Bilawal Thaat with Sa as F & the Hanuman Chalisa

The F scale is sneaky. You think it's straightforward with lots of white keys, but then a sharp black key gets thrown in to spice things up. When I play this scale, I feel like it's saying to me, "Ha, I bet you didn't see that one coming!" It's a fun scale that I'm really enjoying.

Madhubani painting of Ramayana, with Hanuman Chalisa

I recently returned from a short trip to Mount Madonna Center, in the mountains above Santa Cruz, CA. Aarti at the Hanuman temple there reignited my love for the Hanuman Chalisa. This was the first time I heard the song accompanied by the harmonium. The first time I ever heard the Hanuman Chalisa was at a "temple of sound" workshop with Bhagavan Das in 2009 in New York. He sings the Hanuman Chalisa when he brings the meditation to the heart chakra and gives you the image of Hanuman leaping and soaring through the air in his devotion to Ram. I was so entranced by the meditation that I felt like a little liberated monkey joyfully swinging from tree to tree, running through the jungle and leaping across the Ganga. The song struck me as galloping, playful and hopeful. At that time, I didn't realize what it was. It was only when I went to a BD kirtan a year later where he introduced the song did I realize what it was. The Hanuman Chalisa is now my favorite song on BD's cd.

Watching the MMC temple pujaris and devotees play the Hanuman Chalisa at aarti, I realized -- Hey! I can do that too. Or perhaps more accurately and less egotistically: I can bring this little bit of joy to my home too. I found this YouTube video (which happens to have been posted by MMC) and started learning. I haven't clarified the beginning and ending invocation, but I've figured out the bulk of the song -- though my version of the 3rd line involves a finger transfer that I don't think this person is doing, but it sounds good anyway.

Turns out the Hanuman Chalisa is in bilawal thaat! The video version is playing the song with Sa as B. The Hanuman Chalisa is composed of 40 couplets. One couplet is one melody played twice and the following is a second melody played once and followed by the original melody. To my ear, every 2 couplets makes a story and the odd numbered couplet starts a new story.

Perhaps the trickiest part will be learning the words to the 40 couplets by heart.

Rusty

It's been over a month since I last posted -- though it hasn't been a month since I've practiced. December allowed few opportunities to sit at the fake ivory keys of my harmonium due to work, holidays and general other life merriment (or is it that I made fewer opportunities to practice?). I practiced my scales but little else only sporadically. Just the other day I sat down to play after a long hiatus and was immediately struck by how rusty I was. Use it or lose it.

I was recently reminded by someone about the 10,000 hours theory of mastery. Practice 3 hours daily for 20 years, and you'll amass 10,000 hours of practice, or the theorized golden number of hours necessary to attain mastery over anything. It's very humbling to sit at the harmonium and practice something you once felt so confident in to now find it just out of reach. A few hours over the last two months? A drop in the bucket!

New year, new practice. Onward!

Bilawal Thaat with Sa as E & Resolution

The aforementioned intense writing project that I've been working on is still going full steam, whether I like it or not. As a result, I haven't been practicing the harmonium as often. Perhaps 2 or 3 times a week, at best. When I do sit to play, I find that I only want to do the scales and not the songs, mostly because I am tired. Even though I haven't been practicing as often, my Bilawal scales with Sa as C and D have gotten much more fluid. I decided to forge ahead to Sa as E. As you may have guessed, I also haven't had time to fix the harmonium's rattling low E, so I am practicing Sa as E in the middle register. Being familiar with the major scale in all keys, and having practiced Sa as D with its many black keys, this scale came very easily.

Now I have three keys to apply to two sets of practice. This is quite time consuming. Over the summer when I was "training" to swim a mile in the pool at my gym (I use quotes because I was simply pushing myself to see how many laps I could do; it's not like I had someone telling me how to do this wisely, unless you count the internet), I found that my mind would get bored counting the breaths and laps. I started to watch for milestones in the counting to mark off how much I knew was left. I find I'm doing the same thing now with the 3-key practice. I know where the middle of the practice is so I know how much longer I have to pay attention. In the span of 20 minutes or so that it takes me to get through all 3 keys, I pass through the same mental/emotional states I experienced when swimming. They go something like this:

Excitement at starting
Warming up and working out the kinks
Mind wandering
Auto-pilot
Strict task master
Mind wandering
Boredom
Awareness of mistakes
Focus
Boredom
Awareness of how much has passed and how much is ahead
Joy
Confidence that I could do this forever and maybe I'll play longer than I usually do
Mind wandering
Awareness of the impending end
Sadness
Regret for having not being paying closer attention while time passed
Shock at how quickly it ends
Relief to be able to move on
Excitement to start something new

My singing teacher today taught me about resolution in music. To impart tonal Western music with a sense of closure or resolution, the final chord needs to be the core note/chord, lest the piece feel open-ended and suspenseful. A song in the key of C minor will end with the C minor chord. The resolution brings the piece full circle. Right back to where it started. What is the core note of my life? Where does life resolve to?

The emotional circle I feel when I'm practicing my scales is only going to get wider and wider as I learn more and more. As with so many things in life, I'm watching the same patterns return again and again -- whether its music, yoga, swimming, drawing, eating, sleeping, working.    

There's a Ringing in my Low E

I'll admit there's something I've been meaning to address but have been putting off for a long time. (Just ONE thing?)

The low E on my harmonium has an occasional rattle. I say "occasional" because, like the squealing brakes on my car, it only seems to rattle when I'm alone with it and not in the presence of other people. Case in point: the brakes don't squeal in the presence of a mechanic; the low E doesn't rattle in the presence of a teacher. In fact, after I made the YouTube video of it (see below), it got scared and fixed itself. When I was at the harmonium workshop, I had wanted to ask Daniel to help me fix it, but I couldn't even remember which was the rattler because it was suspiciously behaving. Therefore, I didn't ask for help.

I'm moving on from Bilawal with Sa as D to Sa as E, but I want to sing it in the lower register. That means that I have to hold down the low E for the entire practice as the drone (the bottom note that's held down while the other notes are played on top). It's pretty painful to listen to when it rattles like this -- especially when you hit it and you're not expecting this awful sound.

See this amazing YouTube video that I made:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fQLKEi-y9c

I could play Sa as E in the middle register, but that puts the last notes pretty high -- higher than I'm comfortable with singing for right now.

In order to move on from Sa as D, I have to fix this. And really, I have to fix this regardless -- no more pretending like it's not there! No time like the present (or a little later than the present because I have to get back to work -- but I will do it soon enough)! I'm going to have to open the hood of this thing and tinker with the reeds and such. Where's my screwdriver?

Showing up, again and again

Now that I've got a consistent harmonium practice going,  I'm growing more aware of how I approach the harmonium each day. Before my new practice, I would pick songs to learn willy nilly and didn't have any particular exercises to do. I've been running on less sleep than normal lately because I've been up late stressing out over a freelance project. The harmonium has provided a welcome break from hours sitting at the computer, staring at its painful LCD screen. In the last few days, I've been relieved to play the harmonium, grateful for the chance to stop thinking about work.

Today was very different. Work went well and I got more sleep last night. But my Bilawal practice with Sa as D was a total wreck. Sa as C was great, but by the time I got to Sa as D I lost my energy for attention. The practices involve moving up and down the scales in increasing "sets" of keys -- as in, the first "set" is 3 keys, the second "set" is 4 keys, etc (one day I will do a whole post about my exercises, but likely not until this work project is done).

For example, the first "set" is in groups of 3s: Sa Re Ga, Re Ga ma, Ga ma Pa, Pa Da Ni, Da Ni Sa. 123, 234, 345, 456, 678. And then back down: 876, 765, etc.

All through practice I would play the groups in the wrong order, or would play the same group twice, instead of moving up or down the scale. My fingers weren't landing in the right place and were seriously tangled once the groups increased to include finger transfers (again, a topic for a later post). When you play the same groups twice it sounds like a skip in a record because the brain is anticipating the key change. It's strangely jarring.

One of my very first asana teachers likened her asana practice to building and maintaining an altar. Every time you show up you give it your full attention to notice how you're feeling mentally and emotionally and if the altar needs anything physically. It's a ritual check-in. The more you show up, the more subtle your awareness of yourself and the altar becomes because of your increasing awareness of time passing around the altar's stillness. Now that I'm showing up to the harmonium and scales (nearly) every day, I'm noticing the practice in the moment more. The thoughts start with: "Wow, I can't believe I'm playing this so poorly." The next thought: "Usually I can play this quite smoothly, albeit slowly." And the next: "What's different about me today compared to yesterday?"

In related news, I learned how to play "Ob La Di Ob La Da" -- though this kid is light-years ahead of me in terms of channeling the energy of the song. Chords found here.

Bilawal Thaat with Sa as D

I'm about four days or so into practicing Bilawal thaat with Sa as D. This is the major scale in D. Unlike Sa as C, the Sa as D scale uses two black keys. When you play the scale straight, without holding Sa as the drone, the black keys aren't all that daunting. I didn't think much of having to use the black keys as I started my sargam exercises. It was only once I got into doing finger transfers on the black keys that they got tricky.

Slippery Sam Sees a Sa

My mom refers to my cat as "Slippery Sam" because he's so svelt that sometimes when you get a hold of him he slips right through your hands. The cat has taken to sitting in my lap when I work on the computer. Sometimes he'll curl up and use all lap space, but other times he precariously perches on one of my thighs. He teeters there -- as if a strong gust of wind could push him off. This is how I feel with the black keys: they're hard to get a hold of and once I get my finger on it, I could slip off easily. When there's a finger transfer on a black key, I find I just don't have enough room for two fingers on that little sliver of space. As one of the black keys in this scale is Ni, my pinky has to do a lot of extra work. Practice increases the dexterity in my smallest digit.

The first day I started Sa as D I tried playing the Sargam chords version of "Govinda Jaya Jaya" that Daniel Tucker, my harmonium teacher, gave us students in our recent workshop. This song has four "chords" (which in this case are made of only two keys). I started the song fine with Sa as D, but hit a dissonant note on the 3rd chord. I checked my math -- these were the right keys. What was wrong? It took me a minute to recognize that this song is played in Khamaj thaat, AKA the dominant scale in Western music, where the Ni or 7th note is flatted. So flat went the Ni, and the song came through clearly.

Bilawal Thaat

Bilawal thaat is equivalent to the Ionian mode or major scale in Western music. It is the classic Do Re Me Fa So La Ti Do.

The notes are as follows: Sa Re Ga ma Pa Da Ni Sa'. I have started my practice with Sa on C.

When I first bought my harmonium two years ago my boyfriend at the time taught me about Western scales using the methods he learned in high school music class. He taught me that in a major scale, the notes jump a half note between the 3rd and 4th notes and the 7th and 8th. He had me practice in C, and then apply this rule to the other notes and write the scales out in notation. I wrote out and learned this scale in all 12 keys. He then had me do the same for the minor scale (which I now know to be Asawari thaat). Did I practice them? No. I skipped straight to learning songs. I should find that old notebook.

However, in the last two years I've mostly been learning Western songs with chords. In this practice I have gained a familiarization with these two scales by learning chords and moving songs up and down in key. I'm acquainted with this scale -- it's natural or "easy" when Sa is C because the scale is all white keys. I have been practicing my Sargam exercises in Bilawal thaat with Sa at C every day for a week. As this scale sounds so common to my ear, my singing and playing can move to the background. Thus, I can focus on hand and finger placement and finger transfers. This has been invaluable training and wiring for my brain and hand. Ever lose yourself on a flight of stairs? For whatever reason you miss a step or your feet get tangled under each other and you stumble one or two steps? That's what it feels like when you watch your hand miss a step playing a harmonium scale. You see your fingers play the keys and know that you'll have to transfer fingers to allow extra digits to finish the scale. Somehow, your fingers get mixed up and confused and you wind up with three fingers on one key. Collect your thoughts; acknowledge the digit that has the right of way; keep going.

Today I am going to try Sa as D.