The Vilambit Ektaal Baithak: Laya Changes on a Glance
You are the tabla accompanist at a local music circle's monthly baithak for a retired schoolteacher singing a vilambit khayal in Ektaal (12 matras, six vibhags of two; tali on 1, 5, 9 and 11, khali on 3 and 7). The composition's sam falls on matra 1 of the third avartan. The opening laya is fixed at 30 matras per minute; the singer will signal dugun after the second avartan, hold dugun for four avartans, take one avartan of chaugun, then return to 30 for a closing tihai made of a three-matra phrase repeated three times and ending on sam. Your bayan is tuned to the lower Sa; the harmonium sits at C. The singer gives the dugun signal with one raised hand but gives the chaugun only by a sideways glance, roughly half a matra before the change. There is no clock and no rehearsal left.
1. Calculate the matra rate and avartan duration for barabar, dugun and chaugun, and the total clock time of the four dugun avartans plus the chaugun avartan.
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At 30 matras/min one matra lasts 60/30 = 2 s, so a 12-matra avartan lasts 24 s (barabar). Dugun doubles the matra rate to 60/min: 1 s per matra, 12 s per avartan, so four avartans take 48 s. Chaugun is 120/min: 0.5 s per matra, 6 s per avartan. The dugun-plus-chaugun block therefore lasts 54 s. I count the four dugun avartans internally (one, two, three, four) and put a small head-nod on each dugun sam, so the chaugun entry has a fixed reference even though the singer only glances. The bayan stays on the same matras throughout; only the subdivision changes, so I do not add an extra 'ghe' to announce the change.
2. On which matra must the first repetition of the three-matra tihai phrase begin? How does the answer change if the phrase is actually four matras long?
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Three repetitions of a 3-matra phrase = 9 matras, and the last matra of the third repetition is sam, so the first repetition begins 8 matras before sam. Counting back in a 12-matra cycle, 8 back from sam is matra 5: the phrases fall as 5-6-7, 8-9-10, 11-12-1. If the phrase is four matras, 3 x 4 = 12 matras, so it must begin 11 matras before sam, i.e. matra 2: 2-3-4-5, 6-7-8-9, 10-11-12-1. The common error is counting the starting matra twice; write the three phrases out and check that only the final matra is sam.
3. Do you take the chaugun on a glance? Give your decision, the reasoning, and what you actually play at chaugun speed.
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At 120 matras/min a matra is half a second. A doubled theka would demand four clear strokes a second from a hand trained at vilambit, and one fumble would break the sam for the singer. I would take the chaugun only if the singer's own syllables are already clean and I have had at least one avartan of dugun to settle into the new pulse; otherwise I keep the dugun pulse and play a skeleton 'dha - dhin -' on the matras, which still marks the cycle. A missed chaugun is a small loss; a chaugun that drags the singer off sam is a large one. On the sam I mark with a firm but not overpowering 'dha' and eye contact.