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!