Resources & Courses

Courses, residencies, workshops and lectures have been conducted at various levels which have given participants a holistic view of “Melody, Harmony & Melharmony” in various cities/institutions including:

Summer College Credit Course at Eastman School of Music, Rochester NY in August 2015 by Prof Robert Morris and Ravikiran
Arts Wisconsin’s 4-week course in Madison, WI, in uly 2014 for Strings, Woodwind, Brass and Piano/Keyboard by Steve Kurr and Vanitha Suresh
Melharmony residency 2015-16 by Ravikiran for Middleton and Sun Prairie School Districts, WI (See video)
Lectures in numerous venues such as University of Colorado, Boulder, University of Georgia etc.

Course Topics/Modules

While courses vary based on their relevance to participants (professional level musicians/composers/academicians – Beginners, Intermediate and Advanced level collegiate and high school students/ music aficianados), they will draw from the topics below:

Essentials

Similarities between diverse music systems such as Western and Indian Classical
Contrast between melody-centric and harmony-centric approaches – making successive vs simultaneous combinations work successfully
Understanding melody-centric approach through Raga (scale/mode)
ABCD of Melharmony – harmony with melodic rules – harmony with melodic rules
Triadic Harmony, Ostinato, Imitation etc in the Melharmonic context
Possible chords vs appropriate chords based on melodic rules
Arranging simple melodic pieces Melharmonically
Composing original pieces applying Melharmonic principles

Extras

Ornamentation and oscillations in ragas
Simple melodic exercises in a few modes/ragas
Introduction to the concept of Cyclic Rhythm (Tala)
Rhythmic patterns and pulsar intricacies that can enrich compositions
Melharmony – Scope
How does Melharmony enrich harmony-centric systems

Exercises

On the above including composing and arranging exercises

Execution

Rendering simple melharmonic pieces (esp. for groups/ orchestras)

Performing

Melharmony concerts by Western Classical Symphonies, Chamber Orchestras, Quartets/Quintets, Jazz and World ensembles as well as Youth Symphonies & School Orchestras have enthralled listeners across the world. The pieces are typically scored with Western Notation (though individual artists have opted for other styles on occasions).

Holistic approach

The most successful orchestras and melharmonic performers often adopt a holistic approach towards the music – not only rely on the notation but also place adequate importance on audio/videos whenever available, since notation could at times features ornamentation and graces unique to certain systems of music not seen in other cultures. For instance, the incredible varieties of oscillation seen in South Indian Carnatic system is a study by itself, which can be challenging to notate using existing Western symbols of slurs/expressions. Ravikiran has made several breakthroughs in this area in recent times even with software like Finale but subtle oscillations demand developing newer notational tools for precise communication and execution. Here is where audio helps a lot, especially for string artists who can execute many nuances by exploring techniques which may not be common in their language.

Rhythmic challenges

Similarly, Melharmonic pieces sometimes explore melodic/rhythmic concepts which may be intuitively easy in some cultures but may seem complicated and counter intuitive to others. But as the video illustrates, these can be overcome easily.

Rhythmic Concepts

Diverse systems of music express rhythm it in distinctive ways though one will generally find that beats of 3 and 4 are commonly used. In the West, Time Signatures of 4×4, 8×4, 3×4, 6×4 etc are standard but composers have also increasingly gravitated towards signatures such as 7×4 and more recently experimented with non-standard patterns as well. Western Classical often uses rhythm subtly, not accenting the beats in every measure or two throughout a piece, as opposed to many other systems which are more obviously beat-centric.

Systems like Indian Classical use time cycles (tala) in addition to time signatures with 5 types of beat durations (pulse/gati/nadai) of 3, 4, 5, 7 and 9.
In North Indian music, these cycles are often expressed by syllabic patterns usually highlighted by percussion instruments like tabla.
The Carnatic system employs a very systematic and sophisticated approach to rhythm and has several sets of talas such as 108 talas, 72 melakarta talas, chhanda talas (based entirely on singular poetic meters employed by 16th century composer Arunagirinathar)
But the most popular is the 35-tala system which is based on 5 variations of 7 principal talas, proposed in the 1500s, which are expressed through beats, finger counts and wave of the hand (rendered always by vocalists and often by the listeners).
Prominent Talas: There are hundreds of talas ranging from 3 units per cycle to 128 units per cycle but the following four are most common:

1. Adi – 8 units per cycle: (A composite of 4+2+2 with beat durations (pulse rates) of 4, 3, 5, 7 and 9).

2. Roopakam – 3 units (3/4 again of beat durations as above.

3. Mishra Chapu – 7 units (3+2+2/6+4+4)

4. Khanda Chapu – 5 units (2+1+2/4+2+4)

The pulse/beat durations are often vocalised/rendered percussively like the patterns in examples below:

3 – ta ki Ta

4 – ta ka dhi mi

5 – ta ka ta ki Ta

7 – ta ki Ta ta ka dhi mi

9 – ta ka dhi mi ta ka ta ki Ta

Western musicians and composers will often find that a time cycle may not always correspond to the Western Measure but may sometimes be the equivalent of 2 or more measures.
They will also find that different talas even of the same number of beats could have varying accent points, which influence the feel of the composition. For instance, three talas of 8 units have been partitioned as 4+2+2 or 3+2+3 or 5+1+2 within the 35-tala set.

Raga Basics

00:00

Scores

Samples Scores (Full/Excerpts) of pieces for Symphony/Chamber/String Orchestras, Quartets/Quintets/ as well as Solo Caprices and Jazz/World groups. Several pieces also have alternative arrangements & others can be re-arranged, as required.

Master of the MountainÂ - (Symphony/Chamber Orchestra) - premiered by Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Madison
Climatrix - (Symphony/Chamber Orchestras) symbolises the need to Combat Climate Crisis even as it traverses through the 72 principal scales of Carnatic Classical Music (premiered by Middleton Community Symphony, WI)
A Mouthful of Universe - String Orchestra/Quintet inspired by Bach, Oottukkadu Venkata Kavi & Gustav Holst (Premiered by Apollo Chamber Players, Houston)
Padumanabha (Strings/Quintets) - Ideal for both School & Professional levels
Ravikiran - Caprice 1 (Violin Solo)
Snow PrincessÂ - (Symphony/Chamber Orchestra) - premiered by Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Madison