Crossing Genres with 'Solkattu'

by Vicki Q. Agrawal

During my freshman year of college as a music education major at Stetson University, adjunct professor Nandu Muley came to my Music Culture class and gave a lecture and demonstration on Indian music. He brought his santur and played beautiful melodies for us while explaining the classical Indian musical frameworks of talam (rhythmic) and ragam (melodic). As I listened, I drew parallels to all of the western music theory I had learned, the Sa in raga is kind of like the Do in solfege!

Here we are, 15 years later, and I still remember this specific lecture but none of the others from that class (sorry Dr. Painter!). Something about that lesson drew me in and I think I’m starting to figure it out… the way Indian music theory is structured just works for my brain!

With my gurus , on stage

Since beginning to train in the classical Indian performing art of bharatanatyam, my understanding of music, dance, and rhythm has deepend. Rhythm was my Achilles heel while studying music in college - reading complicated rhythms always tripped me up and it would take me lots of time to nail a new piece of music as a result. Ironically enough, when it comes to bharatanatyam, my rhythm is extremely sharp and I can pick up new jathi patterns with ease.Why though? How is it that I could be studying music but struggling with rhythms? How, a decade and a half later, while learning something completely new, can I understand and even enjoy rhythm?

I believe it is due to the use of solkattu, which provides each rhythm with its own, standardized syllables. With these syllables, the rhythms are well defined and not just numbers. Unknowingly, I experienced a form of solkattu in a western music setting and it was extremely helpful to me! During a summer band camp I attended as a teen, there was a rhythm our wind ensemble just could not play correctly together - a quintuplet (5 beats in a space that typically takes up only 4 beats). The band director taught us a trick - instead of counting it, choose a word with that amount of syllables in order to keep your rhythm steady and even. Hippopotamus. University. Opportunity. Yes, yes, it’s working! After that experience, any time I saw a quintuplet in my music, I remembered my 5-syllable words and could play it, no problem. Obviously this is not solkattu, but the principle is the same - using syllables to denote rhythms - and it worked for me!

Taking it a step further (see what I did there?), in bharatanatyam, each syllable has foundational movements associated with them. For example, “thakadhimi” - this represents 4 beats and, typically, means you are stomping one foot on “tha” then dropping that heel on “ka” then poking the toes of the other foot on the ground on “dhi” then dropping that heel on “mi.” This then becomes a part of my dance vocabulary, so while learning a new item, when the choreographer says the step is “thakadhimi” we all know to do this stomp-heel-toe-heel movement without needing any further explanation. The rhythm now becomes a part of my body as opposed to just notes on the staff. 

There are many of these movements that serve as the building blocks of bharatanatyam choreography and the more I’ve learned of them, the easier and faster I’ve been able to pick up new and more complicated dances. After my foot surgery last summer, I couldn’t walk, let alone dance, but I still showed up to class in a cast, eager to learn new pieces. The choreography was taught and I made sure to learn all of the solkattu. By the time I was cleared to dance again, I was able to match my feet to the solkattu and had the items down in no time! As silly as it may sound, if I can learn an item with my mouth, I can learn it with my feet.

Comprehension of artistic skills can be tricky, but with the right teachers and pedagogical paradigms, anything is possible! And how lucky am I to have found the perfect guru for me and an art form that is structured in such a way that makes so much sense to me? 

At Carnegie with my group

Disclaimer: I am no expert in music theory (both western and Indian) and I’m sure you didn’t want to read a dissertation, so of course there are nuances and exceptions I’ve missed while explaining this. My intention in writing this blog was not to provide an in-depth analysis of the similarities and differences between different theories of music, but rather to explain why/how learning bharatanatyam has allowed me discover hidden strengths and talents I thought I just didn’t have.