Re: Improvisation and passing and neighboring notes

Haresh Bakshi wrote this:
> Hello ALL, recently I came across the terms passing notes, enharmonic
> notes, and neighboring notes.
>
> From what little I have come to know about those terms, I have been
> wondering whether the improvisation in Indian music means using them
> while moving around vadi-samvadi (consonants) pair.
>
> Can you throw some light on this?
>
... and later, this:
>
> Hi ALL, I would like to add the following to the above:
>
> The passing and neighboring notes, being 'dissonant' with the
> neighboring vadi-samvadi notes, cause aesthetic tension in a raga.
> This tension is resolved on reaching either of the vadi-samvadi notes.
>
> And, this continual creation of aesthetic tension, followed by
> resolution, *IS* the aesthetics of improvisation.
>
> These passing and neighboring notes are termed "anuvadi(assonant)"
> notes in Indian music. They are the tension-creators. Without their
> presence in a raga, the vadi-samvadi cannot achieve resolution.
>
> Cay we say, therefore, that these passing and neighboring notes, in a
> way, act as leading notes?
>
> Lastly, are they responsible for the "rule" that a raga must have at
> least five notes? [The raga-s with less than five notes are very few,
> and considered exceptions.]
>
> Regards,
> Haresh.
________________________________________________________________________

Hi Haresh,

It seems to me that you have very largely answered your own
question! In the affirmative, I might add.

However, one might say that in its typical usage in Western
music for around 200 years, the major scale also has several
notes which function as "anuvadi" or assonant notes, those that
lead to a consonance. Since, in this period, the third, fifth and
octave are regarded as consonances with the root, the remaining
scale degrees - second, fourth, sixth and seventh, have all, to a
greater or lesser degree, the function of passing to a consonance.
None of these degrees was felt, in itself, to form a stable
consonance with the root.

I might paraphrase you, for this Western tonal context, thus:
> The passing and neighboring notes, being dissonant with the
> neighboring notes which are consonances, cause aesthetic
> tension in a melody. This tension is resolved on reaching any of
> the consonances.

For those unfamiliar with the terms, your question might have
been clearer if you had explained the meanings of "vadi" and
"samvadi".

Regards,
Yahya

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--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Yahya Abdal-Aziz" <yahya@m...> wrote:

> However, one might say that in its typical usage in Western
> music for around 200 years, the major scale also has several
> notes which function as "anuvadi" or assonant notes, those that
> lead to a consonance. Since, in this period, the third, fifth and
> octave are regarded as consonances with the root, the remaining
> scale degrees - second, fourth, sixth and seventh, have all, to a
> greater or lesser degree, the function of passing to a consonance.
> None of these degrees was felt, in itself, to form a stable
> consonance with the root.

Actually, the sixth (as well as the fourth, if played in a lower
register) *was* felt to form a consonance with the root, just not
with the tonic triad. As the tonic triad was the definining "home
harmony" of the major scale, it is consonance with the triad, not
consonance with the root, that determines a scale degree's stability
within the tonal system, in the sense you seem to be trying to point
to above.

Note that only in major and natural minor modes does no note form a
tritone with a note of the tonic triad, which I think was key in
privileging these modes above the others upon the advent of tonal
music in the West c.1670. For one thing, this makes the entire scale
fit rather comfortably over the tonic triad, lending a sense of
stability to the configuration, while most other triads would involve
a vertical tritone against some scale degree and hence sit less
stably. Resolving *both* notes of the tritone to notes of the tonic
triad became a grammatical norm in Western tonal music, becoming the
classic tension-release move in the style, and it isn't possible in
the other modes of the diatonic scale.