Orchestration in Indian Music

bhenge poDe aachhe rath (re, ma, dha, dha, ni, dha, pa) bohudoor door (ma , dha, re, re, ga, re re) “komal re” jete habe (dha, ni, sa, ni) He sings these lines and explains that if you think in the Indian style you will never be able to explain it. You will not be able to compose such melody without knowing the western technique. This was a simple example. We can also give an example of a more complex composition. I had composed a song “ei roko prithibir gaaDitaa thamaao”. Here the “sa” is F ei roko (sa, ni, sa) prithibir gaaDitaa thamao ( pa, ni, sa, ga, sa, ni, sa) aami neme jaabo (ni, dha) > chord change here and the “dha” becomes the “sa”. We call it the “relative minor”. Every major chord has a relative. Ex: Cmajor’s relative is A Minor. Relative of Fmajor is D Minor. There is a way to find out the relative minor of a major chord. Salilda sings(in the key of F) sa, ni, dha this “dha” will be our “sa” for the relative minor. How do I go to this relative minor from the major key ? We need to find the dominant 7th of this minor key first in this case the “dha” of Fmajor is “D “ so, we will require the dominant 7th of D minor which is A7. So, to go to D minor key I must go via A7th chord. Salilda now sings (with Antara and orchestra) the full song. The key changes to G major in the second part of the song. Salilda says So, you can see that we went to a different scale. The start was in F Major and now we are in G Major. How did we do that ? This is called harmonic progression. There is a definite way you can move from one key to another. It should be such that it doesn’t sound awkward or strange to ears. It means that there is a progression or a method to do that. For example: in the previous song we went from the key of F major to the key of D minor via the A7th chord. From D minor we went to F# major, then D major and then to G major and from G major we came to Cmajor chord. Now, we need to go from G major. So, we went a full tone from F to G through chord progression. This can not be done without learning and without knowing. Those of you who want to learn orchestration should learn this technique to chord progression. There are many knowledgeable people in Kolkata. You can invite them and they can teach you all this. Those of you who know the Indian “sargam” and are trained in Indian music would find western music relatively simple. However, if you have learnt the western method by learning their staff notation or their “DoReMi” system, this chord progression technique may not be easy. I can identify a wrong note from a distance just by listening and I think that is because I know the Indian music theory. We think in “sa, re, ga, ma...” way which helps to identify a wrong note just by listening. So, if we know the Indian notation system very well, it becomes a lot easier to learn the western system. We understand the movement of music.
So, when the “sa” changes (i.e the key changes) we just think in the Indian system by identifying the “gandhar”or “madhyam” relative to that “Sa”.
Going back to the song “ei roko” we came from F major to D minor and our “Sa” changed to “D”. For us the notes for “amaar swapno bhora” would be “sa, sa, sa, sa, sa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa”.If we follow the western method then we are still in the key of F and the notes would quite complicated ! They would be “dha, dha, dha, dha, dha, dha, ga, ga, ga, ga”. Then the notes in the melody (“ei koolie, mahakaal...”) are “pa, pa, pa, dha, pa, pa, ma, ma, ma, ma, ga,ma, re”. So, if we use D as our “sa” we can write the “sargam” very easily. We can give many such example but we don’t have much time.

The World of Salil Chowdhury