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?

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.