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Chords Section in newtfmpage/Dhool

Topic started by MS (@ 129.252.25.241) on Thu Apr 17 01:02:28 EDT 2003.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

In an effort to make dhool a li'l more comprehensive, we are adding a section "chords" for some songs. This table is presently hidden since we have chords only for a few songs. DFers can mail their own set of chords for the songs they have played / written in the format suggested in the Chords conventions page. Take a look at the way the page is arranged and send your chords to andholanam@hotmail.com. Try to make it as complete and accurate as possible including the interludes. This will help others who are searching for chords to use them. Appropriate credits shall be given to those who send the files.

(1) Paatu paadava
(2) Janani Janani
(3) Kuzaloodhum kaNNanukku
(4) nila adhu
(5) ponnondru kaNden
(6) vaseegara
and other chord files are available here - http://dhool.com/chords/articles.htm

some conventions:

http://dhool.com/chords/chords_conventions.htm

BTW, all these files were created by me and pardon the errors if any.

MS

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Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: Swamiji (@ 198.102.112.18) on: Wed May 14 15:47:58 EDT 2003
  
  Rjay,
  You are right. Everything is learnt at some stage. There is a great deal of conscious thought process involved in creating art. Music is no exception.
  What I meant by "talented few", is that there are some who are able to create something with no prior knowledge of the art. They perceive "learning the basics" as just one step forward in knowing things which they have always known! That is what I meant "comes naturally". There is conscious thinking / learning involved of course, but that comes later as one progress to develop the skill, and experiment. When you ask these people "How did you learn to do this?" They will not say "I thought X and Y made XY" and so on...they will simply say "It all just happened!!" - because like you say, it is subconcious thought.
  Of course, people like Bach did follow strict rules which was consciously learnt. Some of their "playfulness" as seen in their music is for sure a result of conscious thinking.
  
  
  
  
• From: Sridhar Seetharaman (@ 192.147.58.6) on: Wed May 14 16:15:10 EDT 2003
  
  I have been trying the techniques laid out by RJAY. It has been extremely productive. I got involved with RJAY a little ago after I attended a workshop by "Guitar Prasanna". He listened to my compositions and said that there are too many ideas and to make a listener comprehend these needs a better structure. So, he asked me to limit my ideas and explore. Even though I thought that I understood what he meant, I realized that I was lost.
  
  I called up RJAY. I had no clue that he was working on this. He suggested me to try an exercise the next morning. He asked me to take any phrase, improvise on it and come out with complete pallavi, anupallavi and charanam structure. He also told me not to think about any beat, style, raga etc.
  
  So the next morning, I tried this on my train journey to work. I took a phrase "Cricket paarthaa jollyaa irukkum" and decided to improvise (I was right by the door standing). Wow! I got an entire melody in a matter of few minutes. And also the tune was set in rock&roll style without my knowledge.
  
  I also realized that the melody was flowing without any me being critical.
  
  Looks like at some point in my life, I had associated Rock&Roll with "Jolly".
  
  RJAY can give more explanation on this process. But this was quite a revelation and I have been practcing and exploring this ever since.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• From: other_side (@ 209.166.128.18) on: Wed May 14 16:16:45 EDT 2003
  
  great article rjay.
  Please do post these kind of great articles often.... :)
  
  
• From: rjay (@ 156.77.105.123) on: Wed May 14 16:28:26 EDT 2003
  
  Nice to see lot of thinking outside the box.
  
  UV, that was inspiring example of how you learned to play. I learned to play bulbulthara (a numbered keyboard string instrument) when I was
  12 or 13, a neighbour taught me a song through numbers. After playing a few songs by numbers for an year, I started figuring out the numbers for myself.
  
  Regarding swarapadithufying (notating on the fly), I learnt from some cinema express interview that this can be done and also Lakshmi narayanan of Classical Ilayaraja fame mentioning that he notated a song without playing any instrument. I simplified the problem by first learning to identify the first and fifth and then the third of the interval. I would start slowly on a song - sing its first note, establish its place and then I would sing the next note in that song and try to 'step down' or 'step up' to it! After painful months, it became easier and easier.
  
  Slowly you begin to see patterns, for instance, songs (pallavis and charanams) start and end with a stable note (Sa, Pa).
  Interestingly, once I started focussing on the skeletal melody, notating becomes much more easy, because most of the notes in a melody are filler notes (repetitions, neighbours, intervallic jumps) that can be extrapolated from the structural notes!
  
  You have clearly brought in the distinction between being able to do something vs being able to verbalize or articulate how it is done.
  I am not trying to even suggest that anything can be learnt by conscious effort alone. I am saying that once you put some conscious effort, subconscious kicks in and starts its nonverbal efforts.
  
  Swamiji, you are absolutely right. Some people take onto some ideas/things more easily than others. I like your expression of 'knowing things that they already know before'. I only try to convince that 'everyone' knows!
  If you break the problem of creating a melody into
  simpler steps, anyone can compose.
  
  Another thing I have seen is that once you force yourself to consciously 'dig through the shit' and show your seriousness in doing a task, by doing it day in and day out for a few days or weeks, the subconscious kicks in and starts picking out patterns. This is when you surprise yourself with your own creativity. Around November I set myself the task of starting the day with a half hour period where I would compose a full songs tune (pallavi, anupallavi and charanam). I forced myself to do that for two weeks and I could see exponential improvement, but only after the first awkward week!
  
  
  
• From: MS (@ 129.252.25.241) on: Wed May 14 17:39:00 EDT 2003
  
  I shall soon write some of the ways I have come up with for improving. This thread is now taking a different and more informative direction.
  
  
• From: vijay (@ 68.16.25.50) on: Wed May 14 18:00:40 EDT 2003
  
  Rjay, I am also more interested in knowing about how MDs go about notating "Thaala nadais". For example if you take "Bharathi kannamma neeyadi chinamma" song, you hear a short Tabla piece just preceding the charanam and leading to the first line. How would you go about notating such pieces if you were the MD and if you had to communicate it to the percussionist? Do you use syllables(Konnakkol) exclusively or are there standard written formats? It is easier when the rhythm is the same from start to finish as in "Muthu mani maalai". The MD has to just say 4/4 and leave the place :-)
  
  Also if you are going to delve into melodic structures I request you to take up some MSV songs as well. You can start with something simple like "Malarndhum Malaraadha" and move onto songs like "Thendralil aadum koondhalai kanden" or "Nalai indha velai paarthu" etc.
  
  That would open up another special area-which is thinking and effectively communicating gamakams(to the singer or instrumentalist).
  
  I would also suggest that you can revive your Composing secrets thread below to continue.
  http://www.newtfmpage.com/forum/27664.12.45.43.html
  
  This thread could be exclusively used for chords purposes. That way it would help seggregate info better.
  
  
• From: Kupps (@ 203.199.209.101) on: Thu May 15 01:30:44 EDT 2003
  
  MS it would be more helpful if you could post the links of RJay's sequels "composing secrets" in the page http://dhool.com/chords/articles.htm
  
  
  
• From: rjay (@ 156.77.105.123) on: Thu May 15 09:10:03 EDT 2003
  
  Vijay
  
  That was good suggestion, I will continue there.
  
  rjay
  
  
• From: (@ 216.210.128.249) on: Thu May 15 12:38:26 EDT 2003
  
  MS & Srikanth:
  please keep posting your articles on the chords; those are very useful to beginners like me and RJay's composing articles will complement these (with the "melody" part)
  
  
  
• From: MS (@ 129.252.25.241) on: Thu May 15 21:24:36 EDT 2003
  
  rjay:
  
  I think some of your posts should be combined and shaped into articles. You keep writing here or in the composing secrets thread ( I suggest to continue here since this is multipurpose). If you can send your write ups, to me I can put them up in dhool for everybody to read. Send them to andholanam@hotmail.com
  
  
• From: rjay (@ 156.77.105.122) on: Fri May 16 09:32:06 EDT 2003
  
  MS
  
  I will work on combining them into a good set of coherent articles with Q&A sections.
  
  Until then, I will continue in the other thread because that topic is closer to what I am writing.
  
  Thanks
  rjay
  
  
• From: rjay (@ 156.77.105.122) on: Fri May 16 09:53:27 EDT 2003
  
  Here is a page with good lessons and examples on piano playing. Talks about basic chord progressions, but focusses more on what to do with a given chord progression - how to create
  different patterns on the same chord progressions to create variety.
  
  http://users.wireweb.net/green/pianolessons.htm
  
  
• From: MS (@ 129.252.25.241) on: Sat May 17 22:41:14 EDT 2003
  
  Update:
  ------
  
  (1) Fourth of Srikanth's articles added.
  
  (2) The chords for "mounamaana nEram..iLa manadhilenna baaram" have been added.
  
  (3) Ram's isaiOviyam - 4 and 5 parts linked.
  
  
• From: MS (@ 129.252.25.241) on: Fri May 23 14:42:39 EDT 2003
  
  Hi all,
  
  I have added a new section for the chords of other languages in dhool. Some of these songs are multilingual. e.g. amaaaye sannaga in telugu is achacho punnagai in tamil, Oh priya priya is avail in both languages. I think this will kinda help us build a bank.
  
  http://dhool.com/chords/chords_other.htm
  
  
• From: Basheer (@ 81.51.184.44) on: Sat May 24 16:30:10 EDT 2003
  
  Bravo,
  
  I am a musician & i have a tamil music group in Paris(France).
  It's great to see those Tamil songs chords 'cause
  it simplifies our works !
  I regret I do not have more new songs,It would be very helpfull...
  Nevertheless I sincerely thank for those Contributors to do those works.
  
  Best regards
  Basheer Mohamed
  
  

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