Lesson: 2 - Still in Preliminaries !

Hi All,

Unlike other subjects, music is predominantly a matter of “feeling” .

All of us already “feel” the music, but only the degree of extent of feeling varies, that’s all.

So let us concentrate on some of these feelings and let us apply the “Differentiation” technique :

Take Chinna Kannan Azhaikkiran song. In the beginning, the flute states “Chinna kannan Azhaikkiraan” . Then followed by Dr Balamurali Krishna stating that sentence. (click below to listen!)



You already feel the difference between a flute and Dr BMK’s voice. Don’t’ you ! That’s all enough to state that ”there are difference between voice and an instrument ! “

Similarly there are differences between various instruments, various voices..etc. Same china kannan if sung by SJanaki, you differentiate that ! Similarly, a flute varies from Guitar from violin etc….

Certain thing characterize these differences and without even knowing the terminology we are consciously or unconsciously aware of this fact !

Aware and Keep on developing this differentiation capability . That’s the basic skill required for developing musical capabilities !

Next thing, listen to “Thulli Thulli…” of Chippikkul Muthu (or Suvvi Suvvi of Swathi Muthyam ) Initially, SPB makes some Aalaap like “Aaaa Aaaa" (click below to listen!)



His voice travels to high pitch, drop down, goes bottom of his voice, picking up slowly raising and again reaching top…

So some range of sound level he is showing in that song…

OK. You feel this also…! What else ! So even with the same voice, the song is made up of some travel between various levels of very low to very high…

Keep on developing this differentiation capability also to find the high and low as well as the relative difference feeling !

Now, take the case of “Anne Anne” song. A heavy low voice isn’t it ! (click below to listen!)




Then you listen & feel the IR voice in any other song, the pitch which appears somewhat above that Anne Anne . isn’t it…!.

Then compare with SPB, SJanaki, and the shrieking piece of ‘Thendrale Paatezhudhu.." of Swarnalatha…. !

If you are asked to draw a horizontal line and allocate some range for each of these singers from left end to right end, you can easily do that ….

With some overlapping….In some order ….

Same way you can differentiate the range that can be covered by various instruments, from bass guitar, violin, flute etc ….

Its all about the feeling and most of the time your feelings are right ! In a scale of say 100 %, each of these voices or instruments cover say 30 to 60% only, and the starting and ending point differs for these ranges.

One good instrument cover all these ranges is the Piano or the Keyboard.

To summarise, following differentiation is understood :

-Difference between a Voice and an Instrument

-Difference between the high and low level in the same instrument / voice

-Difference & Comparison between the range that can be handled by different voices/ instruments and their relation

We are already doing these differentiation; only thing required is to consciously increase these differentiating skills.

Western Classical music writing system has all the terminologies and methods to cover and represent the above voice ranges.

Knowing the above subtle differences helps in identifying the right singer or right instrument for the right song/ situation !

IR’s ingenuity of selecting the right kind of instruments and voices based on the range requirement is well known!

In a good music composition, you shall cover all these ranges and represent them at appropriate time for appropriate duration.

WCM often tries to do that with Harmony technique ! Our ultimate goal is to understand that Harmony !