BY JAN HAAG
THE TEN THATS
A NOTE ABOUT CHOOSING THE COLORS OF THE SVARAS
If the following is too complicated to understand, or even to read,
remember what I have said elsewhere:
"My hope is that people, seeing these needlepoints will, first, be
attracted by their beauty, then, like bees visiting a flower, stay to
savor the honey of their meaning."
As for me, I just wanted to leave a paper trail of the
thoughts, circumstances and theories that form the penumbra around
needlepointing and Indian music, any of the arts, indeed, any of the
actions of life. Like the language of physics our communications are
mostly reduced to formulae, to trade back and forth, but like music or
color or life -- you miss it if you think you can talk about it instead of
hear it, see it, feel it, experience it.
(Maybe do all the following as a link to page -- and/or do I want to put
a tiny cut of each color from the ten Thats as introductory "dots".)
How did I choose the colors for the svaras?
Well, with a nod to
the above definitions of sources, I chose a "heavy" dark red for Sa,
because it is the foundation of all Indian music, heavy and beautiful as
a peacock, with a voice you never forget. In rhythm, in my drum (tabla)
bols needlepoints, I always associated red with strong,
carrying-the-melody, arterial blood from the higher pitched treble drum,
going out from the heart; and the blue with venous, the base (baya) drum
coming back to the heart, dark with experience.)
Because in the literature associated with Indian music there is much
mention of "color," indeed varna means color as well as caste,
alphabetic color, while sabda means specifically the sound
aspect of color, I once asked Swapanji: "What colors are the notes?" He
smiled and moved his head in the Indian manner and said only, "You will
know." "But, but, but..." said I, in the American manner. When the time
came, I found out I did know I always know, even when they change
color, as they sometimes do.
Rishaba/Re is a bright golden yellow, especially next to Sa. I
knew I was going to work within the red- orange-gold spectrum, and Re,
after the drawn out practice of Sa, always seemed such a '"jump" to me.
In relation to the above, it might be said that the cry for the mate is
always a cry for the opposite. (As far as I know I never heard a
chataka bird crying.).
Gandhara/Ga is a burnt orange, rather homely, a goat bleating, but
none the less heart warming, bucolic, and close to Gandharva, celestial
music.
ma/Madhyama is the brightest and most appealing to me, I love all
shades of red, but I love ma most, and its tivra form, just a bit darker,
even though higher, the only sharped note in the Indian scale and, I see,
the middle note in the sense of holding the other notes in balance, like a
clarion call, and again, I don't know the sound a crane makes, but its
elegance, balancing on those legs with such grace is surely one of the
triumphs of nature.
Panchama/Pa is the fifth. I'm not enough of a musician to really
know what that means musically, but somehow, the scale turns on
it, so it is the mellowest of the yellow/golds, it loves Sa, but it is
also a cuckoo, and the cuckoo is ubiquitous, it knows, loves and imitates
other birds.
Dhaivata/Dha, again for me dha is one of the fundamental notes and
is arterial, bright red. A little more toward orange than ma, it is the
central, fundamental note on the treble drum of the tabla, played in the
center of the gaab. You tune the drum by starting there. It is the
"horse"
that carries you all the way through, it is the bright and earthy frog,
Nishada/Ni, and then Ni, from the enormous elephants comes this
trumpeting, higher than you'd expect, but in the sadhu's orange, sacred,
partly hidden, rare and exotic in life.
And high Sa, lighter red than the fundamental Sa, the peacock, in a
different tree,on a different roof, crying a more piercing sound.
Those are the colors of my notes, they may not be the colors of your
notes. Nor did I sit down and think this out before I began stitching. I
chose the colors because I loved them, loved the look of the color's,
progression. But I thought it would be interesting to see what my
thoughts actually were regarding the colors I chose. Besides, all
(Add image in here of one "scale" with just the shuddha colors)
The colors I chose would look good imbedded in the dark blue of that lace
wool, the color of Shiva's throat. (link to Churning of -- later
on) As of, July 13, 2004, these are my thoughts. And remember, as in
Indian music, there are many kinds and colors of alankars (p. 341
scan Sanskrit), ornaments, grace notes, gamak, andolan, kampita, mir,
kan, sparsh, murki, (p. 279-281) "The Classical Music of North India,
The Music of the Baba Allauddin Gharana as taught by Ali Akbar Khan" by
George Ruckert (see if this book is on the web and link to it) which
manifested themselves during the 9+ years of the stitching of the TEN
THATS.
Note about having been frustrated at not being able to find definitions
of words, and therefore starting my own lexicon, which I still find, ten
years later, unfinished and unpublished a valuable reference tool. A
word about not finishing it, by the time I was far enough along to
understand it was a lifetime work, I also understood why there was no
such thing in existence, every Gahanna and every musician has
his/her own way of saying interpreting, understanding each word, theory,
thought, about music. Each time they play, these theories thoughts
commitments, sounds ornaments may and do change slightly, enhancing
definition and often re-channeling a definition. A thorough lexicon of
Indian music would have as many pages as the number of minutes which have
passed since the first musician, after a thousand years of playing, began
to think about what he was doing! Swapanji used to say that some of the
early tabla players couldn't even count. Try that as a mindboggling
concept -- which seems to the Western mind an impossibility, How can you
keep time -- and keeping time is the soul of Tabla -- without counting!
The answer probably is: with a kind of psychic awareness, energy,
throughout the body.
(HOW MUCH OF THE ABOVE SHOULD I USE?)
Copyright © 2004 by Jan Haag
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Jan Haag may be reached via e-mail: jhaag@janhaag.com
II The Unicorn
III Green Pillow
IV Armrests
V Narcissus
VI Chinese Chair Pillow
VII Great Grandmother's Legacy
VIIa OM
VIII Octagonal Beanbag
IX Flora and Fauna Beanbag
X Asian Diary #1, Kundalini
XI Asian Diary #2
XII Tibetan Yantra Beanbag
XIII Kalachakra
XIV Eye of Horus Amulet
XV Erika Sachet
XVI Needlepoint-Cattipoint
XVII Palimpsest
XVIII Cantalloc
THE FOLLOWING NEEDLEPOINTS ARE BASED ON THE RHYTHMS AND MELODY OF
NORTH INDIAN CLASSICAL MUSIC
IXX Tintal Coin Purse
XX Kaida, Tabla Covers
XXI Tukra, Tabla Covers
XXII Mukhra-Tukra-Chakradar
XXIII The Ten Thats
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INTRODUCTION +
HAAG'S BIO