The unheard ,yet heard

There have been enough forums, discussions, elaborate documentations on the vital aspects of Carnatic music viz raga, shruthi, laya, bhava etc .But nowhere do we see a mention of “silence”. Forget the mention; people don’t even recognize silence as a compelling musical parameter. Some people may even laugh at this whole concept as to what is there to speak about something which is universally measured void of any sound.

Let us see the common connotation and role of silence and later get to musical silence .Silence between words can help the other party to comprehend, appreciate; take a moment to think and reflect. Silence is dangerously contagious and can hush people. Silence at work is appreciated as it gives peace of mind and personal space.
Unforeseen silence (when we expect response from somebody) could be very loud. When there is earsplitting atmosphere, an agreeable pleasing tone might set in the mood of silence. Silence is a mark of respect and is followed in many religious acts and ceremonial customs.

Having said this, can we now call silence as “Absence of sound”? If it is absence of sound, why do we then say silence is loud? Or is silence “Presence of pleasant sound amidst noise”? Dint we just think silence is absence of sound?

So it looks like silence can blend with everything .It can be attributed to music, sound, noise, absence of noise, absence of sound .With music, it becomes a musical parameter; with speech it adds to the meaning (expression), with noise it is pleasing.
This talks about the heterogeneity of silence.

Dr T.V.Sairam, in his Music Therapy training at Nada quotes beautifully that
“The birth of language was preceded by the birth of music; music by sounds emanating through vocal chords and the sounds by – hold your breath – silence. It is the silence, which causes the sound, the music and the music, the language.”

Musical silence helps the artiste to slurp the essence of shruthi emanating from the drone (tambura). The little silence between musical phrases ensures that the shruthi is heard and is followed throughout the singing. Silence between musical passages gives better focus to the musician to come up with more ingenious patterns in the coming phrases .Timed silences form great rhythmic patterns. Silence adds to melody. Take for instance the beautiful jaavali in Behag “nirupamaana saamini naa nilayamunaku rammanave” .A timed silence at the end of this line would mean so much…It gives time to comprehend the beautiful libretto meaning “I invite the purest form of worship to my mind’s abode”. Silent pauses are smart ways to take the audience with our music. We give them time to understand what we sing/play, get them to feel our expression and carry them with our course.

Small silences stir up curiosity in the listener. It keeps the audience awake to our music given the fact that they are unaware of what comes after the pause.

As eternal students of music, we all know that the tambura or what we call the drone instrument aids us with the aadhara shadjam and the panchamam. There are yet other swaras in this group of 12 swaras(am not including the redundant ones like the Shatshruti Rishabham which is Sadharana Gandharam).We would be surprised to know that these swaras are not produced by strumming the tambura ,yet the music we sing/play would/should have all these notes sitting in their appropriate chairs and in case they don’t our music wouldn’t be called “shruthi-bound”. Isn’t this little strange? When we go out of the designated frequencies for the notes “sa” and “pa” it is easily perceived that we are not with shruthi ‘coz we have the reference frequencies emanating from tambura and this is quite understandable too.

Lets get into the details (I know that the subject we are discussing over is silence…I will get back to it in a while…For now, I will go with the flow) .We define shruthi with two variables a and b with b > a (a= shadjamam and b=panchamam)

b/a = 1.5
i.e., panchamam(Pa) is 1.5 times shadjamam(Sa)…Since “Sa” is taken as reference to measure other variables, it is called aadhara shadjamam.When we go with the concept of octaves,”Pa” is between “Sa” and “Sa(hi)”…

“sa” – “pa” – “Sa(hi)” would then be a – 1.5a – 2a.

The variables in between i.e., swaras,”Ri”,”Ga”,”Ma”,”Dha”,”Ni” with their 2-3 variants occupy the space margined by a and 2a.Let these variables be denoted as “x” times a. So far good.
Getting back to our tambura, its strumming produces only the three frequencies “a”,”1.5a” and “2a”;yet the other swaras are to be shruthi bound. How do we comprehend this? While getting introduced to the other swaras, our ear listens and the brain carefully gauges the distance of this particular swara from reference “sa” and places it in the mind table. It’s as effortless as the eyes gauging the distance of the object to pick up from and directing the hand to go for it. Yeah,I am back to our central topic silence. Silent hiatus is good between musical passages to get a hold on the aadhara swarams (sa-pa) and register their frequencies so that the brain gets time to wire the distances to other frequencies (other swaras).

In this modern life, true silence is something we are deprived of. Having spoken enough on silence, I confess that musical silence is the most beautiful form of meditation I have known. As I get my tambura to intone, I enjoy the shruthi - the pleasant silence amidst noise around and within-the clatters in my mind .Even as I stop strumming, she continues to sing sa-pa-sa softly only to my ears saying I am still around you just have to feel me .As I close my eyes to appreciate her more, I see the gift of melody and hear the song of my heart. Silence –the perfect music, the music I can relate to!

As I sit to write this, I can hear silence around me. As the night dawns on me, I hear silence getting louder; I cherish this very moment for I can hear sound which some people think doesn’t exist; I realize that if you want to see something, you can see. If you want to hear something, you can hear. The articulation is all in the mind!

Revathi Sridharan