An interesting example of a synthesis of two different musical cultures is the song called Chaiyya Chaiyya (video clip from movie). This song uses Indian rhythms along with Hip-Hop rhythms, as well as melodic elements from these two diverse cultures. By clicking on the link below, you can hear the music analyzed in the spectrogram below.
Play video: RAR (compressed AVI)
The spectrogram reveals multiple aspects to the music:
1. The long thin rectangle at the far left indicates the percussive drum strikes of wide spectral sonority with Indian rhythm.
2. The long oval at the bottom left indicates low frequency pounding bass percussion (of the kind heard in Hip-Hop). Note: This pounding bass is more clearly heard in the original audio clip (it is not as apparent in the video sound, due to defects in re-recording).
3. In the second rectangle on the left side (indicated by the yellow arrow pointing down), we can see formants of a male voice singing Urdu lyrics and singing a meaningless word pair ("Chaiyya Chaiyya"). The meaningless word pairings are reminiscent of the vocal music created by many African-American singers ("scat singing" for example). With these meaningless vocal sounds, the human voice is functionally purely as a musical instrument . The Urdu lyrics combined with this "scat singing" is a further example of synthesis of music from these two different cultures.
4. In the third rectangle on the left side (indicated by a pink arrow pointing up), we see formants of a female voice. The pitch of the female voice is at a consonant pitch with the male voice (at a 3:2 frequency ratio, the interval known as a fourth which is regarded as particularly consonant in Western music). The male and female voices sing in duet at various points during the song.
5. In the vertically oriented oval-shaped rectangle on the right (indicated by a green arrow pointing to its right side), we show a region where there is a contrast between Indian rhythmic drumming and Hip-Hop percussive sounds. On the left below we show a spectrogram of this portion of the music:
Play video: AVI RAR MPEG Play video: AVI RAR MPEG
On the right side of this figure, we show an analysis of the hierarchies contained within this percussion sequence. Both types of rhythm are structured in terms of hierarchical levels. We can also see (and hear) the more elaborate structuring of the Hip-Hop sequence in the middle of the passage (vs. the Indian drumming at the beginning).
6. In the oval-shaped rectangle at the far right (indicated by a green arrow pointing to its left side), we show a region where there is a contrast between an Indian melody of higher, more flowing, pitch contour and a Hip-Hop pounding rhythm of low pitch. A perfect example of multicultural synthesis (and of Cogan's oppositions in music, see dialectical development of music).
Note: The song Chaiya Chaiya was probably first heard in the West as the theme song for Spike Lee's film, The Inside Man.
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