Author: musicalitywrld

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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Christopher: Takadimi Takita Takita Da! Have you ever heard a musician chanting something like that and wondered what they were up to?

Or maybe you’ve seen people do this incredibly fast and intricate body percussion where they whip up a whole rhythmic orchestra with just their body parts.

If the answer to either of those is yes, you are gonna love today’s interview.

So konnakol, the rhythmic language from Indian music traditions, and body percussion are two really fascinating topics, which for a long time we didn’t do anything about at Musical U. But they were always in the back of my mind among this list of topics that I knew we wanted to get someone to come in and talk about.

And particularly with rhythm and spoken rhythm, one of the biggest leaps forward in our rhythm training at Musical U was when we adopted the Kodály rhythm syllables, where you have like ta and ti-ti and tika-tika as a spoken way to express rhythmic patterns. Konnakol is a completely different language for rhythm. It works in a slightly different way, and all of the words are different and it stems, like I said, from the Indian music tradition.

So I knew there must be something interesting and different about it, and I was curious to know more for myself and also to bring that expertise in for our members.

And then on the body percussion side, you may know we love encouraging our members at Musical U to sing. And you might have seen our recent episodes with Dave Smith, the drummer, who has this particular rhythm dance approach, which has proven a really great way to help our members really connect with the beat and get a physical, body based sense of rhythm, and particularly the pulse.

But what about taking it to that next level, the kind of body percussion that lets you express all different rhythmic patterns and kind of voice different parts of the rhythm in different ways with different motions?

Alex Ostapenko is particularly awesome because he actually combines deep expertise in both and shows you how to combine the two and use the two and the strengths of each.

And so when we came across his YouTube channel a while back, we knew we wanted to bring this guy in to share his wisdom with our members.

He’s also really distinctive because he brings a lot of fun to it, as you’ll see. He really has a joyful, playful attitude to it all, which is super key for learning.

So Alex, like I said, has an amazing YouTube channel as well as a couple of dedicated courses on these topics, and so I would highly encourage you to go check those out if you enjoy hearing from him today. And tomorrow I’ll be sharing a clip from his Musical U masterclass.

I’ll have a link to those in the show notes. So for today, I want to share the mini-interview we did before his masterclass, where you’ll hear about his take on musicality, his own kind of rhythmic awakening, and how he came to draw these things together, and how both konnakol and body percussion can be a valuable addition to any musician’s toolkit.

A quick note about the video quality. Unfortunately, we had an issue saving the video on this session, so we didn’t have the highest quality video feed. I apologise for that, but it doesn’t detract from the content at all.

And while I mention that also to say the body percussion is really worth seeing. So if you’re a podcast listener, this is one you might want to come check out on our YouTube channel. If you just search YouTube for Musical U, you’ll find us. And particularly tomorrow’s clip, actually, where he’s demonstrating some of the stuff you want to do while speaking konnakol, well worth watching the video version.

Without further ado, enjoy this mini-interview with Alex Ostapenko!

———

Christopher: Today I’m joined by Alex Ostapenko of The Languages Of Rhythm. Alex is a top expert in the world of Konnakol and body percussion, and combining the two.

And we’re fortunate to have him with us at Musical U as our guest coach, Guest Expert this month.

He’s been in working one-to-one with our Next Level members this week, and today he’ll be presenting a special masterclass for all our members. Alex, welcome to the show!

Alex: Hello, hello.

Christopher: I’d love to start with my favorite question to ask musicians and music educators, which is: what does musicality mean to you?

Alex: Wow, what a question. Musicality.

Well, musicality means a good sense of good connection with yourself, with the space around, with other musicians. That’s the first thing.

Then, like a poetry. Musicality is kind of a poetry. So you are not shouting all the time. You know, you can sometimes play even less. Sometimes in the very precise moment, the moment which is perfect, you do all the best, but then you go out, you give other musicians to play, you fit into the music.

So it’s not like you’re solo. It’s just perfect connection with all aspects of music that you make this music more beautiful with your activities, you know?

Christopher: Oh, I love that! That’s a very rhythmic perspective, to be thinking about that dance, that conversation and that interaction with the other musicians, that’s beautiful.

Alex: I’m a rhythmic person, you know, that’s my path in this life.

Christopher: So tell us a little bit about where you’ve come from as a musician. What’s your background?

Alex: So, you know, I was not musician from the childhood.

I came to music quite late, I was 23 or 24 years old. I was a software engineer making some computer applications and all this.

And at some moment, I just heard this Arabic drum, which is called darbuka, somewhere in the music. And it was like my body started to dance like, whoa, what is this? And I was not able to do anything, so I started to search what is it? What is their book? Where I can learn?

And luckily, at that moment, I went to Egypt for the first time, and I saw this drum and this music were, like, everywhere. So I found some teachers.

At that moment, I lived in Moscow, so I found a teacher. I found, like, all the crazy people who also were studying. And that’s how I started.

Then at some moment, I started to explore different instruments, like cajon frame drums. At some moment, I went to Peru. I got this beautiful flute with me.

So I started to play flute little bit now here. Ah. Then I went to Brazil at that moment I already saw that there is such art which is called body percussion, where you don’t need drums, you don’t need anything.

You just play music with your body. And wow, it’s so cool. So that’s a thing.

And also I went to India in 2010. And a little bit before that I saw from my teacher of darbuka, who was turkish guy. I felt that he’s inspired by India so much.

So he was playing something that is very similar to what indian musicians do. So I thought, okay, probably I have to go to India. That’s how I met my first konnakol teacher.

And also I started like to dig for all the YouTube channels, what I can do to learn it. And I was like meeting musicians and I told them, okay, you play tabla. I don’t need tabla, I need konnakol.

Or okay, you play this kanjira, for example, I don’t want to learn kanjira. I want to learn this spoken language of kanjira. Like, please, please show me what you can.

That’s how I was learning these things. And, you know, I’m a very creative person myself, so I like to combine, integrate different ideas. That’s how I came that, okay, konnakol is a perfect language to explain the material.

Body percussion is also a very, like, obvious language. So why don’t we combine them together? And I did it first in. In a festival which is called Body Rhythm festival in Hamburg.

So it was there, and also I did it in Brazil as well.

So it’s like I had a lot of ideas how to combine them. And people liked it a lot because it’s like you can go from different directions with your voice, with your body and wow, it’s very good!

Christopher: Terrific, wonderful. And in the masterclass, shortly, you’ll be leading our members through some of these ideas and exercises and getting them started with konnakol and body percussion. For those watching or listening here, can you give them a little taste of each of those two so that they understand what is it we’re talking about and why might it be useful to musicians?

Alex: Okay, so body percussion, let’s start with this one quickly. So here is my drum. This is body percussion.

And I can add konnakol – no, I will show konnakol separately.

So with konnakol, we count some, it’s called tala. We do this constant figure in our hands and we place something on top. Something like that.

Christopher: Perfect, thank you.

Alex: For example, just another quick thing.

If you want to learn a 7/8 beat. For example, as a musician, you don’t know what to do.

But with konnakol, you just know two words. One is takadimi, which is four syllables. Second is takita, which is three syllables.

And you go everywhere you go, to the bank, to your, I don’t know, to the shop. And you say “takadimi-takita, takadimi-takita” and after a while, you already think in 7/8.

And you get used to it super quickly. And you don’t need to play it, so you don’t bother other people around you. You just say it, and that’s it.

So that’s just a little quick application of konnakol.

Christopher: Perfect. Thanks so much for sharing that!

And I’m sure everyone who’s just experienced that can appreciate the power this has for you as a musician. I mean, yes, it’s a cool thing in itself. Body percussion or konnakol.

But you can imagine how this enriches your creativity and your expressiveness and your ability to instinctively understand what’s going on in music?

Fantastic. I would love to go into more detail, but we’ve got people queuing up ready for the masterclass, so we’ll wrap up there before we dive in more with them.

Alex, if people are curious to know more about you and experience this for yourselves, where’s the best place for them to go?

Alex: Well, there is a course called Languages Of Rhythm. Konnakol and body percussion, two in one.

It’s exactly about what we are talking about here. And I gave you the link so you just can share it.

And also soon we will make another course, we will publish another course, which is called Rhythmic Neuro-games. It’s a super crazy course where your mind just like this, kapow! Because it’s specially designed for that, you know. But after that, when you master these little exercises, you feel yourself like, you know, a superhero. Because it’s like for separate working of different hands and like polyrhythms with your legs, hands and sometimes voice.

So it’s super nice. A lot of exercises.

Christopher: Amazing.

Well, we’ll definitely have to have you back on the show to talk about that course in more detail on another day. Thank you so much, Alex.

We’ll have the link to that course and more details about you in the shownotes alongside this video or episode.

And we better dive over to the masterclass. Thanks again for joining us today.

Alex: Yes, thank you, Christopher, for your nice questions. I liked our conversation.

Christopher: My pleasure. I hope to have you back on the show again soon!

———

Christopher: Isn’t Alex awesome? I hope you enjoyed that mini-interview and a little glimpse into konnakol and body percussion.

I’ll put links in the shownotes to his YouTube channel and also his courses, The Languages of Rhythm and also Rhythmic Neuro-Games, which is out now, so definitely check that one out if the idea of having your mind blown when it comes to rhythm appeals to you.

Our members loved getting a taste, an introduction to both konnakol and body percussion in his masterclass, and I’m going to be back tomorrow to share a section from that masterclass where he runs you through the basics of konnakol.

Really cool.

Again, you’ll want to check out the video version, if you’re normally an audio listener, to see it in action.

Until then, cheers! And go make some music!

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