India’s classical music entered American and European popular culture in the late 1950s and early 1960s through performances of Hindustani (North Indian classical) music by sitarist Ravi Shankar and sarodist Ali Akbar Khan. These great musicians performed with tabla players who dazzled American and European audiences by alternately playing and vocalizing intricate percussion patterns during their solo passages. Musicians and non-musicians alike were amazed that these drummers could voice such precise patterns at blazing speed, and play them with equal precision on their drums. And they appeared to be enjoying themselves enormously.
Indian music enjoyed a surge of popularity in the West during this period, and Karnatak (South Indian classical) musicians joined their northern cousins at festivals and on concert tours. It became clear that spoken rhythm patterns were not just North Indian; apparently all Indian drummers could speak what they played.
It was not long before European and American musicians and students began to seek out teachers from whom they could learn the sophisticated rhythms that were delighting them in the concerts. And soon colleges and universities in the West were incorporating “world music” into their curricula, bringing visiting artists from India, Africa, and Indonesia to teach their music.
For many young musicians, looking beyond Europe and America for musical information and inspiration meant going to Asia and Africa for direct contact with the source. As one of these musical pilgrims, I traveled to Madurai, in the heart of Tamil Nadu, India, during a year-abroad program in 1970 under the aegis of the Great Lakes Colleges Association. There I began my study of the mrdangam, South Indian music’s principal percussion instrument. In my very first lesson under the legendary court musician and teacher C. S. Sankarasivam, I was introduced to the rhythm language, called solkaṭṭu, that is the subject of this book.
The Tamil word solkaṭṭu means “words bound together,” which is an elegant definition. The “words” are more or less percussive-sounding single syllables, nearly all of which begin with consonants. They are “bound together” on two levels: first, into combinations that comprise phrases, for example ta ka di mi. The phrases are then combined into larger patterns and designs bound together by meters, called tāḷa. These cyclic meters are counted by recurring sets of hand gestures: claps, waves, and finger counts. Speaking such patterns while counting a tāḷa with the hands is solkaṭṭu.
While a detailed account of tāḷa is not necessary for this introduction to solkaṭṭu, it will be helpful to know what a tāḷa is (and is not). I have been using the word meter as an English equivalent in this introduction. In a broad sense, meter is a useful translation for tāḷa; each is cyclic and regular, and each can exist within a range of tempi. But there are two differences. First, a tāḷa lacks the internal accent structure that characterizes meters in Western music. For example, 3/4 meter carries the following accent structure:
strong weak weak strong weak weak
A corresponding three-beat tāḷa, tiśra jāti ēka tāḷa, is counted with the palm and fingers of one hand against the other:
clap, pinky finger, ring finger, clap, pinky finger, ring finger
But there is no implied accent, even on the clapped first beat. Rhythmic accents in Karnatak music are generated by musical phrases and the processes applied to them. The first lessons in this book will demonstrate this point.
Next, a tāḷa can be much longer than any Western meter. Many of the tāḷas in the scheme of thirty-five described below are quite long; the longest cycle is twenty-nine beats. At the slow end of the possible range of tempi, about thirty beats per minute, one cycle of this tāḷa takes nearly a minute, which is an extremely long time by the standards of Western music.
Uses of Solkaṭṭu in South Indian Music
The patterns and designs of any Karnatak music that makes use of tāḷa can be expressed in solkaṭṭu. In other words, whether a passage is sung, played, danced, or drummed in a meter, its underlying rhythmic pattern can be spoken in syllables along with the particular tāḷa’s hand gestures. Let us look at three ways solkaṭṭu is used in Karnatak music: in drumming; in bharata nāṭyam, or classical dance; and as a compositional and analytic tool for singers and melodic instrumentalists.
SOLKAṬṬU IN KARNATAK DRUMMING
As I said earlier, I was introduced to solkaṭṭu in my first mrdangam lesson. Each stroke on the drum had a corresponding spoken syllable; the first four were ta, di, tom, and nam. The first lessons progressed by inserting other syllables among these four in order to build longer patterns bounded by the original four syllables:
ta - ki ṭa
di - ki ṭa
tom - ki ṭa
nam - ki ṭa, then
ta - ki ṭa ta ka
di - ki ṭa ta ka
tom - ki ṭa ta ka
nam - ki ṭa ta ka, and so on
My teacher taught each new pattern first with the syllables, his hands clapping a simple, regular beat. Once I understood the spoken pattern, he showed me the corresponding strokes on the mrdangam. After the beginning exercises, every pattern was in a particular tāḷa. Although there was never a one-to-one correspondence of syllable with stroke, over time the relationship between the two became clear.
The arrangement of strokes and the arrangement of syllables are parallel: the former follows a logic of the hand, while the latter follows a logic of spoken sound. In other words, played patterns are designed so that the fingers can execute them deftly. Spoken patterns are designed so that they can be voiced with equal dexterity. Throughout my training, I learned literally everything in two forms, spoken and played.
All of the Karnatak percussion instruments are taught in this manner. Some drummers become so expert in reciting solkaṭṭu that they perform it in their concerts, either during their solos, like the tabla players that amazed us in the early days, or as secondary percussionists in a performance ensemble. Solkaṭṭu performed in a concert setting is called konakkol.
SOLKAṬṬU IN BHARATA NĀṬYAM
South India’s classical dance, bharata nāṭyam, uses solkaṭṭu in several different ways to create a rich rhythmic texture. First, dancers learn their movement patterns, called aḍavu, using spoken patterns in very much the same way as drummers, though with somewhat different sets of syllables. A particular phrase, spoken with the tāḷa, indicates a corresponding set of foot and hand movements.
These movement patterns are arranged into set compositions, called jati and tīrmanam, that are accompanied by an ensemble of musicians. The ensemble includes a naṭṭuvanar, or dance master, who accompanies some of the jati and tīrmanam by speaking corresponding compositions in solkaṭṭu while playing the aḍavu pattern on a set of hand cymbals. The naṭṭuvanar uses yet another set of syllables, similar to those used by drummers. The solkaṭṭu composition performed by the dance master often creates rhythmic tension with the aḍavu pattern, though the two begin and end together.
The dance ensemble also includes a singer and a mrdangam player. If we keep in mind that any pattern sung or played in a tāḷa can be represented by solkaṭṭu, a bharata nāṭyam tīrmanam comprises five such layers: the song text, the naṭṭuvanar’s voice and cymbal patterns, the dancer’s footwork, and the mrdangam strokes.
SOLKAṬṬU IN MELODIC COMPOSITION AND ANALYSIS
Singers and instrumental players of Karnatak music borrow rhythmic designs from drummers for use in their svara kalpana improvisation. This kind of improvisation uses the Indian solfege syllables sa ri ga ma pa da ni to create melodic passages that resolve at a specific point within a particular song. Many musicians end such improvised passages with rhythmic designs that they have learned and practiced ahead