For the fourth consecutive year, the Harmonica Club of Gujarat has been invited by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation to perform at the annual Kankaria Carnival today evening for two hours. Watch out for the videos on this blog in coming days. 

MAJOR & minor SCALES

By Major we understand something relatively great or bigger in size & by minor we understand some thing comparatively smaller in size or dimension. Scale means a unit of measurement. Major scale is an arrangement of notes in a particular ascending ( increasing ) order with certain value of frequency for each note. Similarly Minor scale is an arrangement of notes in a particular order with the increase oder of frequencies just like the major scale but with an exception that for some specific notes the frequencies are lesser as compared to their position in a Major scale. This I have explained in the video below. Please feel free to comment because its through discussion only we know the things.

BAHARON PHOOL BARSAO IN ' A minor & C - MAJOR '

Please listen to the harmonica renditions of the above song in both A minor & C minor scales played by me with the help of my Suzuki Chromatic harmonica model SCX - 64. As all of us know that SCX 64 of Suzuki, Super 64 & super 64 X of Hohner come in the key of C only. In the videos I have explained where to take the key note for C major & A minor with the same harmonica.

SHARPS, FLATS & FREQUENCY

In Music, so many times we come across the terms SHARP & FLAT. Some one says the note is F SHARP & some one says the scale is A FLAT etc. By practice we just accept & say C SHARP, E FLAT, F SHARP & A FLAT like that. Often during the rehearsals we hear that the guitarist adjusting the strings & listening to the pitch of the singer screams out the scale is B FLAT. Now let us understand what are these SHARPS & FLATS. By practice we identify a note as F# but why dont we say G FLAT for this when both are true because when the note F ascends it becomes F# or when the note G descends it becomes G FLAT. Finally F# & G FLAT are the same.
By the word SHARP we mean something ' pointed ' or ' piercing'. Imagine we are at the base of a steep mountain. Standing at the ground level we observe the tip of this cliff & we say its pointed or its sharp. It means we are at the base & our point of concentration is the highest level being our point of observation. It means by making a travel from base & proceding forward/ higher we acheive the highest point which we have confirmed as SHARP. Putting the same logic in music when we take a NOTE of a particular frequency & give an increment to its frequency we arrive at a particular frequency where the note gets SHARPENED, at that instant we say that the second note is the SHARP of the first one. The reverse order is also true. Thats,when we start decresing the frequency of the note we get the lower frequency where we say the Note is FLAT of the first one. Therefore SHARP & FLAT are inter related.
We conclude that the increase in frequency of a note to a particular value is the SHARP of that note & the decrease in frequency of a note to a praticular value is the FLAT of that note.
For example when note F steepens it becomes F# & when the same note F# widens that becomes note F.

Now coming to the word FREQUENCY & what does it mean in actual. The word frequency is dervied from the word 'Frequent' which means OCCURING OF AN ACTIVITY DURING A PARTICULAR TIME WITH AN INTERVAL. When the time interval , which we say GAP as a lay man , is more than the occurence , we say its less frequent & Vice versa. In music, frequency means the vibration of sound waves & the time interval is considered as one second. Therefore the frequency of a particular musical note is the vibration of its sound waves per second. Internationally the frequency of the note A is taken as the reference & all the rest of the notes have been designated with respect to this A note. The frequency of vibration of sound waves for this note A has the value 440 Cycles per second. According to the name of the scientist of its discovery the unit of frequency is also known as HERTZ & in short written as HZ.. Note A has the frequency of 440 HZ. This A belongs to the fifth octave & denoted as A4. About the OCTAVES it will be explained in the future posts. This note A has been taken as the reference because in olden days A was taken as the start with the notes of the scale as A,B,C,D,E,F,G & A of the next octave. You can observe in a key board all these notes are the white keys. Gradually due to the advent of the Major & minor scales this notes pattern of A scale became the A minor scale. This A was replaced by the note C as the threshold creating the C scale with the notes as C,D,E,F,G,A,B & C of the higher octave in the ascending order of the scale. This C scale has all the white notes on a key board making it the C Major scale with all the notes being the natural ones.
As regards the concept of OCTAVES, MAJOR , MINOR SCALES & CIRCLE OF FIFTH etc we will discuss in the future posts.

BAHARON PHOOL BARSAO - SARGAM

I am herewith giving the notations of the song in SARGAM. Please note that these are the notations when you play a C chromatic harmonica creating the scale of A minor. Please dont get confused that the note ' GA ' is not the komal ' ga ' of the base raag Shivranjani. With these notations note ' C ' becomes the ' ga ' of scale A minor. Therefore ' GA ' here, is the ' PA' of A scale.Please note that this ' PA ' position remains unchanged irrespective of the scale being a Major or a minor.
Some friends have requested for the hole numbers, since the notation pattern is still to be learnt by them. Our next posting of the same song identifying the hole numbers for practising this song.

BAHARON PHOOL BARSAO = GAGA MA DHA DHANISA... .SA..SASANISA

MERA MEHEBOOB AYA HAI = SASASASA NI- DHA-MAMADHANI-NI

MERA MEHEBOOB AYA HAI = NI - NIDHA DHANISA-SA-NISANI - DHA - DHA

HAWAON RAGNI GAO = GAGA MA DHA DHANISA... .SA..SASANISA

MERA MEHEBOOB AYA HAI =SASASASA NI- DHA-MAMADHANI-NI

MERA MEHEBOOB AYA HAI =NI - NIDHA DHANIre - re -NISANI-DHA - DHA
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O LAALEE PHOOL KI MEHENDI = GA'GA'MA'SA' - SA'- SA'GA'GA'MA'SA' - SA'

LAGAA IN GORE HATHONMEIN =SANISADHA - DHA MA SADHASADHASA-SA

UTAR AA EI GHATAA KAAJAL = GA'GA'MA'SA' - SA' - SA'GA'GA'MA'SA' - SA'

LAGAA IN PYARI AANKHONMEIN = SANISADHA - DHA MA SADHASADHASA - SA

SITARON MAANG BHAR JAO = GAGA MA DHA DHANISA - SA - SASANISA

MERA MEHEBOOB AYA HAI = SASASASA NI - DHA - MAMADHANI - NI

MERA MEHEBOOB AYA HAI = NI - NIDHADHANIre - re - NISANI - DHA - DHA

CROWDING OF NOTES

While writing the notes I have carefully adjusted the gaps & checked in the draft also. I found it to be in order, but after its published I was surprised to see them all getting crowded making very difficult to understand. I am again arranging in a phrased manner so that there wont be any confusion in understanding. I regret the inconvenience caused. As all of us have the conventional Chromatic harmonica in the scale of C you can play this song as per the notes. By doing so you will be playing this song in the scale of A minor in this C scale harmonica. Here you are taking the start ( Key note ) as E. To play this song in the scale of C minor in the same harmonica you have to take the start ( Key note ) as G which is 3 semitones ahead of E.

BAHARON PHOOL BARSAO = EEF#A ABC-C-CCBC

MERA MEHEBOOB AYA HAI = CCCC B-A-F# F#AB-B

MERA MEHEBOOB AYA HAI = B-BA ABC-C BCB-A-A

HAWAON RAGNI GAO = EEF#A ABC-C-CCBC

MERA MEHEBOOB AYA HAI =CCCC B-A-F# F#AB-B

MERA MEHEBOOB AYA HAI = B-BA ABC#-C# BCB-A-A

****************************************************************************

O LAALEE PHOOL KI MEHENDI = E'E'F#'C'-C' E'E'F#'C'-C'

LAGAA IN GORE HATHONMEIN =CBCA-AF#CBCBA-A

UTAR AA EI GHATAA KAAJAL = E'-E'E'F#'C'-C' E'E'F#'C'-C'

LAGAA IN PYARI AANKHONMEIN = CBCA-AF#CBCBA-A

SITARON MAANG BHAR JAO = EEF#A ABC-C CCBC

MERA MEHEBOOB AYA HAI = CCCC B-A-F# F#AB-B

MERA MEHEBOOB AYA HAI = B-BA ABC#C# BCB-A-A

These are the basic notes. we can add flavour to it by vibrato or putting some accidental notes. please operate the slider gently either with your fore finger or the thumb. Please dont hit it with your palm since its very delicate.

We are open for any corrections and suggestions since we learn though our mistakes & errors.

NOTES , TONES & SCALES

Before proceeding into the notations & songs I would like to share a bit of my knowledge about the Scales, Notes & Tones from concept point of view which is highly essential for the inset of Concept.
TONE means a sound of a certain frequency. Sometimes the tone is pleasant to the ear & some times it is pungent to the ear. The pungent one we term as NOISE and the pleasant ones we chose to put them in order making a garland of NOTES which is known as SCALE. We identify each note by a name depending upon their frequencies. Putting these set of notes in ascending order of their frequencies & making a chain is the SCALE. As each NOTE has a name, similarly each SCALE has a name. Conventionally the scale starts with C as the reference having the notes ascending order staring with the note name C.
There are 12 NOTES viz C , C# , D, D# ( Eb ) , E , F , F# , G , G# ( Ab ) , A , A# ( Bb ) & B .
similarly 12 SCALES with the same names as the NOTES. In a particular scale there are seven notes in total.
Example Scale ' C ' = C , D , E , F , G , A , B & again C of the next octave.
The Major & Minor concept of the SCALE , FLAT & SHARP NOTES I will explain latter.

I will upload the song BAHARON PHOOL BARSAO with the original song then the play of the same song in the original scale on harmonica.

Finally for the understanding & grasp of the song I will give the notations of the song.

CONCEPT OF MUSIC

I thank all the members of The Harmonica Club Of Gujarat for giving me this golden opportunity of sharing my rudimentary knowledge in music to one & all. My special thanks to Mr Nachiketa Desai & Mr Tapan Bhat for having a lot of confidence in me towards the successful implementation of these efforts .

As all of us know MUSIC is one of the important streams of Fine arts, which soothes the heart & gives total relaxation to the body & mind. As far as Science is concerned Music is the combination of certain sound frequencies set up in a particular order, which is very soothing & pleasing to the ears.And as far as Arts is concerned Music is DIVINE which is something beyond explanation.

Let us take a travel towards the Science Of Music, try to understand the rudiments, practice it & finally let us feel that we are blessed by Mother Saraswati to be successful in our efforts.

Finally let us utilise our scientific knowledge in Music to glorify this FINE ART.

Harmonica lover from London comes calling

Hello Mr. Desai

Thank you for your email. I am pleased to provide my profile as seen below.

I am a Guajarati born in Sabarmati, Ahmedabad. After schooling in Nadiad I did inter science in Ahmedabad. When completed my Mechanical & Electrical Engineering Diplomas in Vallabh Vidyanagar I went to Tanzania. After working as Electrical Engineer for 5 years I came back to India and introduced a new concept of Electrical services centre in Naroda Industrial Estate, Ahmedabad and worked there for 5 years. Then I moved back to Tanzania and worked there as Electrical contractor for 7 years. Finally I moved to UK in 1985 where I worked as R&D Engineer with Nordson UV Ltd until retired from work in 2007. I live in UK and visit my brother in Ahmedabad every 2 years.

I used to play Harmonica in my college days in 67/68 but lost the touch with harmonica during my working years. In January 2008 when I had some free time I picked up Harmonica after a big break and uploaded some tunes on YouTube for fun and my personal pleasure (http://www.youtube.com/user/Sadashiv45#) The very old harmonica I had is packed up and not repairable (Hohner 64 Chromonica 16 Holes). 4 moths ago I bought 12 Holes Seydel Chromatic Deluxe in “C”.

These days I am improvising on some Bollywood songs based on Bhairavi and gradually move to other Ragas. I have no formal training in music and harmonica playing. I do self study for learning music and improvise on Harmonica.

I am pleased to know that there are so many Harmonica players in Ahmedabad. During my next visit I would like to see you and others.

Best regards

Shirish Swami

Here is a number played by him:

Khandelwal : A repository of knowledge

If you have any confusion or doubt about which harmonica to buy and from where, ask Raman Khandelwal who has been gathering a whole lot of information about this tiny musical instrument. I met Raman recently on my visit to Jaipur.

A strapping young man, Ram is full of enthusiasm. "I am reading up as much material on mouth organ as possible by searching the Internet. It is like sharpening the axe before beginning to cut a tree. I want to gain theoretical knowledge about harmonica first and then start putting it into practice," he says.

Raman is very active on the Harmonica India Yahoo group.

He can be contacted on his mobile at 09413341725.

Saaz Aur Awaaz: Pop Gujarati Song

Ahmedabad's Gramophone Club invited the Harmonica Club of Gujarat to play just one song at their first-ever 'Only Gujarati Songs' programme at the Tagore Hall. This was a challenge for all the members of the Harmonica Club because so far they had been only practicing and playing popular Hindi film songs. The song that the Gramophone Club asked the HCG was 'Taari Aankh No Afini', a 1948 number originally sung by Dilip Dholakia. This was particularly challenging for the youngest members who had never heard the song. However, a CD of the original song was procured and played before the members several times over till they remembered the tune by heart. Members started practicing the song twice a week.

Three days before the function, the office-bearers of the Gramophone Club wanted to listen to the HCG to satisfy themselves that the song had been played to the perfection. After all, it was to be performed before an audience that comprise of well-known Gujarati musicians, including the legendary Dilip Dholakia. The test performance was held on the sprawling lawn of Bansi Gajjar's bungalow on November 11.

We present here the original song sung by Dilip Dholakia followed by the rendition of the song by the HCG members.

Awaaz by Dilip Dholakia

Saaz: Mouth Organ by members of Harmonica Club of Gujarat

Magic with a Puck

Puck is among the smallest of harmonicas from the stable of M Hohner, Germany. It is a small wonder which produces melodious music. The instrument has only ten holes and does not have half notes. With cupping and by bending notes, an expert can play many a tunes which only a chromatic harmonica can produce.

Here is a popular number from the film 'Aradhana' played on Puck by Ashok Bhandari.

Mouth Organ Maestro Madan Kumar

It was world friendship day. Also a Sunday when members of the Harmonica Club of Gujarat assemble in a public park in the morning to practice and play.

"Madan Kumar is in Ahmedabad." This was Ramakrishna Sabnavees on the telephone. He had called up me and Tapan Bhatt to wish us on friendship day.

Tapan grabbed the opportunity that had come the way of the club and informed Sandeep Patankar to bring along Madan Kumar to the park.

Excitement ran high among the club members as the word spread that the doyen of harmonica was on his way to the park. Members surrounded Madan Kumar with the plea to play a few numbers. "I have heard so much about your club. First, please play all of you, one by one. I want to hear you," said Madan Kumar. So ernest was his request that the club members suppressed their desire to listen to the mouth organ maestro live and asked Aditya, the 12-year-old youngest member of the club to play a few numbers.

"It is Aditya's generation which will bring back the art of playing mouth organ into the mainstream of performing arts. I am glad to see that boys like Aditya are so passionate about mouth organ," said a beaming Madan Kumar.

"I too had picked up mouth organ when I was seven-year-old. It was 'Echo' from M Hohner, Germany, which my elder brother had brought home one day but would not allow me to touch. However, he forgot to take with him the instrument when he left for work. So I grabbed the piece and started playing to my heart's content. Since then, mouth organ became a part of me," said Madan Kumar, recalling his childhood days.

Over the next 60 years, Madan Kumar and mouth organ became synonymous. The HMV brought out more than a dozen of his records and noted music directors like Laxmikant Pyarelal and Khayyam have made him play romantic numbers for their films.

Nowadays, Madan Kumar teaches children in Pune.

The Harmonica Club of Gujarat could not resist its greed of listening to Madan Kumar live. Club trustee Bansi Gajjar called him over to his residence to spend an entire evening with the club members. We will be bringing you Madan Kumar live through rare videos on this blog.

Jana tha Japan, Pahunch gaye Cheen, Samajhgaye na

Harmonica maestro He Jiayi was in India to perform in Delhi, Kolkata, Pune, Bangalore and Cochin. While in Delhi, he performed at the Chinese embassy. Abe Thomas, who runs the Harmonica India Yahoo group, introduced Jiayi to Ashok Bhandari, the magician turned mouth organ player. The Chinese Ambassador grabbed the opportunity to hold their joint performance. The following letter reflects the spirit:

Dear Mr. Bhandari,

Attached are a few pictures taken at the April 2 gathering at the Cultural Office of the Chinese Embassy.

The performances by Mr. He Jiayi and yourself were highly appreciated and enjoyed by the audience including H.E. Ambassador Zhang Yan and other members of the Embassy. I wish to thank you again for your participation and look forward to more contact and interactions with you and indeed with muscial circles of India in the future for the further enhancement of cultural exchange and cooperation between our two countries.

with high regard,
Xie Fei

Cultural Counsellor

Embassy of the People's Republic of China

Milon Gupta: The Maestro

I was pleasantly surprised when I received an email from harmonica player Vinayak from Hyderabad this morning. He had sent me a few photographs of legendary mouth organ player Milon Gupta along with scanned copies of notations of a few film songs written by the maestro himself in his own hand writing. Thanks Vinayak for sharing such a treasure with all the harmonica lovers.

Vinayak has also uploaded some of the classic numbers played by Milon Gupta on his esnips page.

Magic of Mouth Organ

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He popped up one day on my chat window saying, "Kyon Raja Mujhe Pehchaana?". I could hardly believe that Ashok Bhandari, my classmate in Banaras Hindu University, would find me after almost 30 years. Since we left the university in 1978, Ashok had become a professional magician, performing all over the world - Italy, Germany, Japan and Russia.

Ashok found me from my esnips page where I had uploaded some of my mouth organ numbers. He told me that he has been also playing mouth organ in all his magic shows. I had heard Ashok play mouth organ when we were in college. But, he was not a great player then. After almost 30 years of practice and performing on stage, Ashok had become a maestro - a wizard, a magician of music. He is a master of special effects - a one-man orchestra.

Ashok was so much inspired by the Harmonica Club of Gujarat and its blog that he decided to devote full time on playing harmonica. I was shocked when one day he told me that he is giving up performing magic shows and has decided to start a mouth organ training academy in Delhi.

"Mouth Organ is a magical instrument," he says. Ashok has turned this handy musical instrument into a wonderful object of performing art.

Harmonica enthusiasts can call him at 9999333104.

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Apna Dil to Awara

We started the programme with this song.

Harmonica Distribution

Santa and others distributed tower make harmonicas to all the children.

Magic of music

Santa trio( Manhar Majithia, Alex and his son Avlon ) and Paresh Bhatia did the right job to bring big smiles on their faces.

Hum kisi se kum nahi

They were asked to play harmonica on their own and one can see the joy on their faces. They really freaked out.