TO THE DIVINE SOUND
Yash initiated the discussion saying that though laya is generally discussed from the domain of percussionists in majority of Indian classical music and dance, laya should not belong solely to the percussion domain as it plays a vital role in all of music. To explain the basics, it was noted that in Indian classical music, there are two important components. The first is the melody or swara and the second is the tempo or laya. When discussing laya , one cannot ignore swara. It was beautifully portrayed that while swara is a message to the divine sound, laya is a message to the divine time. The next important thing is to understand how we divide the laya by time. When one goes from basic to advanced in the aspect of laya, there are infinite ways of dividing time. By this one also explores the continuum in sound.
LAYA AS A TOOL FOR TIME KEEPING BY PERCUSSION
Abhinand added that a percussionist cannot ignore the melody or swara as it can accentuate a vocalist or instrumentalist on stage. At the same time, a vocalist cannot ignore the time keeping by the percussionist. Traditionally in Indian classical music, the vocalist or instrumentalist will take care of the melody part while the percussionist has to take care of the time keeping. The takeaway is that , while time is continuous, it is important for the percussionist to take care of it from beginning.
To highlight the structural differences between Hindustani and Carnatic laya and its use by percussionists for time keeping, Yash said that in Hindustani music, it seems that in tabla it is simpler than Carnatic to use the laya to which Karthik added that a better way of understanding it is that a mridangam is more structured than tabla, because overall Carnatic is more structured than Hindustani.
LAYA IN HINDUSTANI CLASSICAL MUSIC
Yash went on to explain the nuances of laya in Hindustani classical music. To explain taala, he said a taala is a count. The most common count is 8 in Hindustani classical music. Sometimes we may say it as a count of 16 but it is actually 8 overall. In a single cycle of a taala, there are two end points and then we have reference points. There is a taali and a khaali. A taali is an emphasised point and a khaali is an unemphasised one. In simpler terms, a taali is basically a clapping. There are various kinds of taala like the Aadi taal which has count/beat as 12, 34, 5, 6, 7 8. In Teen taal , we have 16 beats and not three which can be common misconception because teen refers to three. Teen taal is called so, because teen taal has three emphasis notes at 1, 5, 13 and a khaali at 9. Most of the taals have counts to eight because it is easy for humans to count eight with fingers and musicians often use hand movements and finger counts to keep track of the beats. Yash further added that Hindustani rupak has 7 beats and it is important to note that Hindustani rupak is different from Carnatic rupak. Then he further talked about various other taala of more than 7 beats. There are taalas of 14 beats like dhamaal, aada chautal, where beats are divided differently such as 4-2-2-3-3. Another component is the structure of the beats, apart from the division.
LAYA IN CARNATIC CLASSICAL MUSIC
Abhinand explained the taalas with their structure in Carnatic. To start with, a taala has a base count and a pattern. While the base count speaks about the repeatability, the pattern is the particular base count expressed in different ways. He further added that there are jaathis and taalam in Carnatic music. Jaathi are the different types of total base count combinations. For example, 4 beats are mostly found in bhajan, where stanzas are turning out strictly and then with 16 beats there will be 4 stanzas, that will make a full piece.
In Carnatic music, 4-3-7-5-9 are the five jaathis. The difficulty is to add one taal with a 4 taal system. Then what is done in such a case is to add a khandam that is to add 1 to a cyclicity of 4. Similarly, sankirnam is adding one to eight to make 9. While each base sound can have different taalam, the objective is to get the cyclicity of the sound and the 4-5-7-9. Next at the advanced level, if one can learn alankaranam, they are very detailed.
About the confusion between jaathi and jatthi which finds prevalence in Carnatic classical music, Abhinand said that jaathi and jatthi are completely different. Jaathi is the base count. In Sanskrit, jatthi is referred to as gati and Tamil, the same is nadai .
INTRICACIES OF LAYA IN CARNATIC AND HINDUSTANI
Next Abhinand illustrated this aspect of jatthi in detail by taking an example of an eight beat cycle. For instance, there are 8 aksharams in aadi talam, each of which are separated into individual base counts which is same for a particular jatthi. If we divide 1 beat into 4 matras, it will be chatushra gati, with beats 1234-1234. Gati is division of base counts within a jatthi. For example, it becomes tisra gati if it is counted as 123-123-123. Then, it is misra for 7 beats. For 5 beats, you put 5 slots/matra in one beat, it is then khandam. Thus, a nadai or gati is how many matras/slot you fill up in one beat. If you play 8 beat in a different nadai, you will have a different tempo of a particular song.
The it was Yash’s turn to elucidate the intricacies of beats and taalis with respect to Hindustani music. He started by mentioning the basics that in Hindustani, the first sound is ta and then, one goes from from one to two like ta-ka, …ta-ka. Then to have three, it is ta-ki-ta. Further there is four phrase, ta-ka-dhi-mi. Now it was interesting to see that if there are more than four beats, for example, if we have seven beats, it becomes 7 = 3+4 notation, (ta-ki-ta)+(ta-ka-dhi-mi). Similarly if one has to conceptualise a beat of five, one does by 5=2+3, (ta-ka)+(ta-ki-ta), and ultimately , the maximum possibility is that of eight beats, 4 beat notation multiplied by 2 like this, (ta-ka-dhi-mi)+ (ta-ka-dhi-mi).
TIME AS A CONTINUUM IN LAYA
Abhinand substantiated the interesting detail of Laya beats mentioned by Yash with examples from Carnatic music. One can keep adding complex phrases to simple ones, and he illustrated this by performing live in aadi talam. He mentioned that however, the phraseology of tabla and mridangam are completely different . There are numerous ways by which one can divide. One can do arithmetic progression and then one can do geometric progression as well while dividing it and then he went on to demonstrate some Carnatic taalas online. Yash mentioned one interesting feature that when there is a beat count of eight (ta-ka-dhi -mi), it can be of different tempo. For example, 8 beats as 3+3+2 notation or 2×4 notation. These variations are very common in sarod, veena and other musical instruments than percussion ones.
Yash demonstrated online on his tabla, a teen taal in 16 beats. From the discussion regarding improvisations and variations in laya based performances, that followed next, Yash said that one of the greatest layakar of contemporary times is Abhishek Raghuram. When we take time as a continuum, we can have singing laya, Abhinand said. He demonstrated through the ninnakori varnam and mentioned that the use of fingers and turns of hand also have a particular rule in keeping with the time based compilation of a laya. He again emphasised the idea that time is continuous and to think in much detail, if one takes a portion of time, that is also continuous. For example, one can say the whole pallavi and anupallavi in first speed. Within the talam one has the flexibility to change the matras in beats.
As the main part of the discussion on laya came to a wrapping point, the platform was open for questions from the participants. Varsha asked that, when one does 2 notes per beat or 4 notes per beat, does the tempo change? Abhinand clarified that, the tempo remains the same and further elucidated by comparing tempo as ticking of a metronome. For example, from 2-3-4, the metronome ticks faster, one takes the same time but one feels it is faster. The further Q&A session followed with interesting discussions regarding tani avartanam and their relations to number of notes in beats. Abhinand said that jaathi is base sound, jatthi is the gati. From 4 you can do 3 and 5 and from 8 you can do 7 and 9. Sudharshan, one of the participants asked that in aadi talam, each beat has 4 matras, but in case one has 3 matras in one beat how does that work? Abhinand answered this by saying that where you are at, forget there are 4 matras in one beat. That basically changes the number of matras in one beat. If one sings ninnukori varnam in 60 seconds, then for second speed, one does twice and for third speed one does four times.
To this, Sudharshan asked, if that is the case, then if a vocalist or instrumentalist plays it how does a percussionist follow it? Abhinand said that you do it spontaneously on stage, as percussionists have to be on their toes to follow the improvisations by musicians on stage.
To further queries raised by the participants on interesting topics like thiruvanam, Abhinand illustrated with claps and other variations possible on the aspect of laya. The discussion was wrapped with a rich library of many mathematical and time based tools used in Indian classical music on the aspect of laya.
Dipon Bose
Volunteer, SPICMACAY
Politecnico di Milano, Italy
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