desh (ttbb)

Most Indian ensembles consist of one or two percussionists to provide the rhythm and one or two melodic instrumentalists (violin, flute, sitar, etc) or vocalists to provide the melody, which is superimposed over a shruti box that drones the root and fifth of the scale for the duration of the piece.  This arrangement of Desh attempts to reproduce these traditional Indian sounds using only the human voice.  The drone is replicated through a combination of lower voices singing held syllables and upper voices singing with harmonic overtones.  A variety of nonsense syllables are used to effectively mimic the sound of Indian percussion instruments.

This raga is also available for satb voices (S-252).