It’s not often you get a glimpse into - far less a listen to - pre-history. Michael Wood’s The Story of India (BBC4 last night - sadly not available on iPlayer) visited Brahmin priests in Kerala taking young trainees through vocal preparations for a 12-day celebration of Agni - the god of fire.

The prayers being passed on pre-date language and possibly music, as experts could find no matching analogue. The nearest comparison was with birdsong. It was certainly very interesting to see and hear a few moments of these normally secret teaching sessions.

It is claimed that what is being notated cannot be notated. I found this difficult to understand, feeling that a mix of pitch, duration and phonetics must be able to be transcribed - after all Janacek notated the melodies of the Czech language and Messiaen notated birdsong. However, weighing in with the heavy hand of invasive research, however tempting, is scarcely a sensitive response to the privileged invitation.

More on this topic in paragraph 11 of this link.

Categories: Active Learning, International, Languages, Music