Raga Appreciation

[Indrajith]

Hi,
I am sorry for the late posting. I was down for some time and occupied for quite some time. I think i have not done enough justice for this raga explanation and notes. Will try to cope up in my coming post. I did not have time to sit and prepare the write up and edit.

Nitya ,
Man you have given the ove all picture in 4-5 lines. I appreciate that.

shree_nav,
Though I am not against discussing film songs in this post, I really appreciate your efforts and I would expect more inputs and posts from you regarding the classical music stuffs.

[Indrajith]

Helloooooooooo!!! anybody there?

[RR]

Sahana is a beautiful raga that IMO is best suited for classical renditions (rather than light, e.g film songs - where most of its beauty seems to be missed.). Though instrumentals sound good (Ravi kiran's is memorable), I tend to favor vocals. MDR's is good!

Can you explain more about "kampita gamakam and pratyahata/Dhattu gamaka " ?

[Nitya]

Better late than never, Indrajith.


For the next raaga analysis, I suggest Jonpuri. You don't have to take my suggestion: I'm just throwing it out there.

[Indrajith]

Bindumalini means a girl wearing a garland of Pearls. The raga in deed feels like one. It is a jan ya raga of the 16th Melakartha Chakravagam. Previously it is practiced under 17th ( Suryakantham) and later GURUS decided it to be under 16th. It is a Minor Raga but has ample scope to be sung as a MINI main in concerts. ( I heard a 40 mins Bindumalini aalapana from one singer(? He claims he is not as he never took up classes for carnatic) in a village near Thanjavur. Awesome. Then I felt the scope it offers for singing and composing.

It is a ubhaya Vakra Shadava Shadava upanga raga with vakraswaras offering great scope for singers imagination. Arohanam is Dha Varja and avarohanam is Ma Varja.

Arohanam: Sa Ga3 Ri1 Ga3 Ma1 Pa Ni2 SA
Avarohanam: SA Ni2 SA Dha2 Pa Ga3 Ri Sa

Antara Gandharam and Kaisiki Nishadam are chaya swaras of this raga.

Bindumalini has no corresponding raga in Hindustani. Both Ahir Bhairav and Bibhas are simillar to this. This raga allows tristhayee sancharams.
Regarding the vakra prayogams this is Eka svara vakra raga. Ga being the vakra swara in the arohanam and Ni in the avarohanam.

Entha Muddho Entha Sogaso is the only song as far as I know which is set to this raga. Are there any other vagyeyakkaras who composed on this raga?

This is a lighter raga like Revathi, Sivaranjani or any other of that type. So this does not involve rigorous gamakams. This can be thought of like Malayamarutham which does not rely heavily on gamakams like Thodi or Bhairavi. Simply by playing the notes and pauses at Ni & Ga can make this raga more appealing for the lighter People.

This has a very filmy structure, I mean that Pausing at Ni & Ga at higher octaves & all those stuff.
But this raga has to be played like continuous notes like on instruments like Flute Or Saxaphone Or Violin to get the feel. Or Let me put it this way If this raga ( not song) can be played on Jalatharangam, it can very well be played on Keyboard too.

[RR]

I've heard TNS do a detailed piece on Bindumalini. He uses this raga in ragamalika too. Sounds like one of his favorites.

Good writeup.

[Indrajith]

I have been reading some books about classical music and got some points I would like to share with you all for the betterment of our understanding classical music.

Lets start with defining a raga, Raga can be thought of as an Idea. It is an individual entity. There are swaras in raga and they are like runs of a ladder.
In western music they call it as a Note or Tone. Note can be seen as a theoritical concept. Note is what is written and Tone is what is heard.

Music have scales and there are 2 scales viz., Minor and Major. Major scale can be mapped to our Dheera Shankarabharanam and Minor scale loosely maps to Natabhairavi or Keeravani. Western music has another scale also which can be mapped to Gowrimanohari on the raise and Natabhairavi on the fall.

Scales can be mapped to Melas in our music. Mela can be thought of as a group of swaras. Ragas are children of melas. Shankarabharana Mela gave shankarabharana Raga. Kannada , Atana, Bilahari all fall in to Shankarabharana Mela. Bhairavi is from Nata Bhairavi Mela.

We came to know about ragas only around 7th century from the recorded texts. Brihatdesi quotes

"...yo asou dhwani visheshascha
Swara varna vibooshithaha
ranjako jana chitthanaam... "

Then comes Varnams. There are 4 Types of varnams viz .. Aarohi, Avarohi, Sthayee, Sanchari. We shall try to understand it using a simple correlation.
What we can do is like we can stay in a place...it is called Sthayi. Where "Stha" means stand ( Like Sthanam). We can move up.. called aarohanam or can move down called avarohanam. we can go up and down which is sanchari. if we stay in a swara it is called as Sthayi and usages like sa ri ga ma is called arohanam and pa ma ga ri is called avarohanam. Parayogams like sa ri ga ma pa ma ga ri are called sanchari.

The one which is made of swaras and has these 4 varnams in it is called as a raga and should be pleasing to ears. The term raga is called as Jathi earlier. In Tamil we call it as Pan. There are 23 notable Pans in Tamil Nomenclature.

There are 3 classifications in classical music ragas, Suddham- Which means it is a suddha raga ,chayalakam - Which is of another raga's Style or sayal, Misram - which are got by adding Anya Swaras.

A good example of Suddha ragam would be Shankarabharanam. Misra ragam example would be sivaranjani. And coming to Chayalakam or Sayal, ie. one raga having resemblences of another raga is a bit topic to be discussed.
So what is the point all about the Related Ragas? 2 or more ragas can have the same swaras and yet far apart. There are nuances which makes them world apart. They can be use of Gamakam, Jaaru, Doubling of swaras ( Usage of Janta Swaras), Staying in a swara for a longer time or Shorter time, Alpathvam, Bahuthvam & so on.

We shall discuss about this further in coming posts. We shall be able to differenciate between ragas and appreciate them better.

Note: Most of this post is based on Books & Lectures By Prof. S.Ramanathan

[rajraj]

indrajith,
I think C major is Sankarabharanam. There are other major scales. You might want to verify.

[Indrajith]

In music theory, a diatonic scale is a seven-note musical scale comprising five whole-tone and two half-tone steps, in which the half tones are maximally separated. Diatonic scales are a fundamental building block of the European musical tradition. It is sometimes used to refer to all the modes, but is generally used only in reference to the major and minor scales.The major scale begins on the first note and proceeds by steps to the first octave. It should be kept in mind that most longer pieces of common practice music change key, but this leads to a hierarchical relationship of diatonic scales in one key with those in another. The minor scale may also be considered as the sixth mode of a major scale, with its tonic starting on the sixth degree of the major scale. Alternately the major scale may be viewed as the third mode of the minor scale.

As there are basically C Major and C Minor I took the liberty of calling all other scales are nTh degree change of C# or C Minor, which is another scale and this one is not acceptable to many people. In classical music terms we can say that C Major is the one and we obtain all other scales by Moorchanas & Grahabedhams.

Yes, C major maps to Shankarabharanam. I will correct. And Raj Raj , thanks for pointing out.

[Indrajith]

Amruthavarshini does not find a place in most of the musical granthams. It has been called as Seelangi in Ghanabhaskaram & the same is named as SmaraRanjani in SwaraprastharaSagaram both being mentioning that this is a janya of 65th mela Mechakalyani. There are versions where raagam is considered as a janyam of the 66th Melaraagam Chithrambari.

This is a prathimadhyama counterpart of Gambheeranaatta. Where Arohanam Sa Ga3 Ma1 Pa Ni3 Sa,Avarohanam Sa Ni3 Pa Ma1 Ga3 Sa and it is janyam of chalanata, which is the 36th raga in the melakartha list. So theoritically speaking the prathimadhyama counterpart of Ghambheera Nata ( Janya of 36 chalanata), Amruthavarshini should have been a janyam of 72nd melakartha the Rasikapriya. But it has been listed only under 65th mela in ancient scripts.

If you look the scale, it could be the janyam of Gamanashramam or Kalyani or Rasikapriya or chithrambari theoritically.
Look at the arohana avarohana of the listed ragas will tell us that S G3 M2 P N3 S -S N3 P M2 G3 S will be same,

53. Gamanasrama S R1 G3 M2 P D2 N3 S - S N3 D2 P M2 G3 R1 S
65. Mechakalyani S R2 G3 M2 P D2 N3 S - S N3 D2 P M2 G3 R2 S
66. Chitrambhari S R2 G3 M2 P D3 N3 S - S N3 D3 P M2 G3 R2 S
72. Rasikapriya S R3 G3 M2 P D3 N3 S - S N3 D3 P M2 G3 R3 S

So, we are bound to get confused. The point to be noted is that the Ga the Gandharam of Amruthavarshini is sung with a kampitha Gamakam where the Ga is oscillating.
That's the key. Am I Missing anything?