Swara - Special Forms of Swaras

Special Forms of Swaras

In the context of Indian classical music some specific forms of swara-s fulfill the technique of playing a note. Such ornamentic (Sanskrit: Alankar or Alankara) in Indian classical music is important for the proper rendition and essential to create the beauty of a raga. Some notes are linked with their preceding or succeeding notes; these linked notes are called grace notes or Kan-swars. Kan-swars deal with so called touch notes. Kan-swars can be executed vocally and on instruments in three ways:

1. using a swift short glide (meend or ghaseet), 2. as a Sparsh (technique of playing a note on a plucked stringed instrument, the movement of notes is ascending) and 3. as a Krintan (the opposite of a Sparsh, movement of notes is descending).

Andolit swars are raga-specific notes that are oscillated within the Andolan alankar. The specification of the Andolan alankar is the oscillation (swing) from a fixed note touching the periphery of an adjacent note. By this oscillation the shrutis (microtones) are touched which exist in between.

Read more about this topic:  Swara

Famous quotes containing the words special and/or forms:

    For universal love is as special an aspect as carnal love or any of the other kinds: all forms of mental and spiritual activity must be practiced and encouraged equally if the whole affair is to prosper. There is no cutting corners where the life of the soul is concerned....
    John Ashbery (b. 1927)

    The strongest and most effective [force] in guaranteeing the long-term maintenance of ... power is not violence in all the forms deployed by the dominant to control the dominated, but consent in all the forms in which the dominated acquiesce in their own domination.
    Maurice Godelier (b. 1934)