 Hi everyone, this is Jason here from Nathaniel School of Music I'm here to introduce you to like the ultimate practice exercise for your five fingers Five finger exercise. I call it the Swara Challenge and it's basically inspired from Karnatic music the Swaras we learn to form the respective scales and there are a lot of ragas, but there are 72 Seven note ragas or seven note scales called Mela Karta ragas which go up in a direction and come down in the same Set with the same set of notes. So like that you'll have 72 scales Now I'm not going to tell you about the theory of all of that in this video. However, it's in it's come from there So it comes from a huge family of notes or note combinations or interval permutations Or Swara combinations if you will and it's it's a lot of fun to practice as you may have heard from the introduction performance It's not as you know a normal Boring Classical exercise. So I've tried to make it very interesting to involve all the challenges You might find in terms of the notes and also train your ear. Okay, there'll be a little bit of theory So we'll start with that the theory is just to tell you how I got all these Swaras all these notes and There'll be my handwritten notes where I've kind of charted out all the permutations For all the scales which you can find and it will be a good roadmap to form all the Karnatic ragas, right? So let I think we should get cracking very soon before we do Hit that subscribe button. It'll really help our channel grow It'll also help you get notified whenever we release a new lesson or two and Hit the like button will be great. Share the video. Please leave us a comment as always Let's get cracking guys. So before we get started with the actual Exercise which you heard in the introduction video. I'm just going to tell you how you can form these intervals Or what we call as swaras in Indian music So the first off you say the saw or the root in this case I'm picking the key of D because well, you know me if some of you at least not a huge C major fan So well D it is for this lesson apologies for it not being C But anyway, you have D and also the reason why I tend to take D and other scales is because some of the confusing aspects of music theory which may eventually confuse you Happen on scales outside C major, you know, like double-sharp sometimes, you know Flattening like you'll have something called an F flat and so on which is actually E So these things you encounter when you learn the the non C major scale So that's why I try to insist on that But I'm not a huge fan of C major as well. So that's another motivation for me to choose D. So I'm taking D so play D with your Extreme fingers of both hands pinky of left and thumb of right Then the a So the standard objective with this exercise and with swaras and with scale formations in general You generally need a root and a fifth. That's Sa and pa Okay, so these are your seven note scales now. I'm not gonna get deep into the theory behind it, but You need a root and a fifth then you need a fourth You could have a perfect fourth Or you could have an augmented fourth or a sharp four or a ma or call this a Tivra ma or a sharpened one note so on so the exercise is going to keep changing the G which is the mark The G sharp which is the sharp ma also you can call it The tritone or the Lydian fourth or the augmented fourth or just the sharp four These are the available intervals if you take the four in between the five you have another one So we call that the sharp so coming to the ray and the girl because size sorted always D Pa sorted always a ma is either going to be G or G sharp So the other stuff is just going to be in this cluster of four notes this this this this so the interesting fact about the Swara formations or the naming conventions for them are that You have three rays and You have three girls So I'm going to explain that very very shortly and you will understand so you the rays are nothing but the Minor second or the flat two Or the major second or the normal two Or you may you may argue with me and say hey is this not the minor third or the flat three Well, you could say that but you could also say that this is an augmented second So an augmented second will be followed by only one kind of third The major third so this could make a nice set of three notes If you add that with a pa maybe a ma You see what's happening there. We're kind of treating this F Well, not F anymore now. We'll have to call it as e sharp that would make it an augmented second We're kind of making it feel like a second even though It's not really a second which we learn in the conventional textbooks, right? So that's why I like the whole idea of the Swara formations in in karnatic music. You have three rays again flat to major to Sharp to okay or minor second officially major second officially Augmented second officially or R1 R2 R3 in the rare one ray to ray three Language now if you look at the girls the girls actually start from Believe it or not. Well From here, okay So why is this a girl because this would function as a third or a girl girl means three Ray means to saw means one ma means four par means five, etc This functions as a three when you already have a flat two which is in between that three So very exotic Now you can combine this ray and this girl this cluster With a whichever ma This ma normal as I told you G or G sharp Create some really really interesting flavors So that's why we need to include this third as well and again in Western music theory the third is there It's called as the diminished third. How do we call this? It's basically we are supposed to call this as Not e Unfortunately, we have to call this as f flat Okay, as weird as that sounds to some of you the theory behind it is please call it f flat Okay, so you have the diminished third diminished third can also be formed by flattening the major twice so That'll be the minor third which is f Then you have the major third which is f sharp. So what are the three girls or the three? Thirds Diminished third Minor third Major third so that's These are all your girls or thirds now coming to the ray you can now connect the ray and the third in how many permutations For that this needs to start becoming a maths class, which unfortunately I'm not very qualified to do But I will be certain to tell you that there are six combinations Between the ray and the girl because there are three rays. There are three girls There are repetitions between them right because the second ray see the first ray is unique Which is the minor second the second ray is the same as the The first girl isn't it or the diminished third so diminished third is the same as a major second So we can't really use both of them together similarly the third ray Which is the augmented second is same as the minor third as you may already see from this f being the minor third you call it f and then You need to call this e sharp in order to call it as the augmented second Okay, the theory is also something I'm trying to share with you guys because The exercise is rather simple. It's not there's not rocket science behind what I played It's just around this theory. Okay, so three rays Three girls And then you interact with them the rays and the girls you get six permutations and Well, you also have the two Mars to deal with so how it works is Six ray and gar combinations mixed with either one of the Mars So what is six twos are 12 and this has become a maths class all of a sudden I apologize for that So you have 12 permutations now to deal with keeping the saw in the power consistent So, what do you do with these 12 permutations? You do them all in a nice circular repetitive motion With a nice five finger drill. So the drill is Just one two three four five four three two one now you may be asking what about the sixth and the seventh Those will be coming up very shortly in in our subsequent lesson. So for now this lesson is just one two three four five Sorry gamma Pa. So what you need to do is But not with only those major permutations Which are these is what we do every day So instead of that what you could now start doing is Start with R1 and G1 There we go. Now you could do R1 G2 R1 and G3 It's like a very Arabic sound It's a very again Arabic anything with a flat two is very Arabic or Middle Eastern you could say But when you add a flat two and a flat three could also argue it's a bit Spanish Like that So again with R1 Merged with all the girls and the same ma which is G normal G That one go to Go three now you can move the ray to E and now you have only two girls This one Or that one Basically minor scale minor third major scale major third so moving forward you have the next ray Which is the augmented second or F? And now you have this cluster. So you have two clusters in the first six exercises When you combine the R1 and G1 like that And then when you combine the R2 with the G3 So this is a good workout for your fingers your fingers are moving all over the place and you need your wrist to support it as well So it's a good Grip exercise a good note awareness exercise a good ear training exercise for the piano and the exercise can just be Up and down For now then you can have your fun So all the permutations the first six with the normal ma again R1 G1 with normal for R1 G2 Now R1 G3 now R2 With G2 because you don't have a G1 R2 with The last girl G3 So major third Then R3 Augmented second with a major third because you can't do the other girls Now all of this stuff needs to be practiced with the The sharp four as well. So then you have the same story R1 G1 with the Sharp for that creates a really cool vibe then Minor third G2 Major third G3 now two with a G two But with that sharp have all the six permutations around the sharp four So six with the normal four six with a sharp four and the challenge would actually be if you can do all the 12 together and Also send it to us You can tag me on Instagram at Jason Zach or you can tag Nathaniel school at Nathaniel school And you could actually record yourself playing this challenge or this exercise Send it to us. If you want to do something interesting with it Well, one option could be to just kind of play them together You could also play some cards See if you can construct some cards around each Scale or each raga the other thing is you could groove in the left Kind of let your left left hand loose and try to create a nice drum groove on the left hand So these are just some things which can make it interesting You could even realign the notes of your right hand if you like to play something Same fingers, but in thirds or maybe in groups of three or Together playing the notes together. I've made sure I've Notated all of these things and written it down in the patreon Sex sector so you can head over there get notes for this whole thing the definitions for everything the names of the notes in the Indian language and in the Western language and For my personal growth as a musician. This has really helped because You know, there are so many ways of learning music and When the theory behind what you're trying to do is airtight It doesn't matter what kind of theory you're learning whether you want to call it Indian Karnataka Hindustani Western Eastern if your if your theory is airtight if you understand the sound the logic the mats behind it I mean, it doesn't matter what you want to call you want to call it. Dore Mi Fa So Sa Re Ga Ma Pa How does that matter Dore Mi Fa So Sa Re Ga Ma Pa primarily I think for singing to make it easy on the voice, right? So well, that's about it. So I hope it will train your ear. It should train your ear It should it's a great finger exercise because as I said the fingers go in all sorts of Rather random directions and pretty much every single direction. There are 12 egg permutations, right? Your rhythm will also be tested your theory will be tested lot of things will be tested Again, this is Jason here from Nathaniel school of music Thanks a ton for watching this lesson do consider hitting that subscribe button hitting that bell icon for regular notifications You can follow us on Instagram You can also join our mailing list on our website where we send you regular updates You'll also have our courses listed there on our website Nathaniel school.com. We have virtual courses We also have video courses also if you'd like to support our channel You can do so by hitting that join button that will mean a lot You can also support us on patreon and by supporting us. You'll get more video learnings You'll get more you'll get my handwritten notes