Konnakol is a South Indian, Carnatic musical practice involving the recitation of syllables while clapping the underlying tala. Here is a very fine, and accessible example from B C Manjunath and Varijashree Venugopal:
I’ve been deeply inspired by Konnakol while learning its fascinating geometric rhythms, and some of this inspiration has found its way into my performances, via some new functions I’ve added to the Strudel and Tidal live coding environments to better support these structures. I recently presented a paper on the topic at the 12th FARM workshop (FARM being short for the International Workshop on Functional Art, Music, Modeling and Design). Here is the abstract:
Konnakol is a South Indian, Carnatic musical practice involving the vocal recitation of algorithmic, geometric rhythmic patterns of non-lexical syllables. I reflect on the experience of learning konnakol rhythms, and of adapting the TidalCycles and Strudel live coding environments to better represent Konnakol-inspired rhythms, based on the concept of the metrical tactus. I share visualisations of examples, and the development of a hybrid practice that integrates vocal patterns with live coding. I conclude by considering the issue of cultural appropriation around this work.
You can read the full open access paper in the ACM digital library. I’m looking forward to taking this forward in some upcoming collaborations, and will soon share an online interactive resource I’m working on for exploring some Konnakol exercises.
