Fitting a Twelve-Minute Practical: Time of Day, Tala Variety and a Voice That Lasts Nine Minutes
Sana's BSEB practical is scheduled for 10:20 a.m. and she is given 12 minutes, of which roughly 1 minute goes on tanpura check and announcing the raga and tala. The rubric requires one vilambit khayal with alap and taan, one further composition in a tala other than Teentaal, and one contrasting form. Her rehearsed items are: vilambit khayal in Raga Yaman, Tilwada, about 6 minutes; vilambit khayal in Raga Bhairav, Ektaal, about 5 minutes; drut khayal in Raga Bhairav, Teentaal, 2.5 minutes; tarana in Raga Yaman, Teentaal, 2 minutes; dhrupad in Raga Bhairav, Chautal, 4 minutes; bhajan in Raga Bhairavi, Keherwa, 2.5 minutes. The tanpura is tuned to C sharp and cannot be retuned quickly between pieces, and only a tabla player is available. Her voice is reliable for about 9 minutes of continuous singing, and Bhairav alap in the lower register tires her fastest. Her teacher must fix the programme on paper before the examination and defend every cut.
1. Build a running order that satisfies the rubric within the time and stamina limits. Show the arithmetic and state what is dropped.
Read the worked answer
Running order (11 minutes of music + 1 minute setup = 12):
| Slot | Item | Clock |
|---|---|---|
| 0:00–1:00 | Tanpura check (C sharp), announce raga Bhairav and tala Ektaal | 1:00 |
| 1:00–5:30 | Vilambit khayal, Bhairav, Ektaal: short alap, sthayi, antara, two taans | 4:30 |
| 5:30–8:00 | Drut khayal, Bhairav, Teentaal | 2:30 |
| 8:00–10:30 | Bhajan, Bhairavi, Keherwa | 2:30 |
| 10:30–12:00 | Buffer for a repeated line, examiner's question, closing | 1:30 |
Rubric check: vilambit khayal with alap and taan ✓; further composition ✓; a tala other than Teentaal ✓ (Ektaal, 12 matras, 2+2+2+2+2+2, carries the main piece); contrasting form ✓ (bhajan after khayal).
Dropped: both Yaman items. They total 8 minutes and Yaman belongs to the first prahar of the night, so at 10:20 a.m. the examiner can mark it down on time theory as well as on clock discipline. Dropping them is what makes everything else fit: 4.5 + 2.5 + 2.5 = 9.5 minutes, inside her 9-minute comfort zone only if the alap is kept to about a minute.
Dhrupad left out (see next task). Also note the tanpura: Bhairav and Bhairavi are both sung in C sharp here, so no retuning is needed between items.
2. Justify keeping or cutting the Bhairav dhrupad in Chautal, given the rubric wording and the accompanist available.
Read the worked answer
The dhrupad is the strongest available evidence of a contrasting form - four angas (sthayi, antara, sanchari, abhog), nom-tom, a 12-matra Chautal cycle in 4+4+4 - and it would impress an examiner more than a two-minute bhajan. But three constraints work against it:
- Time. 5 + 4 + 2.5 = 11.5 minutes of music plus 1 minute of setup exceeds the 12-minute slot with no room for a stumble.
- Accompaniment. Dhrupad is conventionally accompanied on the pakhawaj. Only a tabla player is available; a Chautal theka on tabla is possible but will not carry the same weight, and the examiner may hear it as an arrangement problem rather than a form choice.
- Stamina. She must sing the alap of a morning raga and then a full dhrupad in the same register, which is exactly the sequence that tires her fastest.
Decision: cut the dhrupad and take the bhajan. The bhajan also solves a convention problem: Bhairavi is the traditional closing piece of a recital regardless of the hour, so a morning examiner will accept it, whereas a Yaman tarana at 10:20 a.m. would be indefensible on time theory.
If the examiner's rubric explicitly demanded dhrupad, the correct re-plan would be: vilambit Bhairav in Ektaal 4 minutes, dhrupad in Chautal 4 minutes, no third item - 8 minutes of music, rubric met twice over, and the bhajan sacrificed.
3. Her teacher says the alap is where she will lose marks and where she will lose her voice. How should the alap be planned?
Read the worked answer
Both problems have the same cause: an alap that wanders in the lower register. Plan it deliberately.
- Fixed length: about 60–75 seconds. Write the plan in the file as four steps, not as 'alap'.
- Register discipline: two avartans of free phrasing around Ma–Pa–Dha in the middle register, then touch the lower Re and Dha (both komal) only once, at the end, where Bhairav's identity is clearest. This protects the voice and still shows the raga's komal Re and komal Dha.
- Content over length: the examiner is listening for the andolan on komal Re and komal Dha and for the pakad-like movement Ga Ma Pa Dha(k) Pa, Ma Ga Re(k) Sa. Two clean statements of that are worth more than four minutes of drifting.
- Exit cue: end the alap on Pa so that the sthayi can begin on sam without a scramble; agree the cue with the tabla player in the sound check.
- Voice budget: she has 9 reliable minutes, so the mouth must rest during the tabla-only stretches - the small gap before the drut is practice, not lost time.
Write the four alap steps and the entry matra on the programme sheet; the teacher's signature should be against a plan she can actually execute, not against an intention.