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Vaishnava Songs on the Harmonium - Easy to Learn
(For Adults and Children)

that's your sample scale ... each song has a scale

Preface

This book grew out of the practical need to find a method of teaching harmonium to children and adults who know little or nothing about musical notation. It is an easy-to-learn method with immediate results: learners using it will be able to play a Vaishnava song within 5-10 minutes.

In tutoring devotees in their homes, I have noticed that children and adults need some form of written record to remember the melodies they are learning. If this record is easy for them to understand, it gives them a sense of confidence because they know that they have this aid to memory for when the teacher has left. A beginner will then, with practice, quickly become familiar with the keys, and develop the skill I would call "musical memory". I have taught many adults who firmly believed they were "not musical", only to see them blissfully playing Vaishnava songs on the harmonium in a week.

You will find that the musical notation in this book is very easy to follow and requires no training in Western classical notation. It uses the Vedic musical notes sa, ri, ga, ma, pa, dha and ni, referred to in the Srimad-Bhagavatam (3.12.47), among other scriptures:

sparsas tasyabhavaj jivah
svaro deha udahrta
usmanam indriyany ahur
antah-stha balam atmanah
svarah sapta viharena
bhavanti sma prajapateh

Brahma's soul was manifested as the touch alphabets, his body as the vowels, his senses as the sibilant alphabets, his strength as the intermediate alphabets and his sensual activities as the seven notes of music.

In the purport, Srila Prabhupada explains: 'The musical notes are sa, ri, ga, ma, pa, dha, and ni. All these sound vibrations are originally called sabda-brahma, or spiritual sound. It is said, therefore, that Brahma was created in the Maha-kalpa as the incarnation of spiritual sound.'

Of course, I could have used the musical scale do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si, or the Western musical notation of c, d, e, f, g, a, b. This book, however, does not aim to give classical musical training, and the Vedic system seems more congruent with learning to play harmonium as a devotional offering to the Lord.

I have formatted this book and designed it specifically to fit above the keyboard of the harmonium. The large print should also make it easy for children to read the notation and the text of the songs.

As you use this guide and your confidence grows-as with anything else in life-your ability to sing Vaishnava songs and play for the Lord's pleasure in the temple or in your home will grow beyond bounds. I hope that this book will please our divine spiritual master, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, on the auspicious day of his Centennial. I hope that it will please you too.

Introduction

It is important for the learner who uses this book to be familiar with the Vaishnava song he or she wishes to learn and its melody. You will find the words to the songs in this book. I have also recorded a tape, as part of this course, for you to familiarise yourself with the melodies.

The first step in learning to play harmonium is to turn to the back of the book. You will find a page with Sa, Ri, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha and Ni in small squares. Cut these out carefully. They are for you to glue on to the appropriate keys of your harmonium either with 'pritt stick' or blue-tack. A diagram at the beginning of each Vaishnava song shows you which key is which.

The second step is to play the notes to the song as they are written down in the book without yet trying to sing along. Allocate a finger for each harmonium key which has been marked. This will stop you from crossing your fingers to reach keys. Once you have a feel for the keys, try singing along. If a note, say Ri, comes two or three times consecutively in a line of a song (R R R), simply hold the Ri key down for that time.

After playing the notes and singing along a few times, you will begin memorising certain parts of the song which repeat themselves. This is the third stage. Soon you will commit the whole song to memory. If you happen to then forget any part of a song, this book will serve as a reminder. The tape is essential for melodies that the student does not know. Though music depends a lot on individual perception and interpretation, I would encourage you, at least in the beginning, to keep to the notes I have given you in this book. Later, as you progress, you can make slight adaptations and create your own nuances to suit your style.

Please note that the Ni flat (komol ni, N with a line under) is represented by a small "n" in blue. All other flat notes are likewise written in small letters and appear in blue. These stand for any notes with a line under which are displayed at the keyboard graphics. I will have still to find a way of displaying notes in the higher and lower registers, which is supported by the HTML script. Any feedback in this regard is much welcome. For the time being use your common sense.

Please print this page and cut out the image below, after which you can cut out the necessary notes and stick them on your harmonium keyboard. Please stick at first only those notes on your keyboard which are necessary for the particular song you are learning. This will provide clarity and will avoid unnecessary cluttering up your harmonium keys. Later, of course, you can place all the cut-outs on your keyboard. However, you will find that with some practice you will soon get used to finding the appropriate keys without the help of the cut-outs. It is just a method to start you off by helping you to get used to the harmonium keyboard and to easily find the appropriate keys.

print it ... cut it out ... stick it on your keyboard

All what is left now is to wish you all success in your learning Vaishnava songs on the harmonium. Please feel free to give me any feedback on the method as well as on the web-site itself. The aim was to make available these easy to learn harmonium skills for an audience as widely as possible. The RealAudio sound files containing the music for the songs will be uploaded shortly to this server. Please stay tuned in and visit regularly, as this site will be updated and will be growing. There are many more Vaishnava songs, intricate Vrindaban tunes, Vaiyasakhi tunes und many others which are waiting to be brought to these pages. There will also be a guest book available shortly, and besides all, please tell your friends about this site. Thank you,- Hare Krishna.

Finally, here it is ... the long awaited 'Songbook'. It is not the final product yet, however, it is getting quite close. A major breakthrough has been achieved by designing my own font. The font (Sariga.ttf) is needed in order to display the flat notes (they have a line under) as well as the different octaves, which are indicated by placing a dot under (lower octave) or over (higher octave) the note. The middle octave has no dots. Sharp notes have not been introduced in order to keep things simple. They are written as flat notes, because it doesn't make any practical difference on the harmonium keyboard.

You can view the songbook by clicking here. You can also download it by right clicking on the link. However, to properly read the file you need to install four fonts on your computer, namely the 'Sariga' font, the 'ScaGoudy' font, the 'Sanskrit-Times' font and the 'Balarama' font. I will simplify this in due course by editing the book in such a way that only two fonts are needed. Please right click on the following 'Font Link' to download a Zip File which contains all the necessary fonts.

Please do get in touch with me if you encounter any difficulties. I am more than willing to help you. Please also forward at least your name if you want a copy of the book, so I get some idea how many books are needed in the first print run. The songbook will be spiral bound. It will also contain an Audio CD with the original songs and melodies as well as some songs from me. However, you might have to wait a bit for the CD as I will have first to seek permission from the copyright holders.

Words of Songs & Songs - Download

You can download some files from here for a printable version of the words of some songs. It takes just a few seconds. They are in Microsoft Word 97 format.

To download the file right click on the underlined blue link below. This opens the Save As or Save Target As option which enables you to save the file onto your computer's hard drive or on a floppy disk. You can even rename the file. Make sure you remember the filename. Save it to a location where you will find it again, such as 'My Documents' or your Desktop if you have Windows 95 or 98.

Once you have downloaded the file to your computer just dopple click the file icon and your Word Processor will open and display the contents in the usual manner. Print the document from your Word Processor.

You also need to install the ScaGoudy font on your computer in order to view the songs with the proper Sanskrit diacritics. Proceed with the download of the font in the same way as with the song document file. The fonts (3 font files, regular, bold, italics) are in a zipped file which you can open with your WinZip programme. Thereafter you have to install the fonts on your computer via the Control Panel.

Jagannathastakam (words) [download] ScaGoudy Sanskrit Font

Sundara Bala (words) [download] MP3

Jaya Madhava Madana Murari (words)

A left click on the link will display the content of the file in your browser if you want to see it first. You can also print from this view. If you have any difficulties with the download, please let me know. You can e-mail me by left clicking the e-mail icon below.

Nrsimha Kavacha Stotram (words) [download]

108 Names of Lord Nrsimhadeva (words) [download]

Krishna-jinaka [download]

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