Twin Melodies: Class 9 Kaveri · Chapter 6

6.1 Before you read: strings and sayings

Think of the last wedding band, bhajan or film song you heard. Somewhere in it, a string was probably humming. This unit is about music twice over: a short play about a young violinist who longs to try a new kind of music, and a poem about what music does for one listener.

Every stringed instrument works in the same basic way. A tight string vibrates, and a hollow body called the resonator makes that vibration loud enough to hear. What changes is how the player sets the string moving: by plucking it, drawing a bow across it or striking it (Fig. 6.1).

Your textbook opens with pictures of eight stringed instruments to name. As you name them, sort them into these three families. The violin, Shruti's instrument in the play, is bowed, and so is the sarangi of North Indian folk and classical music. The sitar, sarod, veena, guitar, mandolin and banjo are plucked. The santoor of Kashmir is struck with a pair of light wooden mallets.

The play is full of everyday idioms. An idiom is a group of words whose meaning is different from the meanings of the single words. Bite the bullet has nothing to do with bullets: it means facing something unpleasant bravely. Some phrases sit close to their literal meaning. Wearing a look of distress simply means your face shows you are upset, while throw a party only borrows the verb throw.

6.2 Meet the play

Twin Melodies is a short play in three acts by Mitra Phukan, a Guwahati-based writer who writes in English. She is also a classical vocalist, and her novel A Monsoon of Music is about the lives of musicians. That inside knowledge shows in this play.

A play is written to be performed, so it reads differently from a story. The name before each speech tells you who is talking. Words in brackets, called stage directions, tell the actors how to move or speak. There is no narrator: you learn about people only from what they say and do.

The play turns on two kinds of music. Hindustani classical music is the classical tradition of North India. It is built on ragas: each raga is a set of notes with rules for how a melody may move, and a mood of its own. A performance often opens with an aalaap, a slow, free unfolding of the raga before the rhythm begins. Indo-Western fusion mixes such Indian elements with Western instruments, harmonies and beats.

Acts I and III take place at Iqbal's house, where the group rehearses. Act II takes place in the Sharmas' dining room after dinner. The town has its own newspaper, which praises Shruti at the start of the play.

6.3 The play, act by act

The play moves in three acts: a secret, a clash and a surprise (Fig. 6.3). Read each act in your textbook first, then use the summary here to check that you followed it.

6.3.1 Act I: A secret rehearsal

The curtain rises on music at its loudest. Four friends are ending a fusion piece in Iqbal's room, a plain room with a rack, a table heaped with books and posters of two great Indian flute players. Iqbal plays the flute, Avinash the tabla, Peter the keyboard and Shruti the violin. As they pack up, Peter is pleased with the session, but Shruti looks troubled.

Iqbal waves the local newspaper, which has praised Shruti's concert with her famous father the evening before. The boys tease her about being a celebrity who now owes them a party, and Peter invents a silly rhyme. Shruti hardly reacts. Only when they shout her name, louder each time, does she come back to the present.

Avinash guesses the trouble at once: Nabin still knows nothing about the concert. Shruti is caught in a dilemma. She longs to try this new music, but she loves her father and does not want him to think she brushes his views aside. To Nabin, Hindustani classical music stands above every other kind, and a violin playing Western tunes would be an insult to the instrument. So she keeps putting off the conversation.

Her friends urge her to speak up. Avinash argues that silence is only making things worse and that a scolding is the worst she can expect, while Iqbal reassures her and jokes about his own daily scoldings to make her laugh. Their mix of sense and humour works: Shruti resolves to face her father at dinner that very night.

• The newspaper praise shows that Shruti is already a respected classical performer, so she has a reputation, and a famous father, to think about.
• Her silence while the boys joke shows how heavily the secret weighs on her.
• Her explanation reveals her dilemma: love and respect for her father on one side, a wish to explore on the other. She is not rebelling; she wants his blessing.
• The friends' advice shows real friendship: they joke, but they also push her towards honesty.

6.3.2 Act II: Trouble at the dinner table

Dinner is over at the Sharmas'. While her parents clear the table, Shruti is still sitting over her plate, miles away in thought. Both parents tease her about the uneaten dosa, and Leela adds a playful jab about whose dosas are really better. The warm, joking mood makes the clash that follows feel sharper.

Shruti nervously raises the subject of a concert. Nabin turns stern and refuses before she has even explained. He allows just one performance in six months, believing that constant appearances cheapen an artist and that practice matters more than the stage. A group show strikes him as worse still, since he thinks a soloist's character gets lost among many players.

The word fusion brings a heavy silence. Deeply disappointed in his own daughter and pupil, Nabin declares that he has already said all he will ever say about such music. Shruti pleads with him to watch one rehearsal before he decides, but he mocks the idea that ‘phoo’ music needs rehearsing at all, and leaves the room.

Left alone with her mother, Shruti is scolded for acting behind her father's back, with a sharp dig about her mysterious ‘practice classes’. She admits her mistake and worries that the band cannot perform without her. She promises to stop hiding things, and Leela packs her off to bed.

• The dinner jokes show a loving, playful family, so the argument is between people who care about each other, not enemies.
• Nabin's rule shows his discipline. He quotes the proverb familiarity breeds contempt: when something becomes too common, people stop valuing it.
• His silence and mockery show how deeply he distrusts fusion. To him it is noise, not art.
• Leela's scolding is fair but not harsh. She is upset about the secrecy more than the music, which hints that she may help later.

6.3.3 Act III: The surprise audience

Shruti arrives at Iqbal's house for what she believes will be her last rehearsal. Before she can share her news, the boys hurry into practice. In an aside, a remark the audience hears but the other characters do not, she confides her plan: one final run through the piece she loves, and then she will tell them she is out.

Midway through, her parents quietly arrive and watch unnoticed. Bar by bar the music wins Nabin over, until his foot is keeping time. At the end he leads the applause, beaming, to Shruti's astonishment. He praises the soulful playing and tells Shruti she stayed true to the raga throughout. Leela jokes that the ‘practice sessions’ have clearly worked, and Nabin offers the group the music room, with better equipment, for regular practice.

Shruti takes her parents aside while the others rehearse in mime, moving without sound. She thanks them and promises that playing fusion will never make her careless about her art. Nabin passes the thanks on to Leela: she is the one who reminded him of his own youth.

Leela fills in a history Shruti never knew. Nabin's family were classical singers of a strict tradition. When young Nabin chose the violin, an instrument Indian classical music had not yet accepted, his father took it as a betrayal. Years of hard work turned that ‘betrayal’ into a great career. Reminded of this, Nabin admits his mistake: Indian music was never in danger, and neither was his bond with his daughter. Quoting a saying about every bay having its own wind, he gives the group his blessing and promises to cheer them on. The play ends with Shruti hugging her parents.

• The parents' secret visit is the turning point: Nabin finally judges with his ears, not his assumptions.
• The raga inside the fusion answers Nabin's fear. Shruti has not abandoned classical music; she is carrying it into new places.
• Leela's story shows history repeating itself: the son who left his family's singing tradition for the violin now has a daughter stepping beyond his tradition.
• Nabin's saying, “each bay, its own wind”, means that each person is moved by different forces, so no single rule fits everyone.

6.4 Characters, themes and the title

A good play works on two levels: what happens, and what it means. These notes will help you with long answers on the play.

What the title means

The title has more than one layer. First, it describes the music itself: in fusion, Indian classical and Western traditions play together, like two melodies woven into one piece. Second, it points to two lives that echo each other (Fig. 6.4). Years ago Nabin stepped outside his family's singing tradition to take up the violin; now Shruti steps outside his classical tradition to play fusion. Father and daughter turn out to be playing the same tune of courage, a generation apart. Third, by the end the family itself is in harmony again.

Themes

• Tradition and modernity. Nabin guards classical music as something pure; the young group mixes it with new sounds. The play does not choose a side. It suggests that a tradition stays alive when it can meet new forms, just as the raga survives inside the fusion piece.
• The generation gap. Parents and children often hear music differently because they grew up with different sounds. The gap closes when Nabin actually listens instead of judging from a distance.
• Duty to family and personal passion. Shruti's conflict is not obedience against rebellion. She wants to follow her passion and keep her father's respect, which is why she struggles so much over how to speak.
• Honesty. Secrecy (the 'practice classes') makes the trouble worse; open talk, encouraged by her friends and her mother, resolves it.
• Friendship and diversity. The band brings together young people of different backgrounds and instruments from different traditions: flute and tabla beside keyboard and violin. Their harmony mirrors the play's message that differences can blend.

Nabin changes the most. He begins as an absolute judge who will not even hear the music, mocks it as noise and walks out. He ends by listening, praising, offering help and admitting he was wrong. What moves him is a mix of the music itself, which keeps the soul of the raga, Leela's reminder of his own past, and his love for Shruti.

The friends and authority. The three boys see facing elders in different ways. Avinash is practical: the worst result is a scolding, so speak up. Iqbal turns fear into a joke about being scolded daily, yet his advice is gentle and trusting. Peter keeps the group focused and cheers Shruti's decision. All three believe that honesty is better than hiding.

Is the ending convincing? Some readers find the change quick: one rehearsal undoes years of belief. Others note that it is well prepared: Leela's softness in Act II, Nabin's own history and Shruti's real skill all make it believable. In an exam, either view earns marks if you support it with events from the play.

6.5 Vocabulary and structures in context

The language work for the play covers a dramatic device, the little sounds of real speech, music words, useful phrases, and how to report exclamations.

6.5.1 The aside

In Act III, Shruti shares her plan to quit with the audience while her friends stand right beside her. The stage direction marks it (Aside). The friends do not hear it; only we do.

An aside does several jobs at once. It shows what a character really thinks or feels. It creates a direct link between that character and the audience. And it lets the audience know something the other characters do not, which builds suspense. A longer speech made when a character is alone on stage is called a soliloquy; an aside is short and spoken while others are present.

6.5.2 Non-lexical fillers

Real talk is full of little sounds that are not proper words: um, er, hmm. They are called non-lexical fillers. Speakers use them to fill a pause while they think, to show a feeling or to get attention. Playwrights put them into scripts to make dialogue sound natural. In the play, Iqbal clears his throat with a showy ahem before reading the newspaper, and Shruti stumbles over an er when she begins her request at dinner.

6.5.3 Words from the world of music

A note is a single musical sound at one fixed pitch. Notes combine in many ways, and English has a precise word for each feature of the sound (Fig. 6.5). A crescendo (say kri-SHEN-doh), which opens the play, is a gradual rise in loudness.

6.5.4 Phrases in context

Some phrases in the play carry meanings you can work out from the situation. Read each new example and notice how the phrase works.

6.5.5 Exclamations and reported speech

Many lines in the play are exclamatory sentences. They express a strong feeling such as surprise, joy, praise or sorrow, and end with an exclamation mark. They often begin with What or How, or with an interjection such as Wow!, Bravo! or Alas!

A declarative (assertive) sentence states something calmly: The music is very soulful. An interrogative sentence asks a question, and an imperative sentence gives an order or makes a request. To turn an exclamation into a statement, keep the meaning but drop the exclamation:

1. Remove the interjection (Wow, Oh, Wah) and the exclamation mark.
2. Change What a …! or How …! into a plain statement with very or great: What a lovely tune! becomes It is a very lovely tune.
3. When you report it, use a reporting verb that shows the feeling (exclaimed with joy, exclaimed in surprise, applauded) instead of said, and drop the quotation marks.

Example. “Wow! We have finally finished the mural!” said Zoya. → Zoya exclaimed with joy that they had finally finished the mural. The interjection and the marks go, said becomes exclaimed with joy, we becomes they, and have finished moves back to had finished.

6.6 Listening and speaking

6.6.1 Listen and respond: the yazh

Your textbook's listening task is about the yazh (said roughly yaazh), an ancient Tamil harp; your teacher has the recording. For extra practice, ask a partner to read this short talk aloud while you make notes. Don't read it yourself first.

6.6.2 Stress and intonation

When you speak a line from a play, how you say it matters as much as what you say. Stress is extra force on a word: we say it a little louder, longer and higher, and moving the stress changes the meaning. Intonation is the rise and fall of your voice across a sentence, which shows certainty, doubt, surprise or feeling (Fig. 6.7).

Say one sentence with the stress in four places: I didn't break the violin. Stress I and you mean someone else did it. Stress didn't and you deny it firmly. Stress break and you hint that you did something else to it. Stress violin and you suggest something else got broken.

Now pick three more lines from the play. Before you speak, decide what the character feels, which word carries that feeling, and whether the voice should rise or fall. Read them to a partner and ask which feeling they heard.

6.7 Writing a play script

Your textbook's writing task asks groups of four to turn the opening of a story into a short play script. Here is how a script works (Fig. 6.8), followed by a practice prompt and a model.

1. Plan first. Write a rough draft: who wants what, what stands in the way, and how it ends.
2. Begin with the characters and the setting: a list of characters with a few words on each, and a short scene description.
3. Speaker's name, then a colon: TENZIN: followed by the words. No inverted commas are needed.
4. Stage directions in brackets tell actors how to move or speak: (nervously), (getting up).
5. Use an aside when a character must share a secret thought with the audience: (Aside).
6. Use fillers and ellipsis for natural speech: Er … there's something. The ellipsis (…) marks a pause or a voice trailing off.
7. Keep speeches short. Real people interrupt, joke and hesitate.

6.8 Learning beyond the text

Look again at the bracketed words in the play, such as the directions telling us that Iqbal calls Shruti's name a little loudly and Avinash very loudly. A script needs no inverted commas, because the speaker's name and the colon already show who is talking. The colon separates the name from the words. The brackets hold stage directions, which do the job a reporting verb does in a story (he shouted, she whispered). They tell the actor the manner, tone or action, and they are never spoken aloud.

Long before factories, people made music from what grew or lived around them (Fig. 6.9). Indigenous instruments keep this link with nature: hollow bamboo becomes a flute, a dried gourd becomes the sound box of an ektara, animal hide is stretched over drums such as the dhol, and a conch shell is blown at temples and festivals. In Assam, the pepa played during Bihu is made from a buffalo's horn.

Further reading. Rigmarole and Other Plays by the film-maker and playwright Sai Paranjpye (Puffin, 2008) collects three funny, satirical plays for children. Read one aloud in parts with friends.

6.9 A Friend Found in Music: the poem

This short poem by Bryanna T. Perkins is a lyric: a poem in which a speaker shares her own feelings. Little has been published about the poet's life, so we focus on the poem itself. It has three stanzas of four lines each, and the words Music is return again and again, each time with a new picture of what music means to her.

The poem is built on metaphors: for the speaker, music is not just like an ocean, it simply is one (Fig. 6.10). Read the poem in your textbook, then use the notes below.

Stanza by stanza

Stanza 1: a pull and a beat. The speaker gives music two shapes. First it is a vast ocean, but a gentle one that carries her towards the safety of land rather than out to sea. Then it is a beat that stirs her at the deepest level. The verb moves works in two ways: rhythm makes the body sway, and it also touches the heart.

Stanza 2: medicine for low days. Here music becomes a cure. When she is sad (to “feel blue” means to feel low), music raises her mood and gives her the strength to get through a hard time. The tone is grateful: music is something she depends on, not just something she enjoys.

Stanza 3: the friend who stays. She looks back and notices that music was present in all her happiest moments. The poem ends on its warmest picture: music is a friend she truly needs, one who stays when no person seems to care. The ending holds both comfort and a touch of loneliness, a gap that music fills.

6.10 Appreciating the poem

To appreciate a poem, notice the tools the poet uses and what each one does. The table gathers the main ones.

A simile compares with like or as: Music is like a friend. A metaphor drops the comparing word and says one thing is another. Turning the poem's metaphors into similes shows the difference: Music is as deep as the ocean, Music is like medicine for a sad heart, Music is as loyal as a true friend. The metaphors feel stronger because they leave no gap between music and what it is compared to. Because music does things a person does (it pulls, moves and lifts), the poem also uses personification.

A rhyme scheme uses letters to show which line endings rhyme. Give the first ending A, the next new sound B, and so on, repeating a letter when a sound comes back. In this poem only the second and fourth lines of each stanza rhyme, so every stanza follows ABCB (Fig. 6.11, which uses a verse of our own). The pattern gives the poem a gentle, song-like sound, which suits a poem about music.

Mood and tone. The mood is thoughtful and warm: the speaker reflects calmly on what music has meant to her, neither joking nor longing for the past. The tone is sincere and grateful. Message. Music is more than entertainment; it is a steady companion that comforts us in sadness and shares our joy. Since nearly everyone has felt low and found comfort in a song, the poem has a universal appeal: it speaks to readers of any age or country.

Who is the speaker? The poem uses I, me and my throughout, and the feelings are personal, so we read the speaker as the poet herself.

6.11 Vocabulary in context

6.11.1 Words for feelings

The poem uses everyday phrases for feelings: feeling blue is negative (sadness), while lifting someone's spirits and being cheerful are positive (happiness). English has many words for shades of joy and sorrow, and choosing the exact one makes your writing sharper.

6.11.2 Phrasal verbs

At the end of stanza 2, the speaker says music helps her “pull through”: survive or get past a difficult time. Neither pull (draw something towards you) nor through (from one side to the other) means that on its own. A phrasal verb is a verb plus a small word, an adverb or a preposition called a particle, which together make a new meaning.

One verb can make many phrasal verbs. Move on its own means to change position, and it can also mean to stir someone's feelings (the song moved me), as in stanza 1. Add a particle and its meaning shifts again (Fig. 6.12).

6.12 Listening, speaking and writing

6.12.1 Listen and respond: a conversation

In your textbook's listening task you guess first, then listen and check. Practise the same skill here: read the questions in the quick check and guess the answers. Then ask two classmates to read this conversation aloud while you listen with your book closed.

6.12.2 Speaking: a role play

In groups of four, act out a meeting about whether a student should join music classes. Each person takes one role card. Speak in full sentences, ask one another questions to keep the talk moving, and let the discussion change at least one mind.

• Giving an opinion: I feel that …, In my view …
• Agreeing: That's a fair point. I couldn't agree more.
• Disagreeing politely: I see what you mean, but … I'm not so sure about that.
• Persuading: What if we tried it for a month? Wouldn't it help if …?
• Asking: How would you manage …? Could you explain …?

6.12.3 Writing: an invitation letter

Your textbook asks you to invite your grandparents to a school music event. An informal letter to family is warm and personal, but it still follows a clear layout (Fig. 6.13).

• Body, part 1: ask about their health and share a little news.
• Body, part 2: give the event's name, date, time and venue, and what you will perform.
• Body, part 3: request them warmly to come; mention travel plans if useful.
• Language: write in the first person (I, we), speak to them directly (you), and keep it warm and personal.

6.13 Learning beyond the text

Music has long been linked with well-being in India. Raga Chikitsa, an old Indian text, describes how ragas can be used for healing. The seventeenth-century Sangita Sudha, written at the court of Thanjavur, discusses how music affects our emotions. Today trained music therapists use listening, singing and playing to help people manage stress and pain, alongside medical care.

Indian classical music builds its melodies on seven swaras (notes): Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha and Ni, short for shadja, rishabha, gandhara, madhyama, panchama, dhaivata and nishada (Fig. 6.14). After Ni, the next Sa begins the series again, one step higher. One traditional account links each swara to a call in nature, such as Sa to the peacock and Pa to the koel. Ask your music teacher to tell you more about where the swaras come from.

Your textbook ends the unit with Music, a poem by the English poet Walter de la Mare (1873–1956). In it, music makes the everyday world fade and grow lovelier, fills it with magical beings and carries the speaker beyond ordinary time. Compare the two poems: one treats music as a magic that transforms the world, the other as a loyal friend.