Organization: Penn State University
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 13:05:44 EDT
From: Girish Harshe <GRH6@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.music.indian.misc
Subject: Re: O.P. Nayyar : his music.
 <92226.103139GRH6@psuvm.psu.edu> <1992Aug13.192001.21345@colorado.edu>

In article <1992Aug13.192001.21345@colorado.edu>, parrikar@csn.org (Rajan
Parrikar) says:
>
>In article <92226.103139GRH6@psuvm.psu.edu> GRH6@psuvm.psu.edu (Girish Harshe)
>writes:
>
>***deleted***
>
>>
>>  About OP Nayyar's style: I realized when I played a few of his
>>songs on instruments, he uses as much as 10 notes of the 12 notes
>>(including sharps and flats) in a song. And all this without
>>losing the melody at all. That's really incredible! Most of the
>>classical songs (or even ragas) do not use more than 8/9 notes.
>>This style of OPN, in fact makes it difficult to play his
>>songs correctly, on any instruments, for amateurs like me.
>
>I have a slight difference of opinion. If I understand you
>right (correct me if it ain't so), you seem to be saying that
>the level of difficulty in a song is somehow related to the
>number of notes of the octave. In other words, more notes ==>
>more difficult to play the song. That isn't quite right.
>To me, a song is difficult to *reproduce on an instrument*
>(not to be confused with singing it correctly) if it has
>an unexpected twist, an unusual pattern of notes and so on.
>In this respect, I have found Salil Chowdhury and Hridaynath
>Mangeshkar to be the most challenging (I'm not too familiar with
>Illaiyaraja and other south Indian composers).
>

  I think I did not make it very clear, what I was saying.
 I meant, for beginners-type people, it is very difficult
 to reproduce a line of a song which has 10 diiferent notes,
 when you are playing it just by listening to it. This need
 not correspond to the difficulty in singing or fingering
 an instrument if you know the notes. I am not saying that
 a song with just five notes but lot of ups and downs is
 easy to play perfectly. But since if I know those five
 notes I can try less combinations and permutations to
 come very close to the original one. Of course, usually
 in classical base songs, several notes are played (sung)
 in one beat. Then even if I know those notes, physically
 I may not be of that caliber to play the notes in given
 rhythm and I think this what you are referring to.
 I can give several examples: All songs in Bhoop or Kalawati
 or Jogia are some what easier to play (using my criterion
 since there is less guess work) than those in Hamir (eg
 Maduban me Radhika nache re). This certainly does not
 mean that Hayere woh din kyu na aaye or kahe tarasaye
 (based on Kalawati) is very easy to play. But at the
 same time the songs in Shivaranjani with lots of ups and downs
 are still much easier to play. (And can be seen also as
 several beginners can successfully attempt at least the first
 line of Jane kahan gaye woh din).

     So, I agree with you that the degree of difficulty of a
 song depends on unexpected turns and ups and downs of the
 notes, however, I was referring to some other difficulty,
 the guesswork, which is much less in a song with less
 number of notes (say Laila o Laila, Laila). But I have
 seen a number of people (somewhat good instrument players)
 making mistakes while playing say the part Chun chun choo in
 Mera naam Chun chun choo. They are three different notes like
 Sa, re(komal), re  and not sa, sa, re. That's all.

>>
>>Girish
>
>
>Rajan Parrikar
>==============
>email:parrikar@mimicad.colorado.edu

 Girish

Newsgroups: rec.music.indian.misc