Music Theory Chapter 2

Harshal

Page 1

11/14/2009

Sound The sound is not just the sound! The atmosphere around us is made up of minute air particles. These air particles vibrate at certain speed due to some collision of two things. This creates the sound. This vibrating particle goes to some level up, come to original position, then goes to some level down, and then again come back to original position. This is called one cycle.

These vibrating particles collide on the neighboring group of particles, and thus the sound propagates. These vibrating particles, when are near to our ears, our ears can sense these vibrations & you search for the source of the sound! But then how can we distinguish between sound of Guitar? Song of Lata Didi? Song of Britany Spears? Speech of Bill Clinton? Voice of your father and mother? Sa, Re, Ga and Ma?

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Properties of sound Frequency: Frequency is the number of cycles per second. The frequency of each Swar is different, and that is why we can identify Sa, Re, Ga, etc. The frequency of Sa is 240, while that of Re is 270. Volume: The volume is the altitude of sound. If volume is lower, the sound is week.

Harshal

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Page 2

11/14/2009

Type: The type of sound is very peculiar property of it. Due to it, we can distinguish sounds from Guitar, Tabala, Harmonium, Lata Didi, Michel Jackson, etc.

But friends, do not go into deep of these properties. This much basic introduction is sufficient for the time being! Origin of 7 Swars Long Long ago, the music consisted of only 4 Swars viz. Sa, Re, Ga and Ma. But, some Gurus found that when a female singer sings “Sa Re Ga Ma”, it sound a bit higher pitch(frequency) than the male singer’s “Sa Re Ga Ma”. So 4 new Swars were added & named as “Pa Dha Ni Sa” ( This “Sa” is of double frequency of the previous “Sa” ). Later all these Swars got combined into 1 octave. And after that few more Swars were get added. Ideally, we can have Swas of each frequency ranging from 20 to 20000 ( audible to Humans ). But, our ears can not differenciate clearly between the closer notes ( eg 20 and 22, or 240 and 241, or 380 and 383 ). So we created “Swars” at specific frequencies only. So in addition to these 7 Swars, we added 5 more notes, called either “Komal”(in Hindi)/Flat(in English) or “Tivra”(in Hindi)/Sharp(in English), depending on its parent (“Shuddha”(in Hindi)/Pure(in English) ) note. So, we added: Komal Re ( between Sa and Re ) => Lower than Re Komal Ga ( between Re and Ga ) => Lower than Ga Tivra Ma ( between Ma and Pa ) => Higher(Sharper) than Ma Komal Dha ( between Pa and Dha ) => Lower than Dha Komal Ni ( between Dha and Ni ) => Lower than Ni Octave is called as “Saptak” in Hindi. There are 3 types of octaves: 1) Lower octave 2) Middle octave: Used very often

Harshal

Page 3

11/14/2009

3) Higher octave While singing or playing any instrument, the performer uses these 3 octaves. He can also use, depending upon his/her capabilities, the more lower or more higher octaves! - Harshal.