C-A-Bb-A-G-E
• OVERVIEW •
C-A-Bb-A-G-E is surprisingly tasty, if rather impractical. Forms a ‘crunchy’ C13 chord…with the root(s) at the bottom. Seems silly, and it definitely is – but it’s essential to just shuffle things up sometimes. Anyway, J.S. Bach – probably the G.O.A.T. of global harmonic development – did similarly, famously ‘signing’ his name in The Art of Fugue as Bb-A-C-B (read as B-A-C-H in old German).
So have many other musical greats throughout history. Around the same time as Bach was writing his masterworks, the ‘Trimurti’ of great South Indian saint-composers were busy hiding the names of favoured Hindu gods in the twists of their song melodies (in Carnatic classical music, alpha-melodic wordplay is known as mudra). So be shameless in being silly, as long as it’s a genuine form of exploration too. What you can cook up with CABbAGE? And what else you can spell with the open strings? (See my full article for more: Alphamelodics: well-tuned words)
Pattern: 9>1>11>10>9
Harmony: C13 | 1-6-b7-6-5-3
• TUNING TONES •
Multi-step meend in Raag Bageshri: some riyaz improv in one of my all-time favourite ragas
Sep 30
E8 Boogie (Squarepusher): @sqpusher did I get them right? Tried to work out guitar voicings for this curious chord sequence in E8 Boogie (…originally at the request of a student!)
Sep 27
Raag Jaiwanti Todi (SrgmPDnS): An Ahiri-prakriti raga introduced by Maharaja Jaiwant Singh Waghela (1904-1980): the hereditary ruler of Sanand who gained wide renown as a spiritual teacher, vocal educator, and generous patron of the nascent Mewati gharana (also the creator of Gyankali and other ragas). Sung here by his student Pandit Jasraj – a bandish I’ve always loved, especially the ferocious taan and colourful harmonium accompaniment…
Sep 22
Raag Prabhateshwari (SrgmPDnS): A mysterious raga created by Hariprasad Chaurasia, played here by his nephew Rakesh – resembling a blend of the morning Ahir Bhairav and the late night Bageshri. I was inspired to learn the raga when researching Maa Annapurna Devi’s time teaching Hariprasad (many thanks to my crack team of experts including Rupak Kulkarni, Alam Khan, George Ruckert, Suresh Vyas, Anindya Banerjee, and Gopi Shanker, who all gave valuable assistance in illuminating the raga’s origins)
Sep 15
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#raga #jazzguitar #indianmusic #icm #londonmusic
Original: Squarepusher/Tom Jenkinson (from 1997’s Hard Normal Daddy)
#jungle #jazzguitar #warprecords #idm #dnb @warprecords
—Original: Pandit Jasraj (khayal); Appa Jalgaonkar (harmonium); Nizamuddin Khan? (tabla)
#raga #khayal #indianmusic #worldmusic #icm
—Original: Rakesh Chaurasia (bansuri), live at Darbar 2008 @chaurasia_rakesh @darbarfestival
#raga #darbarfestival #indianmusic #bansuri #worldmusic
• SOUNDS •
Despite the tuning’s online name-notoriety, very few have released music in it. For two prominent, contrasting examples, compare Rob Scallon’s heavy CABbage recipe to Ichika Nito‘s delicate CABBAGE preparation (both set on 7-strings).
(And, because why not – read why ‘foley artists‘ love using actual cabbages to create film sound effects (“…A brutal fight sequence. I find myself wincing at the sound of every punch, although Monat-Jacobs had just extolled the virtues of working with a rubbery material such as cabbage…”)
- CABbage – Rob Scallon (2016):
“Cabbage (n.): cultivated culinary vegetable that grows a rounded head of thick leaves. Mid-15th-century, ‘caboge’, from Old North French ‘caboche’…from Old French ‘caboce’…a diminutive from Latin ‘caput’…from Proto Indo-European root ‘kaput’ [all these words mean ‘head’]…The comparison…to the head of a person – usually disparaging to the latter – is at least as old as Old French cabus: ‘head of cabbage, nitwit, blockhead.” (Etymology Online)
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• NUMBERS •
| 6str | 5str | 4str | 3str | 2str | 1str | |
| Note | C | A | Bb | A | G | E |
| Alteration | -4 | 0 | -4 | +2 | -4 | 0 |
| Tension (%) | -37 | 0 | -37 | +26 | -37 | 0 |
| Freq. (Hz) | 65 | 110 | 117 | 220 | 196 | 330 |
| Pattern (>) | 9 | 1 | 11 | 10 | 9 | – |
| Semitones | 0 | 9 | 10 | 21 | 19 | 28 |
| Intervals | 1 | 6 | b7 | 6 | 5 | 3 |
- See my Tunings Megatable for further such nerdery: more numbers, intervallic relations, comparative methods, etc. And to any genuine vibratory scientists reading: please critique my DIY analysis!
• RELATED •
—Associated tunings: proximities of shape, concept, context, etc…
- Alphabet: a meta-signifier for alpha-melodics
- Ten Years: another surprisingly melodious word
- Mesopotamian: the tuning of Iraq’s capital city?
• MORE INFO •
—Further learnings: sources, readings, lessons, other onward links…
- More musical cryptography: see my Alphamelodic tunings article for more spelling-based tunings and broader global instances of similar phenomena (“there will always be a base level of consonance to any melody made exclusively from the letters ‘ABCDEFG’: as the absence of sharps/flats means that all these tones fit neatly into the C Major scale…So, despite the apparent chaos of spelling-derived methods, many of the resulting melodies showcase their own subtle structures and regularities. In a sense, there’s nothing remarkable about this: could you imagine if our written language really was just a structureless scrabble-bag of letters? What would it sound like?”)
- South Indian mudra signatures: from Smitha K. Prasad, and more in my Carnatic Primer article for Darbar (“the Trimurti often ‘signed off’ with a mudra…something that has an oddly hip-hop vibe. Shastri went by the mudra ‘Shyama Krishna’, and Dikshitar by ‘Guruguha’, both borrowing the names of Hindu gods…”) – also see Carnatic Drone tuning, used by electro-classical South Indian virtuosi including ‘Guitar’ Prasanna
Header image: a bundle of Brassica oleracea
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George Howlett is a London-based musician, writer, and teacher (guitars, sitar, tabla, & santoor). Above all I seek to enthuse fellow sonic searchers, interconnecting fresh vibrations with the voices, cultures, and passions behind them. See Home & Writings, and hit me up for Online Lessons!
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