Q26

Pranam Guruji If u could pls explain the rule / role of playing tihai and chakradar in our style of sitar playing. I noticed many players in many styles play taans just for the sake of showcasing the pre rehearsed and prefixed tihai s. Sometimes audience also claps more, once a long tihai and chakradar hits the sam. For me personally it is less exciting to play any prefixed and pre rehearsed thing in contrary to upaj / imprivization on spot which wonders the player or singer himself / herself. My second question today is: Role (proportion, angle of stroke, density and weight of stroke, position of right hand) of jod and chikari in various stages of performance (alap-jod-gat-taanjhala) in our style of sitar playing.

Dear Ram,
In response to your question about tihai, I would comment as follows.
To start with, we should note that a tihai is made up of three identical phrases
played one after the other to reach the sum or in some cases to reach the matra
from where the mukhda or the gat starts.
Why is tihai made up of three phrases? Number 3 seems to have a very
significant and effective reason. Apparently no satisfying explanation of why
this magical no. 3 is frequently used to describe important entities. There are
many examples relating to number 3 (a) Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh (b) Aakash,
Prithvi, Patal etc. I was just wondering whether the logical number of 3 could be
based on 1 + 2 on which (according to some) entire mathematics is based.
The role of a tihai is to fill the gap of matras between ending of a taan and the
distance from that point to the sum, in an artistic manner. Thus a tihai is an
adjunct to a taan and not the main focus of the overall melodic expression. In
other words, a taan is not played as an adjunct to a tihai but other way round.

Whether it is musically more satisfying if a tihai is composed on the spur of
moment and not fixed in advance, is an interesting question. However to
improvise in such a manner the performer has to be capable enough to do so.
No doubt prefixed tihais becomes mechanical and hence are not as satisfying.
Tihai in Gat
Apart from the role of tihai in relation to taan, it has been noted that some earlier
Drut sitar Gats also occasionally used tihai as an ending part of the Gat. It is
very important to note that such tihais are not introduced in the sthai portion of
the Gat but only in the antra section. It stands to reason therefore that when a
tihai is used after execution of taan at the end of taan – as an adjunct, it could
be argued that the use of tihai in Drut instrumental Gat is also woven into a fag
end of the antra portion. In my long career, I have never come across a Gat
having a tihai in the sthai portion.
Chakradar tihai
This type of tihai are seldom used by contemporary sitar players. I know a few
of chakradar tihais which UVK used to play as a part of Gat development –
especially in taan portion. However, these tihais were not an adjunct to a taan
but a complete melodic structure on their own.