Free Alankar lessons

What is an Alankar?

ALANKARS

Alankars are different sets of the swars that will enable you to practice and familiarize yourself with the different sounds. You should practice these till you can play them correctly without looking at the keyboard. While you practice how to play, please sing-along too so that you can improve your voice and can learn how to sing more in tune.

The term Alankar literally means an ornament or decoration; it is the repetition of musical notes from a Raga in a particular pattern. 

Alankars are of four types: 

1.      Asthai Alankars, which returns to the initial note

2.      Arohi Alankars, which is a ascending sequence of notes

3.      Amrohi Alankars, which is a descending sequence of notes

4.      Sanchari Alankars, which combines elements of the above types. 

Alankars are extremely useful for practice and are a great way of getting familiar with your keyboard or harmonium. Here are some more Alankars for practice; try to play them continuously for an extended period of time; its extremely important that your fingers move smoothly on the keyboard because when you are playing a metered melody, an extra second's hesitation is enough to send you out of synchronization with the taal or rhythm.

In the context of Indian classical music, the application of an alankar is essentially to enhance the inherent beauty of the genre.  Or we can say when a group or cluster of notes embellishes another swar, they form the alankar. There are almost 33 types of alankars but few are being used these days, for example,  meend, andolan and murki.

Types of Alankars

Meend

The term meend has a wider implication. It is generally understood as a glide from one note to another in instruments like sitar as well as vocal music. Gliding from one note to another in a ghazal brings beauty which Ghulam Ali and Mehdi Hassan have shown in their performances. Proper rendition of meend not only depends on the accuracy of the starting and ending swars but also on the exacting knowledge of the kan-swars of the ragas. Only there types of alankars have been survived in this era of music.

Andolan

The Andolan alankar is a gentle swing or oscillation that begins from a fixed note and touches the periphery of an adjacent note. Specialty about andolan is  that in the course of the oscillation, it touches the microtones or shrutis that exist in between. The note that is being oscillated within an Andolan is known as andolit swar. It must be noted that these andolit swars are raga specific and should not be applied to any raga that uses these notes.

Murki

Murki is cluster of notes that sounds like a short, subtle taan. A murki can also comprise a series of such short clusters. A combination like RRSnS   could be a murki  depending on the force of delivery. Although some special murkis are used in khayal singing, it is really a very handy device for a thumri singer. In fact, the bols of a thumri, the ragas they are normally set to and the mood of this form of singing especially demand the usage of murkis. Thus, thumris are often built around this alankar.

General Message

Keyboard or harmonium are supposed to be same. First of all we select best sound or voice in keyboard to play. Here we select strings which is best for learners. Some keyboards are equipped with floppy drive and some are without. For Harmonium first open at least 3 big knobs and then blower.  In alankar lessons we have used right hand for playing. In Harmonium never blow air until any note  is pressed, otherwise air will not be able to go out from anywhere and the Harmonium will start leaking air from sides or anywhere. In harmonium we use our left hand to blow air and right hand is used for playing keys. Use right hand index finger to play black keys only and adjacent three fingers on black and white keys both. Thumb is very rarely used on black keys. For keyboard you need to use right hand.