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Rhythm
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The
‘Layla’ Riff to Todi –
click here for audio clip
This piece is a musical exploration of the intersection
between the riff to Clapton’s ‘Layla’
and the raga Todi. I heard the ‘Layla’
riff suddenly one morning as I was practising Todi
sargams (‘sargam’ refers to the notes
in Indian music - sa, re, ga, ma etc – and
are constantly used in these compositions).
Dotara
–
click
here for audio clip >>
A song in raga Brindabani Sarang emerging from the
similarity, to my ears, between a hillbilly phrase
played on a guitar and the sound of the dotara,
the musical instrument used by Bauls, or wandering
mendicant singers in Bengal, devotees of Krishna.
The dhunuri, an implement used to fluff up cotton
for quilts and pillows, was a last-minute addition
to the song. On one of the final days of mixing,
I spotted a dhunuri-man, Mohammad Shoaib, outside
the studio, and rented it to play the constant twang
you hear on the song, a sound once familiar in Calcutta’s
lanes
Summertime
– click
here for audio clip
My original title for this was ‘Malkauns in
Summertime.’ The pentatonic blues scale, which
resembles, or is identical to, ragas like Malkauns
and Jog, is in this instance used to enter the raga
Malkauns via Gershwin, and vice versa. The only
element alien to Malkauns here is the introduction
of the fifth (pancham).
Shree
in Two Keys – click
here for audio clip
A twilight raga of some complexity, rendered in
two keys, taking advantage of the clusters of chromatic
notes around the tonic (sa) in the raga, and the
emphasis given to the re flat as a sort of competitor
with the tonic.
Moral
Education – click
here for audio clip
A song that is based on, and refers to, the illustrated
English-language charts sold on pavements and sometimes
hung up in classrooms in municipal schools for the
instruction of children. The song attempts to be
true to the content, the intent, and the grammatical
peculiarities of the charts.
Freewheeling
Jog – click
here for audio clip
A raga, Jog, which is basically a pentatonic with
an extra chromatic note, and which closely matches
and is deeply related to the blues scale, sung here,
using sargams or the names of Indian notes, in a
freewheeling blues context without deviating from
the classical norms of the raga.
Trucker – click
here for audio clip
This song borrows lines found on the backs of trucks
in India – ‘Buri nazar wale tera muh
kala’, which is a curse directed to competing
drivers and potential overtakers meaning, ‘You
with the evil eye, may your face be blackened’;
and ‘OK – Ta Ta’ to vehicles legitimately
going past. To which I’ve added a couple of
lines, ‘Bhali nazar wale tera muh ujala’;
or ‘You with the benign eye, may your face
be radiant.’ The other line’s in English.
All
India Radio – click
here for audio clip
Early on during this project, the tune of the All
India Radio theme came back to me, but redrawn in
the raga Marwa. So it was not so much the original
tune but my reinvention of it that was echoing in
my head; and I’d set it instinctively to Marwa
perhaps because this beautiful raga is sung in the
early evening - and early evening, at six o’
clock, is when I usually used to hear, from childhood
onward, that mysterious theme tune, announcing that
radio services were to resume once more.
Berlin
–click
here for audio clip
The idea for this song came to me soon after I moved
to Berlin to live there for a few months. What set
it off were the sounds the underground train, the
U-bahn, made when I got on to it. There was a hum
when the train stopped, then a voice said ‘Einsteigen
bitte’, or ‘Please enter’; then
there was a warning signal comprising two notes,
a red light flashing before the doors closed, and
the voice saying ‘Zuruckbleiben bitte,’
or ‘Please stand back.’ Once the train
resumed its journey, there was a hum that covered
a whole octave, from sa to sa (the tonic in Indian
music). The two notes of the warning signal, in
relation to this tonic, were, I realised, ma and
pa (the fourth and fifth of Indian music). I decided
to put this into the song, as well as the name ‘Krumme
Lanke’, the last stop on my line.
Motz
– click
here for audio clip
This is the name of a paper sold in Berlin by unemployed
and homeless people; something like the Big Issue
in Britain. Motz itself is named after a street
called Motzstrasse, once a centre of left-wing activity
in Berlin. One day during my three months in that
city, a man, as usual, got on the U-bah train I
was on, and made a little speech in a sing-song
voice before approaching the commuters to sell the
paper. That speech, and especially the detached,
rehearsed sing-song in which it was rendered, reminded
me of the tune of a disco song I’d overheard
a while ago; later, I found out the sort of things
these people said in their speeches from a German
friend. This little song is a reimagining and reconstruction
of that speech and plea, as well as an attempt to
recapture that unexpected association in my mind,
upon hearing it, with disco music.
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