Jhyaure & the madal
Most Nepali folk repertoire sits in one of a handful of cycles, and the most important of them has six beats. The drum that plays them is the madal — which has a room of its own, so this page is about what the bow does.
Jhyaure
Jhyaure (झ्याउरे) is three things at once, and it helps to keep them apart:
- A six-beat tāl. The rhythm itself.
- A poetic metre. Sixteen syllables to a line, with fixed caesuras. A strong syllable has to land on a strong beat, because you may not re-accent a Nepali word to fit the music.
- A body of songs. Its rasa is sringar — romantic, flirtatious — and unlike much Nepali folk music it belongs to no particular season or ceremony, which is part of why it spread so far.
Songs that use the jhyaure tāl but not the jhyaure poetic metre have their own name — jhyaure bhaka. The same distinction exists for khyali.
The two-against-three
This is what gives jhyaure its lilt. Six beats divide evenly two ways — as two groups of three, or three groups of two — and jhyaure uses both at once. Ingemar Grandin described it as "6/8 in the right hand, 3/4 in the left".
| Beat | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Two groups of three | ▶ | · | · | ▶ | · | · |
| Three groups of two | ▶ | · | ▶ | · | ▶ | · |
Both accents are real and players move between them. Set the metronome in the practice bar to 6 beats and try counting each way over it. Neither is a subdivision of the other; they are two ways of hearing the same six.
What the bow does
The sarangi is not a drum, but in dance music it carries the rhythm as much as the drum does — and it does that with the bow, not the fingers.
- One stroke per beat, six to the cycle. Start here. Accent beats 1 and 4 with a little more weight, not with a jab.
- One stroke per group of three. Two long strokes to the cycle. Now the melody floats and the drum carries the six.
- Mixed. A long stroke for the first three, then three short ones. This is where it starts to sound like the music.
- Cross to the drone on the accent. Catching the middle strings on beat 1 marks the cycle without playing a note.
Six notes, six beats
Set the metronome to 6 beats at about 100 BPM and play along. Then play the same six notes as two long strokes of three notes each.
The other cycles you will meet
| Cycle | Beats | Where it turns up | On the madal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jhyaure | 6 | The bulk of lok geet and dance songs | Jhyaure taal |
| Khyali / Samala | 4 | Sung verse, question-and-answer songs; the simplest place to start | Khyali / Samala |
| Kaharwa | 8 | Modern songs, film songs, and a great deal of light music — including Resham Firiri | Kaharba taal |
| Dadra | 6 | Two groups of three, more song than dance; close cousin to jhyaure | Dadra taal |
| Maruni | 4 | The Maruni dance | Maruni taal |
| Sangini | 6 | Women's Sangini songs | Sangini taal |
Beyond these, whole song-and-dance genres carry their own tāl and their own poetic metre — Sorathi, Charitra, Chudka, Tamang Selo — and troupes perform them as sets. A sarangi player learns them as repertoire, by ear, not as a list of cycles.
Playing with a madal
Sarangi and madal is the classic Nepali duo, and the sarangi is usually the one that has to fit. Practical notes:
- The drum owns the cycle. Find beat 1 in the madal's bols and put your phrase against it.
- Drop the continuous drone. With a drum providing the pulse and the bass, a constant Sa turns muddy. Touch the middle strings on the accents instead. See The drone pair.
- Leave room. Two instruments, both busy, is one instrument's worth of music played twice.