Harmonium

Here is Mother Devaki showing me how to play my new favorite tune.

I'll try to get a recording of it at Sacred Chant this Friday, or the Sunday feast on Sunday.

This is a repost of an offering I made two years ago. Thirteen basic kirtan melodies with chord charts. I only got round to annotating the first 6, and no-one ever asked for more, so I didn't do them. If I get some feedback asking me to annotate the other 7 I'll do it. Even better, why don't you do it and contribute the annotations? :-) I might make small videos showing how to play them as well.

At the moment the basic chords are there so you can play along with bass, guitar, harmonium, accordion, or whatever. Eventually we'll put the melody notes in as well (they go on the bottom line, under the mantra).

I originally devised this system to be used with the sa-ga-re-ma (sargam) Indian system of musical notation, because it's key agnostic, which means that with one song sheet you can do the kirtan in any key. However, in the interests of a shallower learning curve we've released this one using the Western C-D-E type system of notation.

These kirtans are simple three chord melodies ala Harer Nama Volume 1 by Sri Prahlad.

Here are the tracks from the Basic Kirtans 1 CD:

Track 1: Tuning notes
Track 2: Intro 1
Track 3: Mantra 1
Track 4: Mantra 2
Track 5: Mantra 3
Track 6: Mantra 4
Track 7: Mantra 5
Track 8: Mantra 6 (double time)
Track 9: Mantra 7 (double time)
Track 10: Mantra 8
Track 11: Intro 2
Track 12: Mantra 9
Track 13: Mantra 10

And here is the accompanying booklet, in .xls form:

Basic Kirtans 1 Tracks 1-6 (.xls)

and in pdf form:

Basic Kirtans 1 Tracks 1-6 (.pdf)

You'll also want these chord diagrams for harmonium:

Chord Diagrams

Enjoy!

This is the more complex version of the Damodarastakam, using passing chords to bring out different emotions.

The chord structure is:

Dminor Cmajor Gmajor
Dmin Cmaj Gmaj
Dmin Cmaj Amin D#maj
Dmin Cmaj
Dmin Cmaj Amin D#maj

In the key of E, when we change up:

Emin Dmaj Amaj
Emin Dmaj Amaj
Emin Dmaj Bmin Fmaj
Emin Dmaj
Emin Dmaj Bmin Fmaj

Here is the simple version of the Damodarastakam in 3/4 time for harmonium. We use only two chords - D minor and C major (E minor and D major when we change up).

D is a good key to use for both male and female voices. When I'm in the street I'll use F, but when we're indoors around D (C# - E) is the best range to use.

On the 27th of October the month of Damodara begins. This month is the time of the festival of Kartika, and Vaisnavas sing the song Damodarastakam each day, along with offering a lamp to baby Krishna.

Dama means "bound" and udara means "abdomen". Together they form Damodara, and this is a name of Krishna that refers to his pastime of being bound by his mother Yasoda to prevent his running away after having been naughty and threatened with punishment. It refers to the ties of the devotees' love that bind the Lord to them.

The word astakam refers to a poetic form with eight stanzas or verses (from asta - "eight"). The Damodarastakam is spoken by Satyavrata Muni in the Padma Purana.

This prayer is sung to the accompaniment of musical instruments such as harmonium, mrdanga, cartals and guitar. There are two main melodies that are used to sing it - one is in 3/4 time ("waltz"-time), also known colloquially in ISKCON as "2-beat", and the other is in 4/4 time - known colloquially and misleadingly as "3-beat".

I have been requested by a number of devotees to provide them with guidance on the musical accompaniment for this song, so in the days leading up to Kartika I will post videos here showing how to play the mrdanga and cartals for these two different melodies and time signatures, and also a number of different chords that can accompany these melodies on harmonium and guitar.

If Krishna Dharma prabhu publishes an english rendition before then I will endeavour to record a version of that for the pleasure of the Vaisnavas.

I'll start soon so that you have time to practise before Kartika arrives.