Courses

Courses, camps, workshops or lectures on Melharmony have been conducted at various levels in different parts of the world, which have given participents a wholistic view of "Melody, Harmony & Melharmony".

Recent cases in point were the 4-week course in July 2014 for Strings, Woodwind, Brass and Piano/Keyboard studetns conducted by Steve Kurr and Vanitha Suresh in Madison, WI, USA (with an overall professional development time of 12 hours), supported by Arts Wisconsin and the Summer College Credit Course in August 2015 by Prof Robert Morris and Ravikiran at Eastman School of Music, Rochester NY.

Efforts are on to create full-scale Online and Live Courses in various Universities as well as Residency Workshops for professional symphonies.

Course Topics/Modules:

While courses vary based on their relevance to participants (professional level musicians/composers/academicians - Beginners, Intermediate and Advanced level collegiate and high school students/ music aficianados), they will draw from the topics below:

Essentials:

Similarities between diverse music systems such as Western and Indian Classical

Contrast between melody-centric and harmony-centric approaches - making successive vs simultaneous combinations work successfully

Understanding melody-centric approach through Raga (scale/mode)

ABCD of Melharmony - harmony with melodic rules

- harmony with melodic rules

Triadic Harmony, Ostinato, Imitation etc in the Melharmonic context

Possible chords vs appropriate chords based on melodic rules

Arranging simple melodic pieces Melharmonically

Composing original pieces applying Melharmonic principles

Extras:

Ornamentation and oscillations in ragas

Simple melodic exercises in a few modes/ragas

Introduction to the concept of Cyclic Rhythm (Tala)

Rhythmic patterns and pulsar intricacies that can enrich compositions

Melharmony - Scope

How does Melharmony enrich harmony-centric systems

Exercises:

On the above including composing and arranging exercises

Execution:

Rendering simple melharmonic pieces (esp. for groups/ orchestras)