Rhythm

Music is one of the greatest expressions of our mind! While the sur(musical notes) in a song takes flights to different heights in our hearts and minds, beats are something which express the “now” of the song. A sur is a summation of different harmonics of a frequency. In technical terms sur is an animal of frequency-domain. Shruti is defined as a smallest change in frequency that our ear can perceive, that our ear is sensitive to. There are 22 such shruti’s out of which a subset of 12 notes are used in an octave. Likewise, beats/taal is an animal of time-domain. Its measured in beats per minute. If we think what is the smallest change in beats in our day to day life it appears that the dhak-dhak of heart beat is one, daily sunrise or sunset is a slower version, the slower than that is our birthday and slower than that is our whole life, which is just one beat (Thak). On the other hand if the beats are played faster than the perception of an ear then it becomes a sur, a musical note. Interestingly, its all perceivable to the mind.

Rhythm has a certainty i.e. you know in advance when next beat is going to happen. Its like knowing the future in advance. What goes on in the mind of a percussionist when s/he plays the instrument? S/he’s playing the instrument ‘now’ and at the same time preparing for the next beat. There are 3 parts to a beat viz. what, how and when. ‘What’ expresses the syllable/bol of it e.g dhin, tak etc. ‘How’ operates on the quality of the sound of each syllable that a percussionist produces. ‘When’ is the heart of it which is the composition of a bunch of beats that s/he repeats to create a cycle of a rhythm. A slight change in bunching of beats changes the whole meaning of the rhythm. This you all have noticed when somebody tells your own mobile number in a different way. E.g. rhythm of a phone number 98860 98860 v/s 98 86 09 88 60 v/s 988 609 886 0. The number is same but if uttered in a different way sounds like an unknown number. In the cycle of one pattern the percussionists attempt is to break the pattern and present the variety to the audiences. His job is to wake up the dozing audience by breaking their pattern that they carry through in the song.

Rhythm intertwines rules and exceptions. When mind is not attached to any rule it remains alert to exceptions. With every exception it doesn’t create a new rule. Similarly life is about a beautiful rhythm. Life is about exceptions not about rules. Every moment is an exception. Just that we have to break both, the old rules and the process of creating new rules in our heads. If you see one person in a group of people who cannot clap in rhythm and you are uncomfortable about it, its not problem with him, it’s with you. S/he was blessed with no-rhythm and you were blessed with rhythm. Its not chosen by you or me. It is, it just “is”.

Are you observing your heart beat, now?