Scale, Music Composition, Tune, Rhythm n Raga.org

Concept of scale

Before we start the session, let us talk about the structure of a 'tune' or the 'melody' itself. Sometimes in a musical piece, The second lines and subsequent lines are not just mindless imitation or repetition of the first lines. There is an elaboration of a theme as the song unfolds. There is a character, a structure and an identity to the song, however vague the concept may sound. (note the pun on the word 'sound' !) If you have grasped this abstract concept, you have almost understood the concept of a 'ragam' (or 'raga' or 'rag') because a ragam is also an embodiment of a particular musical identity

For example, if you heard the song 'Vande Maataram, Shujalaam Shuphalaam...' you can tell that it has its own identity, which is different from the way 'Jana gana mana..' or 'Roop tera mastana ..' sound. This song is in fact, based on a ragam called 'Desh'. How do we forge such special musical identities using a keyboard ? The answer lies in choosing just a SUBSET of keys out of the twelve keys available in an octave (instead of all twelve) and sticking to just this subset of keys while making music. If you used all the keys in the keyboard to compose one song, you may not create anything with an identity. (You will see, as you understand more about music that this statement is strictly not true. There are nice-sounding musical compositions where almost all the keys are used) Let us take an example.

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Let us choose just all the white keys in an octave - that is, use only seven out of the twelve keys. And let us play the keys in any order, even stay on one key for whatever length of time if we choose to do so. Let us allow ourselves to go to the white keys in the octaves below and above the standard octave as well. After a few minutes, you may sense an 'effect', a 'whole-ness' ('Gestalt'!) or a personality to the sound. If you don't believe me, have your friend play the keyboard with only the white keys. Now close your eyes and ask him (or her) to occasionally hit any black key. You can easily tell whenever the black keys are hit, because you are now sensitive to the 'structure' or 'character' produced by the seven white keys. Is there a lower limit on how FEW keys we can choose in our subset and still get by ? If we chose a subset of just three keys (say, the first three white keys) in an octave and limit ourselves to those keys, we see that we don't have much variety to the melodies we can produce.

It may sound like a drum beating. But is devoid of any special melodic personality. In general, (note that this is not an absolute law) one chooses five or six or seven keys out of the twelve keys available in an octave. More about these selection rules later. Once these keys are selected, the corresponding keys in the other octaves are also automatically selected and used in melody making. In the context of Indian music, one has an extra degree of freedom. One can choose one set of keys to go up in frequency in the octave and choose an entirely different set to come down the octave, if we so desire. The key sequence to go up is called 'Arohanam' and the key sequence which forms the descending order is called the 'Avarohanam'. More about it later as well ! Let us now stick to 'symmetric' choices while going up or down. At the risk of sounding repetitive, let me say that you can always decide to be a non-conformist and follow none of these so-called rules and conventions. Music is after all, a creative art and the final criterion is whether it sounds pleasing. How do we select the 'subset' of keys ? Our ancestors have done quite a bit of research on such selection rules and have come up with algorithms. Let us look at the Western music first. The 'Major' Scale is a very typical selection algorithm. This helps you select seven keys in an octave.

The rules are as follows: First key - Choose ANY key in the octave. Second key - Skip the adjacent key to the right, choose the one after that. In effect, you have moved a 'whole tone' from the first key. Remember the concept of 'whole tones' and 'semitones' from the previous chapter. And that the whole tone equals shifting two semitones. Third key - Again, skip the adjacent key to the right, choose the second one (again, you have moved a 'whole tone') Fourth key - select the adjacent key. (you have moved a 'half tone' or a semitone) Fifth key - Skip the next key, but select the one after that. Once again, you have have moved a full tone. Sixth key - Skip the next key and select the one after that. Seventh key - Select the adjacent key. In short, your frequency selection is: Select a key and then move, Whole tone - whole tone - half tone - whole tone - whole tone - whole tone - half tone

If you started with the usual C key, the first white key, you will see that the 'C Major scale' is simply all white keys. This is a very 'major' scale, really, with a lot of popular compositions. And in the process of introducing this algorithm, we have also defined the term 'scale', which is simply a sequence of keys. Also, the algorithm 'wraps around itself'. That is, if you started out with the F key for example, and created the F Major Scale, you will spill over to the next octave. But that is okay, because you can fill up the rest of your scale by starting out with the F key of the PREVIOUS octave. That is, with this algorithm, you will always select seven keys in an octave. A question to ask is - will we get unique sequences using this algorithm every time we start off with a new key ? Or is there a possibility of our sequence repeating itself for two different starting keys, I.e, is the C Major scale different from D Major and are there twelve unique Major scales ? (I will leave this as an exercise for the very enthusiastic reader !)

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