Variación del tipo de LI

[[’ a b] [c ’ d, e f]]

Grammaticality & stylistic issues 6 & 7 Lexicon

Evaluated Output */S_i/&

Figure 2. Architecture of the grammar of Carnatic Music

I had argued for the need for a mechanism equivalent to that of Phonetic Form for language to interpret tonal information in Carnatic music in chap-ters 4 and 5. This component interprets real pitch values as ‘notes’ of Carnat-ic musCarnat-ic and also interprets raw data as musCarnat-ical phrase and line boundaries, prominence and emphatic prominence. Armed with this interpretation, the dynamic pitch input is converted into a structured notated musical line which is then subject to evaluation by the component equivalent to the one on the right, i.e. ‘Logical Form’ of language. I now take up the much more conten-tious issue of ‘meaning’ in music, particularly, Carnatic music.

6.2. The question of meaning in music

A grammar can be thought of as a box that mediates between ‘sound’ and

‘meaning’ allowing us to understand a sequence of sounds as a meaningful sentence and allowing us to express meaning as a sequence of sounds. I now turn to ‘meaning’ in language as, we will see, it turns out to be a difcult is-sue with regard to music.

How exactly do we construct the meaning of an utterance? Roughly, meaning, as we understand it, is constructed from three sources in a sentence as discussed below:

The question of meaning in music 141 A) The lexicon

The lexicon is a repository of the meaning and usage of all the lexical entries in a language

B) Syntax

The syntax or sentence grammar lays out the sequencing principle of words in a language (and other things besides) and

C) Logical Form

The Logical Form component helps us interpret pronouns, negation and ex-pressions like ‘everyone’, ‘Wh’ words, etc.

A and B are simple enough to understand. While the dictionary gives us meanings of words like ‘men’, ‘love’ and ‘cars’, it is B that spells out the relation between these words in a sentence. In other words, in the sentence

‘Men love cars’ because of the linear sequencing of words we know that

‘men’ is the agent/subject of ‘love’ and that the object of ‘love’ is ‘cars’. Now, one might say that whatever the order of words, there can be no doubt about who loves what as the verb requires an animate agent to do the loving and cars, being inanimate cannot do it. Try substituting the word ‘women’ for

‘cars’ and you know how crucial word order is. Finally, coming to C, in a sentence like ‘Everyone loves his mother’, it is Logical Form which allows the sentence two meanings (the second meaning, if you have not got it yet, will become obvious – and the only meaning possible if you lay extra em-phasis on ‘his’).

Let us now try to ask the question ‘Does music require a meaning com-ponent like language?’ Obviously not. Neither musical notes nor musical phrases are amenable to semantic interpretation unlike words in language.

Therefore, the lexicon of Carnatic music, though it may list tones, phrases and idioms of particular raagas cannot list any meaning for each one of them as they may have none (as we understand the notion ‘meaning’). Therefore, logically, music may be said to lack the constituent ‘A’ with respect to mean-ing (however, we will see that it is not as clear cut as it seems now and, more importantly, may require further renement).

What about ‘B’? What we called the sequencing principle of ‘sen-tence grammar’ revolves around the verb. In language, the phrases, infor-mally speaking, that occur in a sentence are determined by the selection of the verb. For instance, consider the sentences of English given below where ungrammatical sentences are marked with an asterisk (please note that what is ‘ungrammatical’ is not determined by any grammarian but by the speaker/listener and arrived at by general consensus in a language community).

142 Construing meaning: Determining Grammaticality (1) a. The man disappeared.

b. * The man disappeared the forest.

c. The man disappeared into the forest.

(2) a. * The mother saw.

b. The mother saw a movie.

(3) a. * The father gave.

b. * The father gave a book.

c. The father gave a book to his daughter.

d. The father gave his daughter a book.

While (1a and c) are grammatical, (1b) is not. The verb ‘disappear’ does not take an object and hence the ungrammaticality of (1b). However, this verb can take an optional, oblique object (prepositional object) and hence the grammaticality of (1c). Whereas the verb ‘see’ requires one, obligatory ob-ject, hence the ungrammaticality of (2a), the verb ‘give’ requires two objects and hence the ungrammaticality of (3a and b). However, the two objects can occur in any order and hence the grammaticality of (3c and d). Whether a verb requires an object or two objects and whether the objects can occur in any order in the sentence are idiosyncratic properties of the verb listed in the lexicon. Compare the verb ‘donate’ with the verb ‘give’, for instance.

Whereas the verb ‘give’ allows variation in the order of objects, ‘donate’

does not as the ungrammaticality of (4b) below illustrates.

(4) a. Ram donated his collection of books to the local library.

b. * Ram donated the local library his collection of books.

Similarly, the verb determines whether it requires a sentential object, and how it should be realized with two options; either to promote the subject of the clause to full subjecthood as in (5a) below or to force the entire clause to shift to the right as in (5b).

(5) a. [ ] appears [ the man] to be a fool].

b. It appears that [the man is a fool].

I have by no means exhausted the subject of syntax. However, this brief discussion will sufce to illustrate the point that Carnatic music (and music

The question of meaning in music 143 in general) does not require syntax in the sense that languages do. Music crucially lacks grammatical categories like ‘verb’, ‘noun’, ‘adjective’ etc.

Unlike language where the choice of a verb necessarily forces one to make several choices with regard to the type of words one can choose, in Carnatic music, the choice of a note no more forces you to select another note than some other note.¹⁰⁷ Therefore, as music lacks grammatical categories, it lacks syntax and hence the constituent ‘B’. (However, like language, music too requires notes to be sequenced, I will take up this issue in a short while from now.) Finally, since music does not refer to the world of objects, since it has no equivalents of pronouns, Wh expressions etc., there is no question of the constituent ‘C’. The crucial question is “Does the grammar of Carnatic music require a meaning construal component?”

It is indisputable that (Carnatic) music (6) a. lacks grammatical categories

b. does not have predicate argument structure like language (i.e.

verb, subject, object etc.) c. has no syntax

d. is not referential

e. is not bound by truth conditions (being non-referential) The questions to ask now are:

(7) a. “Does it mean that the concept of grammaticality is irrelevant in Carnatic music?”

and

b. “Does it mean that (Carnatic) music has no ‘meaning’ associ-ated with it?

I will take up both the questions for detailed discussion below. I will exam-ine issues pertaining to grammaticality in Carnatic music in this chapter and take up the issue of construing stylistic/aesthetic meaning in Carnatic music in the next chapter. Taking up the second question rst, it should be obvious that since music is not referential, it can not refer to objects and events in the real world. However, several (rather vague) arguments have been advanced for the existence of ‘meaning’ in music. I summarize a few claims below and show how they are not quite appropriate.

144 Construing meaning: Determining Grammaticality Claim 1: Tone pictures/visual association

There are several successful attempts at ‘painting’ pictures with tones, e.g.

Symphony VI of Beethoven and the tone poems of Debussy.

Rejoinder: It is difcult to assert that a systematic relation exists between music (individual tones) and the outside world. Indisputably, music can oc-casionally attempt at painting a picture, though music is not referential. E.g., thunderstorm in Beethoven’s pastorale is quite transparent, as the association of drum roll with thunder is not far fetched by any account. However, drums do not always signal thunder in Beethoven/Western music. But Debussy’s attempts at tone painting are not so transparent. Nor is the example from Carnatic music I give below. Consider a witty tone picture of a bounced ball in the Tamil padam (love song).

(8) Musical demonstration

Tiruvotriyuur Tyaagaraajan [ 6.57]

‘Tiruvotriyuur Tyaagaraajan’; AҲaaͣaa, Ruupakam, Ganam Krishͣayyar.¹⁰⁸

// ri, ma ri, / ma, pa ma - di, di,

pan da đi pa du

// Sa nu di, / Sa nu di, - ni di pa ma // pa,

po: le zhum bum

The glide from a lower note to a higher note and later from a higher note to a lower note translates into the spatial image of a ball bounced off the ground and later thrown up and caught on its way down (at least for me). But it must be admitted that the interpretation leans rather heavily on the language text. However, such attempts must be classied under imagery (and we will come across a few more examples of imagery in Carnatic music later) and it is quite clear that imagery works within traditions and is culture bound. But there is no question of associating individual sounds with specic referential properties. It must be pointed out that the interpretation is not raagam-depen-dent nor note-specic. It would have worked equally well in another raagam or from another set of notes.

Claim 2: Magical meaning

Some claim that Bau̓i raagam evokes sunrise and the picture of early morn-ing.

The question of meaning in music 145 (9) Musical demonstration

Bau̓i II [ 6.58]

// sa ra gu, pa da pa, da pa pa gu, pa da pa da Sa, //

// Sa; nu da nu da, pa gu pa da, gu pa gu ra, sa //

It is true that this raagam invariably evokes a sense of sunrise/freshness etc.

for the Carnatic music fraternity. But I feel that the response is due to regular association in the cultural context where this raagam is used for wake up songs (the meelukoo tradition) and with suprabhaatam which, once again, is a wake up slookaa addressed to specic deities in the Hindu pantheon. I am not denying the evocative quality of the raagam for the Carnatic music fraternity vis-à-vis this raagam. But what I am questioning is the reduction-ist consequence that this claim has on the raagam. It reduces a raagam to a specic emotion/scene denying other possibilities for the raagam. There are compositions in this raagam which have nothing to do with the early morning scene. In fact, one can even compose a fast paced tillaanaa (dance composition) in the raagam just to prove the point that the raagam is much more versatile than the associationists would admit. We will have more to say about such claims for associating raagas with specic emotions later on.

There is a strong tradition in India which asserts that ‘sound’ can inu-ence the environment and that it has causative/curative properties vis-à-vis the magical properties of slookaas and the tradition of assigning raagas to different times of the season and the day. Each raagam is supposed to be associated with a deevataa/spirit which embodies the essence of the raagam and so on.

Counter-claim: Proving the general irrelevance of the seasonal/diurnal tie up with music, Carnatic music has, happily, abandoned this notion as unnecessary cultural baggage. The original association of raagas with specic times of the day etc. has been almost totally lost in contemporary Carnatic music and most performers may not even be aware of such associations now.

Since most Carnatic concerts are scheduled in the evening, performers have got used to rendering any and every raagam in their concerts. However, I have nothing more to say about the ‘magical’ properties of music, in spite of recent claims to its curative/therapeutic properties.

Claim 3: Emotive meaning

There are claims that music can evoke emotions – the language of the heart.

146 Construing meaning: Determining Grammaticality Mukherjee (2000: 103) says,

“...it is quite false that music primarily expresses emotions. If it did, then this property ought to be traceable to some aspects of the structure of musical expressions. Thus, even if some musical pieces, on the whole, evoke certain emotions like joy, sadness, chivalry, and the like, there is nothing in the mu-sical passages or phrases or the individual notes to show how elements of emotions are attached to them.”

First of all, I agree with Mukherjee in denying the claim that music primarily expresses emotions. I can show that emotions are only a part of the range of meanings music tries to convey. Carnatic music is an intellectual activity and a sizeable part of it is cerebral. And denitely in Carnatic music, a large part of it is sheer exploration of the tonal domain, stretching the limits dened by the grammar of a raagam; creating new ideas, creating complex mathemati-cal combinations, etc. But getting back to music and emotion, the questions I try to answer are the following:

a) Is the correlation between the musical line and emotion constant across the music community?

b) If yes, where does the emotion reside? We will take up this issue when we examine certain notes in certain raagas being associated with certain emo-tions subject to criteria like ‘emphatic prominence, tenor of the voice/instru-ment etc.’.

I argue that, contrary to Mukherjee, certain notes embedded in the musical line can and do convey specic emotions under some conditions.

So we come back to the question does music have ‘meaning’? My own position on this issue is that since ‘meaning’ is internal to the system and as music is not referential, if a message with an emotion were intended, the most economical way to go about it would be to say it in so many words, us-ing language. Contrary to Mukherjee, meanus-ing is ‘compositional’ in music too the way it is in language. In language, the meaning of a sentence, for instance, “Ram loves his wife”, can be arrived at from the meaning of the individual words, the meanings of ‘Ram’, ‘wife’ and ‘love’, the syntactic relations tells us the person who loves and the person who is being loved and the interpretation of the word ‘his’ from the sentential context and addi-tional prominence (if present) etc. In Carnatic music too we need to interpret

‘meaning’ from the level of the tone, tonal sequence, musical phrase, the musical line and the musical content to arrive at a complete interpretation of a piece of music. I show in this chapter and the next that in Carnatic music

‘Meaning’ in Carnatic music 147 too, as in language, interpretation starts from the smallest unit and moves up to include larger and larger units up to the musical discourse to construct a full interpretation. However, since I restrict myself to the level of the musical line (like sentence grammar), I do not have much to say about the interpreta-tion of a piece of musical discourse, at this point.

6.3. ‘Meaning’ in Carnatic music

So, music lacks grammatical categories and syntax. If that is the case, how do we determine which sequence of notes is ‘grammatical’ and which ‘un-grammatical’ in Carnatic music? For surely, in Carnatic music, performers and keen listeners know when a piece of music has ‘slipped’. As in language, speakers and listeners know when a chunk of language is of questionable grammaticality, where speakers do sometimes correct themselves, with or without any cue from the listener. For instance, consider the dialogue given below:

(10) A: What did you say when your wife accused you of over-spending?

B: Oh, I got around her saying her...

A: (A doubtful look from A)

B: I mean, telling her that it was a matter of over-billing.

This is a made up example to be sure, and perhaps not very convincing at that. But the example of musical ungrammaticality that I give now, is authen-tic (but for form’s sake I will withhold the name of the performer – who was a highly acclaimed, extremely popular singer of the 70’s and 80’s). I give below the rst two beats of the rst line of the charaͣam – the nal part of the varͣam (a two part composition rendered at the beginning of a concert) in Beegađaa composed by Viiͣai Kuppayyer.

(11) Musical demonstration

Beegađaa [ 6.59]

Varͣam: Beegađaa: Aadi: Viiͣai Kuppayyer The text: // pa, di pa - ma; pa / ; ma pa - di,...¹⁰⁹

bha ga va: ri

*// pa di Sa, Ri Sa - ni di ni di pa, /; ...

bo: da na

148 Construing meaning: Determining Grammaticality

If the performer had listened to the recording, perhaps, he/she may have frowned at the ungrammaticality of this phrasing. While Carnatic music al-lows a lot of liberty to performers to play around with musical texts, this rendition is clearly ungrammatical. The ungrammaticality arises from the phrasing leading one to interpret it as another raagam, namely Kaamboodi in this case. The ascent and descent of the two raagas in the upper half of the octave are distinctly different.

(12) Musical demonstration (continued)

Beegađaa [ 6.60]

Di pa Sa¹¹⁰ Sa Ni; di pa

Kaamboodi I [ 6.61]

Pa di Sa Sa Ni di pa

Though the ‘ascending’ sequence ‘pa di Sa’ is not perhaps totally ungram-matical for Beegađaa, the ambiguity could have been considerably reduced had the ‘ni’ in the descent been lengthened, a marked feature of the raagam, and the phrase rendered as shown below. The grammaticality of the line will have improved considerably.

(13) Musical demonstration (continued)

Varͣam II (contd.) [ 6.62]

(*)// pa di Sa, Ri Sa - ni; di / pa¹¹¹

I wish to make two important points with this example. Firstly, extempo-rizing on musical texts is a tricky issue, not to be taken on lightly. Secondly, the repair strategy adopted here shifts the focus from the rst half of the phrase, i.e. ‘pa di Sa, Ri Sa’ to the second phrase, i.e. ‘ni , di pa’ reducing the unintended interpretation as Kaamboodi considerably. In other words, just as in language where ambiguity can be resolved sometimes satisfactorily with the help of focus and intonational effects, in Carnatic music too, phrasing and focus (indicated by one of several strategies like emphasis, attack (plucking/

bowing/breath) etc.) can be used to disambiguate musical sequences. How-ever, unlike language, in Carnatic music ambiguity usually signals ungram-maticality/incompetence (unless of course undertaken as a ‘joke’) etc.

I will show, with suitable examples, that several mechanisms are involved in the work of extracting musical meaning from a musical line. I will list the

Evaluating a line of music 149 mechanisms and also show how they work in the following sections. While some of the construals determine grammaticality, some dene aesthetic is-sues which contribute to the construction of meaning in Carnatic music. I shall take up issues pertaining to grammaticality in this chapter and examine issues related to identication of style/aesthetic values in the next chapter.