This document provides an overview of solkattu, a vocal percussion technique used in South Indian classical music to develop rhythm, phrasing, and musicality. Solkattu involves bounding vocal sounds together and using hand gestures to keep time. It discusses techniques like looping individual measures of a rhythm, the 7/4 trikala rhythm exercise, comparing the Western approach to increasing tempo to the solkattu tala approach, and how solkattu can help develop an appreciation for cultural rhythmic improvisation and the South Indian classical music tradition.

1. Solkattu
If you can say it, you can play it!!

2. WhatisSolkattu?
● Vocalsounds“BoundTogether”
● Pedagogicallyaidsindeveloping
○ Rhythm
○ Phrasing
○ Musicality

3. RhythmicPhrasing

4. MetricConcepts
● Looping each individual measure, to get a
feel for phrasing the same rhythm in
different ways
● Creates possibilities of clearer rhythmic
interpretation , articulation and
expression

5. 7/4Trikala
● Trikala, means “three
speeds,”
● It is a useful
rhythm exercise that is a
fundamental rhythmic
process to Karnatik music.8
● This exercise, the solkattu
speed doubles and then
redoubles in relation to
the beat.
● The figure shows an example
of this exercise within the
Adi tala, which is an
eight-beat cycle grouped as
4 + 2 + 2.

6. WesternvsSolkattu
● In Western terms, the student begins by vocalizing quarter notes. After a cycle,
they progress to eighth notes. Finally, the last cycle utilizes sixteenth notes.
● In Solkattu Tala, the exercise accommodates the keeping of the tala (or meter) with
traditional hand gestures (kriya).
● There are four basic gestures typically done by the right hand while the left hand is
held in place with palm facing up: clap with the right palm down onto the left palm
(C),clap with the back of right hand down onto the left palm (Cu), turn the right
hand up vertically in a wave position (W), and individual finger taps.

7. classical music tradition of South India

9. Polyrhythm
● Polyrhythms are deciphered
through the least common
multiple, many can be noted
within a common meter.
● The listener hears the
phrasing of the syllables,
set against the pulse of the
meter, and arriving together
on beat one

10. Conclusion
❏Rhythmic Improvisation
❏Vocalization
❏Creative
Using this approach might give an
opportunity to develop an appreciation
for cultural meaning and significance

11. Thankyou=]