apr 15th, 2011 CE
not being musically blessed, i have no idea about the musicality of the anthem.
but rajan knows what he's talking about, being an expert in music.
is it true that the indian national anthem is blecccch?
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rajan P.Parrikar <parrikar@yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 3:07 AM
Subject: National Anthem or National Disgrace?
To:
http://www.parrikar.org/nibbles/2011/04/14/national-anthem-or-national-disgrace/
From: Rajan P.Parrikar <parrikar@yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 3:07 AM
Subject: National Anthem or National Disgrace?
To:
http://www.parrikar.org/nibbles/2011/04/14/national-anthem-or-national-disgrace/
2 comments:
Rajan has hit it again on the head - Jana Gana Mana is, musically speaking, a piece of composition meant for marching band - totally devoid of any musical nuances of Indian music system. Sri Lanka's Namo Namo Mata is a much reflective of Indian music system. Politically too, it was claimed to have been written in praise of a British King.
The white keys on keyboard instruments are of the notes CDEFGAB which comprise the C Major scale. So a cat walking across the keyboard would be playing the C Major scale unless it paws a few of the black keys also. For comparison, “Doe a Deer” is also in the Major scale and can be played in C Major. A cat sliding across could easily paw the keys C,D,E which would sound like the first three notes of the national Anthem.
The Major scale contains the most resonant of combinations of 7 notes that exist and the ratios of frequencies can be expressed as simple fractions and is the scale one most instinctively recognizes even without any training. Most children’s songs for instance are in Major or Minor scales which contain the same set of notes. (C Major scale has the same notes as A Minor scale; only the “root” note is A instead of C.)
Nearly all hymns and anthems are in Major and Minor scales and in simple unchanging time signatures like 3s and 4s, because their purpose is to elicit an emotional response in masses of people. To do that they must also be able to be appreciated by people without musical training or high levels of musical sophistication, i.e. instinctively, just like kids enjoy stuffing their mouths with sugar but not caviar. You cannot have Tchaikovsky composed pieces here.
There are finer points. What composers of anthems do is to have leading melodies that are simple, but background instrumentation that isn’t. Indian National Anthem too is composed in this way. So while the set of notes in the leading voice is very simple (composed by Tagore?), the background (definitely composed by someone well versed in western classical music theory) is quite sophisticated and it therefore becomes enjoyable at multiple levels. The US National Anthem is another such example.
I don’t know who Rajan Parrikar is so I’m unable choose whether to attribute his line of reasoning to ignorance or malice. I also detest the arrogance (versus competence) of many Indian musicians in general including that schmuck Rehman, but I’ll not go into that too much here.
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