Get Started With Konnakol (with Alex Ostapenko)

Christopher: If you’ve ever wanted to understand konnakol, the rhythmic language from indian music tradition that goes like “takadimi” and “takita” and “tarigita” and so on, you are gonna love today’s episode!

I want to share a mini tutorial from Alex Ostapenko’s amazing Musical U masterclass, where he runs you through exactly how to get started and begin experimenting with konnakol.

So I love doing these masterclass excerpt episodes, I hope you enjoy them too. But sometimes it can be really hard to find the right clip! You know, with a 60- or 90-minute masterclass, to find a bit that stands alone and will make sense but also demonstrates the power of the topic can be tricky.

And this was one of those where I really struggled to trim it down. So the good news for you is it’s going to be a longer segment today that I know you’re going to enjoy!

And I was really keen to share this because konnakol’s fascinating for a couple of reasons.

One is that it has this really rich vocabulary rhythm that I think it’s fair to say quite quickly goes way beyond what western music theory enables in terms of rhythm. So you can always map one to the other. But the way konnakol immediately empowers you to create rhythms very easily, and quite intricate rhythms is really fascinating and really useful.

The second reason is that it provides a route into thinking about layers of rhythm that is really revealing. So a big part of rhythmic musicality training is becoming aware of like the quarter note beat, but then also the 8th note beat and the 16th note beat, and how those different layers can coexist and interplay in a particular rhythm or an arrangement. And konnakol has its own route into that that I think is really elegant. It’s going to make more sense when you see Alex demonstrate it in just a moment.

So like I said, this is going to be a longer segment than normal, but I know you’re going to enjoy it, particularly if you participate. This was an interactive, workshop-style masterclass, and if you take part and try things out as he’s demonstrating them, you’re going to have a lot of fun and it’ll make a lot more sense to you.

So in the segment I’m going to share, Alex had just finished a whole section on body percussion, and now he was shifting tack to explain konnakol.

I will just say if you’re listening to the audio podcast, this is definitely one that will be easier to follow if you’re seeing it. So go look up the corresponding YouTube video, or if you insist on the audio, I’ll just explain the tala, he shows the way of counting the beat.

You’re clapping first and then tapping on your palm with first the pinky and then the ring and then the middle finger. So you create this four-beat pattern with your movement of your hands. So hopefully that will help make sense of what he’s about to demonstrate.

And I’d just really encourage you to think about how the layers of rhythm correspond to the traditional counting of rhythm in western music theory, where you have 1234, and then you have one and two and three and four, and then you have one e and a, two e and a, three e and a, four e and a. It’s very similar, but a quite differently empowering way to approach it that I think you’re going to enjoy.

So again, I just encourage you to take part and play along and have fun with this masterclass excerpt from Alex Ostapenko!

———

Alex: So with konnakol, we speak the rhythm with our voice. We don’t play any percussion, but we speak it.

I will give you a short example.

[ demo ]

Something like this, for example. So I did this without any playing.

But then I can translate it to any instrument. For example, if I just take the first phrase from what I showed you.

[ demo ]

It’s a 7/8 beat. Then I can take for example, a flute and play the same here.

[ demo ]

So when you learn it in konnakol, you practice the rhythmic patterns and different intonations and expression of the rhythm. Again, you can do it while walking in the park, going to the bank or whatever. And then you can translate it to the piano, to flute, to violin, to any instrument, or sing it later.

What happens with me, after some years of practicing konnakol, I don’t think. Every time when I play, I don’t think anymore in this letter, in these syllables. But it’s already somehow integrated into algorithms of how do I think, musically.

So I can take a drum, for example, the same drum, and I can play.

[ demo ]

And somewhere there in the background, even I don’t realize it.

[ demo ]
It will be so it’s just already there. I don’t even realize it now because it’s already automatically is there.

So let’s try konnakol.

Now I will not start working you with tala. Because usually what people do with konnakol, they play some constant movement in the hand. And they say konnakol on top of this. For example.

[ demo ]

So that’s how we have something rhythmical and very constant in the hands. And we do konnakol. We practice it in several speeds, like I showed.

Now, four speeds. So first I started very slow, where one syllable per one movement. Then next was second speed, two syllables per one movement. Then it was third speed, four syllables per one movement. And so on and so on.

And again, if you do it when you go somewhere, you practice this going to the second speed, to the third speed. And that’s how you practice your like train your brain to take it easy. And then later it’s so easy to mix these speeds.

And that’s how you later, after, I don’t know, one, two, three months of this practice, you say, wow, I can do it now and it’s fantastic. I could not even imagine that I could do it before.

So do you want to practice this little Takadimi exercise with me just as a beginning? And then we will do something more interesting.

So what we do, we say clap, pinky, ring, middle. That’s how we count. It’s four counts.1234-1234-1234 and instead of saying 1234, it’s super simple. You just say ta-ka di-mi.

[ demo ]

Yeah, easy so far. Now we need to combine them. One movement, two syllables. It’s the second speed. I will show:

[ demo ]

So now we are able to say twice, all phrase, all takadimi.

Two times while we count til four.

[ demo ]

So I must say one thing here. Please give same energy to each syllable that you pronounce. Because after some sessions and after working privately with people, what I see there is a first syllable they make strongly and then it goes like fade out, like so they, it’s very important because this is your energy, this is the musical energy.

So let’s keep giving like hundred percent energy to this language and then it will give back to you a lot of new ideas.
Again, let’s go to the third speed.

What are you doing on the second ta as you’re not clapping?

[ demo ]

In the second speed, ta comes to the ring finger.

Now, third speed, third speed is also quite simple. Now, each time when you do movement with your hand, you say, you should say takadimi like you’re pressing the button. Takadimi, takadimi, takadimi, takadimi. Imagine you are a DJ and you have this button, when you press it, there is some voice “takadimi”. So you are now a DJ.

[ demo ]

How is it going? Yes. If not, you just understand the idea that this is your metronome and we need to match the number of syllables according to the speed.

If it’s first speed, one syllable per one movement, “ta, ka, di, mi, ta, ka, di, mi”. If it’s the second speed, two syllables “taka, dimi, taka, dimi”. If it’s the third speed, two times more syllables, which means four syllables. “Takadimi, takadimi, takadimi, takadimi”.

There is also fourth speed, when you have to say eight syllables per one movement, it’s like “takadimi takadimi, takadimi takadimi, takadimi takadimi, takadimi takadimi”.

You want to try it a little bit? Just to try. You know, it’s like you’re tasting some salad. You like it or not?

[ demo ]

Okay, we just took some phrase on four syllables, “takadimi”. Right, now there is another syllable. There are many syllables and many little words of konnakol. But now we will take on three syllables. It’s ta-ki-ta. I will write it here in the chat.

[ demo ]

And now we will say the accent is on the first ta: “TA-ki-ta, TA-ki-ta”. Let’s just rotate it in a loop so we feel it.

[ demo ]
So again, each syllable you give the right energy. But the first one is accented, emphasised.

And now we don’t play the same tala because it was on four. And now we are looping something which is in three.

So for this we will use very simple tala which is like this. One, two, three. So we finish on the ring finger, we don’t go to the middle. So it’s like 123, 123, TA-ki-ta, TA-ki-ta.

Yes? So instead of counting one, two, three, you say “ta-ki-ta”, very easy.

Now let’s do every movement of our hand two syllables. But we will not go takita takita. We will not double ta-ki-ta, we will say another phrase which is also in konakol. I will write it like this: “Ta-ri-ki-ta-ta-ka”.

So now we clap like this.

[ demo ]

Each movement, two syllables.

That’s the second speed.

[ demo ]

Yeah. And you see, sometimes I use intonations. I’m not saying it like a robot. So you can also do it.

Actually when you watch some videos with solo of different great masters of konnakol. They do it like storytelling, they sometimes laugh. Like they say something funny and they start to laugh from what they say in konnakol something like that.

[ demo ]

So it’s like a rap. Yeah.

So now let’s combine “takita” and “tarikita-taka”. So we will say first speed and second speed. I will show

[ demo ]

So that’s how we explore the second speed of the rhythm which has 123 counts.

Which is not so easy! But I try to make it easy because the more proper way is to go with second speed with the word “takita”. I will show the first bit and the second speed.

[ demo ]

I’m combining two syllables which means one count and space. It’s for to split next count. So it’s like

[ demo ]

This is the second speed of “takita”.

Let’s build the rhythm which consists of three plus three plus two. We did it already with some people on the private sessions and in the previous lecture.

But here we go. But let’s do it in the first speed with tala, which is 4/4.

So we will do it like this: “Ta ki ta, ta ki ta, ta ka”.

So two times I play this tala and we say this phrase.

This phrase is eight syllables. If you count three plus three plus two is eight. Let’s go.

[ demo ]

So you see, I’m emphasising each Ta in the beginning of the word. So “TA-ki-ta-TA-ki-ta-TA-ka”.

That’s what makes this rhythm. Exactly this rhythm because of these accents. So if I play the same beat here, it will be like this.

[ demo ]

And of course, I can do the same in the second speed. We are coming to the more tricky things.

I will do the same in my tala. But now I will say this rhythm in second speed. And the same I can say in the third speed. So which means four syllables per each movement.

[ demo ]

I don’t expect that you will repeat it right now! It’s just to demonstrate the idea. So we now we take bigger phrase, which is “TA-ki-ta-TA-ki-ta-TA-ka”.

And we work with this phrase again. First bit, second speed, third speed.

That’s the idea of konnakol, this is the power of konnakol that we can everything we do it in these different speeds and we became very flexible in how we receive the rhythm in music.

One last example: if instead of “takita” I will say “tarikita-taka” like we did before. You remember we did “ta-ri-ki-ta-ta-ka”. So they are in a way interchangeable if you want some variations. So instead of “ta-ki-ta you can say “ta-ri-ki-ta-ta-ka”.

[ demo ]

I hope you understand what I’m doing. Show me if you see what I do I just interchange one thing to another. Of course it needs practice and then of course if you want to go to some instrument with this it’s again possible.

[ demo ]

It’s like that.

[ demo ]

It’s a nice, the ending of some composition could be like that.

———

Christopher: Awesome.

Well, as I said yesterday, I apologise a little bit that the audio video quality wasn’t the best. But hopefully you could still follow along perfectly fine. I hope you did follow along, take part, try it out.

There was a lot packed into a short space of time there. You can probably see why I struggled to cut it down at all and still have it make sense!

And a lot of our members were saying during the live session, this is one I’m going to have to go back and watch the replay of again and again. Of course, I do also encourage you, if you’re not yet a member of Musical U…. If you are, go check out the full masterclass, it’s waiting for you in there. But otherwise, I really encourage you to go check out Alex’s full training courses. We’ll have links to those in the shownotes.

That’s it for this one. Cheers! And go make some music!

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