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Polyphonic Malkauns (vocal, feat. Ina Filip)

by Hindustani Music

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1.
alap 11:55
2.
jor 09:57
3.
4.
5.

about

How we came to create this recording warrants a bit of explanation, especially given the complexities of intercultural creative work. First, some background on the concept of polyphony in raga, then some d¬etails on this work.

The musical technique of polyphony is typically considered anathema to the North Indian Hindustani raga system. The raga system is fundamentally melodic, linear in development, and predicated on a homophonic presentation.

Heterophony, however, is common in raga presentation. In the more modern Khyal style, singers are almost always accompanied by another melodic instrument, providing support and creating a more complex texture. But this isn’t true polyphony. The melodies are nearly the same, and one is reactive to the other. They do not function as independent voices that simultaneously work in harmony.

There are many reasons why polyphony hasn’t been widely adapted into the Indian raga system. Some of these reasons are cultural or philosophical in nature, but the primary issue is a musical one. Simply put, the treatment of melody in the raga system is so ornate and nuanced that layering multiple voices usually creates a confused and cluttered texture that destroys the beauty of each melodic phrase, and obfuscates the presentation of the raga. In this case, the sum is not greater than the parts.

Nonetheless, various attempts have been made to integrate polyphony with the raga system in recent years, especially as cultural exchange has become easier because of travel possibilities and the internet. Of note is the work by Chitraveena Ravikiran and Robert Morris, La Monte Young, Reena Esmail, Michael Harrison, Terry Riley, and many others. But the most important for me actually came from inside the tradition, the work of my Gurus, the great Gundecha Brothers, who pioneered the use of overlapping phrases in their Dhrupad singing as early as the 1980s.

Dhrupad is the oldest of the subgenres of North Indian classical music, dating back at least 700 years, and it is typically considered the most pure presentation of raga. The Gundecha Brothers are regarded as among the foremost exponents of Dhrupad today. They have performed in over 40 countries, made countless recordings, and built a thriving school in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, the famous Dhrupad Sansthan. Through the entire process they’ve remained firmly rooted in the traditions of Dhrupad, but they’ve also expanded the genre with several notable contributions, including exploring harmony through overlapping phrases, which caught my ear when I first heard them in 1997.

Most vocal duos in the Dhrupad genre trade phrases back and forth, but the Gundecha Brothers often create an overlap that is nearly as long as the phrase itself. But this isn’t heterophony; it’s not the case that one brother is following the other. Rather, the melodies are independent, each functioning by itself, thus creating polyphony.

When I first heard their overlaps I was also undergoing a study of Western High Renaissance vocal polyphony developed in the 16th century and thereabouts by composers such as Palestrina, Victoria, et al. I found it astonishing that these two seemingly disparate musical traditions, separated by centuries and thousands of kilometers of physical and cultural space, had so much in common on a purely sonic level. Could these two rich traditions be merged further and explored with more of a focus on the polyphony?

I started studying Dhrupad vocal seriously in 2012. I had a natural instrument and inclination for the music, and combined with an already strong 10-year background in tabla drumming plus professional-level accomplishment as a Western composer and percussionist, I progressed rapidly. By the 2013-2014 academic year I was on a nine-month Senior Fulbright Nehru Fellowship, living at the Dhrupad Sansthan in Bhopal, M.P., India, and singing Dhrupad up to eight hours a day, with daily lessons with the Gundecha Brothers. It was there that I met Ina Filip.

Ina came to Dhrupad from a slightly different background. She also studied music formally in her home country of Brazil and at a university in her current country of residence in Canada, but then traveled the world, working with a variety of musicians and performing everywhere from major festivals to fireside gatherings. Ina possesses one of the most natural senses of musicianship I’ve ever encountered, and her vocal instrument is a gift. She has a fabulous sense for intonation, and an amazing ability to manipulate colors and shades with her voice. Like me, she takes her Dhrupad studies seriously, and has put in tens of thousands of hours of rigorous practice and study with our Gurus over the last decade.

We immediately hit it off as friends and by February of 2014 we were practicing together and starting to explore polyphony. She was also fascinated with Gurujis’ overlapping phrases. We decided to develop the polyphony more thoroughly, based on our experience with Western Renaissance polyphony, combined with Gurujis’ approach within the raga system.

We liked the predictability and precision of the Western tradition, but we didn’t want to get mired in notation and we felt it was important to preserve the improvisational basis of Dhrupad, so we developed a system of subtle hand signals that we could give each other to indicate whether the other singer should take a supportive or dominant or equal role in the texture, and how we should proceed in developing the raga. We explored various Renaissance techniques, including canonic development, imitation of various sorts, cadential harmony, and more.
Male/female collaborations are rare in Dhrupad because the vocal ranges are mutually exclusive in terms of optimizing range, but Ina and I found ways to overcome that limitation and continued developing our polyphony. The first ragas we worked on were Bhupali and Malkauns, the raga presented here.

I also developed several polyphonic raga tracks with just my voice in raags Megh and Bhupali, where I refined the polyphonic techniques further. Meanwhile, in 2016 Michael Harrison composed a piece for my interdisciplinary project Sonic Divide that was a series of instructions to explore polyphony in the alap section of raga Malkauns. His instructions mirrored the experiments I had been conducting for the last two years and that he had been conducting on his own in other contexts, but with some additional details and ideas. Michael’s piece became the basis of the first track you hear on this recording.

And yet, the concept of polyphony in raga was present in Gurujis’ singing for at least 20 years before I began my work, and I have followed exactly the structure of the ragas in both the macro presentation and the micro details. The tradition of Western Renaissance polyphony is also central to this work, yet this is a classical presentation of Raag Malkauns, as we learned from our Gurus.

None of this would have been possible without the hundreds of generous lessons my Gurujis gave me and Ina, opening up the secrets of Dhrupad note by note, phrase by phrase, with an oral tradition that goes back millennia. I am indebted to the Gundecha Brothers for their support and efforts at pioneering this way of singing.

What do my Gurus think of this music? They seem to respect our efforts. In fact, Ramakant-ji wrote to me in an email when I sent him an early draft of this recording (just before his passing in November 2019) that “You have retained the soul of Malkosh.” Umakant-ji told me in 2015 when I did an academic presentation of the work that what I was doing was perfectly acceptable and commendable within the realm of classical Dhrupad. “After all,” he said, “all the notes of the raga are in the tanpura anyway, so we can say polyphony has always been there.”
I think part of why they have accepted this music is because they know Ina and I have worked for it. Our knowledge of Dhrupad isn’t something we got from reading a book or attending a two-day workshop, it’s something we imbibed from tens of thousands of hours of focused practicing and taking lessons. What we know about Dhrupad is a hard-earned physical knowledge. (And I now perform and record “traditional” Dhrupad as a soloist.)

Thanks for listening. I hope this music sends a chill down your spine and gives you hope and a deep sense of peace. --Payton MacDonald, 2022

credits

released March 6, 2022

Composers:
Payton MacDonald
Ina Filip
Michael Harrison (track one only, Alap)

Arranger:
Payton MacDonald

Performers:
Payton MacDonald (vocal)
Ina Filip (vocal)

Recording Engineers:
Payton MacDonald
Benoit Rolland

Mixing:
Payton MacDonald
Benoit Rolland
Ina Filip

Mastering:
Payton MacDonald

Special thanks to Benoit Rolland and Jessica Johnson for additional arranging and mixing feedback.

Payton expresses his deepest respect for the Gundecha Brothers and the generous taalim they gave him for so many years.

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Hindustani Music Wayne, New Jersey

Dr. Payton MacDonald is a Dhrupad vocalist. He studied Dhrupad vocal since 2012 with the Gundecha Brothers and has also learned from Pelva Naik. He previously studied tabla for ten years from Pandit Sharda Sahai. Payton also studied Western music at the U. of Michigan (BFA) and the Eastman School of Music. (MM, DMA) ... more

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