Contrastar

I now go on to take a still closer look at some more constraints in the tonal grammar of Carnatic music. I will present below an outline of my theory of

‘gamakkam’ – the exploitation of inter-tonal frequency – in Carnatic music.

As I pointed out earlier in chapter 4 and as Krishnaswamy (2003 a, b) cor-rectly observes, gamakkam in Carnatic music cannot be translated as ‘orna-mentation’ which would imply that it is an optional addition in the rendering which is not the case at all. Gamakkam is obligatory and the lack of it could very well render a phrase ungrammatical in many cases. As we saw earlier, m.tones are idiosyncratically associated with raagas and their execution be-comes obligatory, not mere ornamentation.

To begin with, I assume, without much discussion, that of the twelve semitones, apart from ‘ra’ (D at), ‘mi’ (F sharp) and ‘da’ (A at), all the other tones are of equal context-free markedness. One could argue that the remaining tones are the ones found in the major scale with two additions namely ‘gi’ (E at) and ‘di’ (B at) from the scale derived from the four note signature of Saama Veedam.⁷⁸ Or one could look for more sophisticated mathematical proof etc. I advance two arguments in favour of my intuition regarding the relative markedness of ‘ra’ (D at), ‘mi’ (F sharp) and ‘da’ (A

at) below.⁷⁹

Firstly, these three tones seem to be fairly unstable anchors and ‘pivotal’

notes in a musical phrase. In other words, they rarely occur as the resting tone in a musical phrase (note: I did not say ‘never’). And if they do, they are coupled with some, adjacent appropriate prominent tones as ‘shadow’ tones.

I demonstrate this point with a few sample phrases from raagas Toođi and Kalyaaͣi.

(1) Musical demonstration

raagam Toođi [ 4.42]

gi ra, gi ma

Here, ‘ra’ is a passing note and not a pivot (even though it is long).

106 Representation of the musical line gi ra ra ni da da

The second ‘ra’ and ‘da’ are rendered as split notes ‘sa ra’ and ‘pa da’ respectively where ‘sa’ and ‘pa’ are stable pivots.

raagam Kalyaaͣi . [ 4.43]

Sa nu di pa mi

The ‘mi’ is actually a shadow note parasitic on the pivotal ‘pa’.

Secondly, these three tones, i.e. ‘ra’, ‘da’ and ‘mi’ are found to be difcult to execute for beginners.⁸⁰ I therefore conclude, without further argumentation, that the relative context-free markedness of the twelve tones is as shown below.

(2) Relative context-free markedness of the twelve tones a. *ra, *mi, *da

>>

b. *ri, *gi, *gu, *ma, *pa, *di, *ni, *nu

Apart from beginning stages, this ranking never shows up (or almost never does) as faithfulness constraints ranked higher than these two constraints render them invisible.

I now turn to context-sensitive markedness values among the twelve tones.

I assume the following types of context-sensitive markedness constraints.

(3) Context-sensitive markedness of the twelve tones Case I: Problem of proximal tones

a. sa 9ru gu ... gu 9ru sa >> sa ru: gu ... gu ru: sa

Informally, it is more difcult to render ‘ru’ (i.e., gi) before or after gu if the ‘marked’ tone is not assigned a double du-ration (indicated by ‘:’). Similarly,

b. pa 9du nu ... nu 9du pa >> pa du: nu ... nu du: pa

Informally, it is more difcult to render ‘du’ (‘ni’ before or after ‘nu’ if the marked tone is not assigned a double dura-tion.

Some singers of standing even resort to gliding from the adjacent, more stable ‘ri’, ‘di’ respectively.⁸¹ Of course, not all sequences of proximal tones are of equal context-sensitive markedness. For instance, sa ra ga and pa da na may not be as marked as the sequences ma 9ga ra or Sa 9na da respectively.

Pitch range interpretation 107 The reason is that a tone’s context-sensitive markedness status improves con-siderably in the vicinity of stable tones which function as pivots. If the pivot is adjacent to the ‘difcult’ sequence, then the markedness value decreases considerably as in the case of sa ra ga and pa da na as ‘sa’ and ‘pa’ are very stable pivots and so are ‘ga’ and ‘na’ which are really ‘ri’ and ‘di’ respec-tively. But in the case of ma ga ra, ‘ra’ is a marked note and so is ‘da’ in Sa na da. Hence the greater markedness of these sequences.

(4) Case II: Problem of the lack of pivotal anchor in the vicinity a. ga 9ra nu >> ga ra sa

b. na 9da mi >> na 9da ma >> na da pa (5) Case III: Problem of tonal distance in the ascent

a. pa 9nu >> pa ni b. sa 9mi >> sa ma

It may be observed that many established performers of repute render the se-quences ‘pa nu Sa’ as in raagas like NaaҲai, Hamsadhvani and Hamsanaadam as ‘pa (di) nu Sa’.⁸² No scale, to my knowledge, employs the sequence ‘sa mi..’ and, I am sure all performers will readily agree with me on the extreme markedness of this sequence which is ruled out altogether in Carnatic music as an undominated constraint. The problem of tonal distance is pronounced in the ascent because one has to leave a pivotal tone and target a non-pivotal tone at a distance. On the descent, however, there is no problem because the

nal tone is a pivot which is always unmarked and easy to render.

Thus we see that among the 12 tones, though the majority of them have the same context-free markedness status, i.e. low ranked markedness con-straints implying that they are not marked at all, there are, at least, three distinct cases of context-sensitive markedness among the twelve tones.

However, in the case of performers who are well trained, all the constraints pertaining to the twelve tones are fairly low ranked becoming invisible and thus do not perform any function in their grammar. But for performers for whom these context sensitive markedness constraints are visible, these con-straints will have to be higher ranked than the raagam specic concon-straints which stipulate the member notes of the raagam set to the extent that specic sequences are blocked by markedness allowing ‘non-designated notes’ to act as intermediate notes. Thus for some performers for whom the markedness constraints *pa nu Sa is higher ranked than the faith constraints which select the notes of the raagam, the grammar of these performers would include a

108 Representation of the musical line

high ranking markedness constraint prohibiting this specic sequence but allowing an intervening ‘eeting’ ‘di’ to alleviate the marked sequence thus rendering the sequence that will be notated as ‘pa nu Sa’ but rendered as [pa (di) nu Sa]. Unlike orthodox grammarians, I do not brand such render-ings as ungrammatical but merely note that this practice is sanctioned by a specic constraint in the grammar of these performers. Remember, there is no such thing as right and wrong when it comes to the practice of es-tablished performers/users of Carnatic music (as in language). The descrip-tive grammar of these performers are signicantly different from that of other performers who overcome the specic markedness constraint noted above.⁸³