Welcome to The Sounds of Raagas

The word raga comes from the Sanscrit ranj and means to color with emotion. It is a combination of notes which acts directly on the senses.

There are 2 distinct traditions in Indian Music. The South Indian, or Karnatic, and the North Indian, or Hidustani. The Karnatic is the more ancient and purely Indian tradition. The Hindustani tradition has been more influenced through the years by other peoples and musical traditions, particularly by the Moghul (or Mughal) invasion and empire.

Besides bringing musical influences from other cultures, the Mughal empire encouraged the appreciation of music as an upper-class, court activity, in much the same way that European classical music was mainly supported by the court aristocracy through the Baroque and Classical periods. Hindustani music therefore shares Western "classical" music's tendency towards long performances geared towards knowledgeable audiences. In the case of Indian classical music, this means very long, improvised performances on a single raga. In the south, music remained more commonly associated with everyday religious and secular activities. Even formal performances tend to feature shorter improvisations alongside (relatively) short composed pieces.

Thanks mainly to international superstars like Ravi Shankar, Westerners are more likely to encounter music from the Hindustani tradition. In general, terms below are from the Hindustani tradition, since that is the one that Westerners are most likely to encounter.

One reason that Indian music sounds so different is that the major/minor tonal system is not used. Harmony, and specifically the major/minor tonal system, has been the basic organizing principle in Western music - classical, folk, and popular - for centuries. A piece of music is in a certain key, which means it uses the notes of a particular major or minor scale. The raagaa harmonies developed using those notes are an integral, basic part of the development and form of the raagas music. Most of the complexity of Western music lies in its harmonies and counterpoint.

Ragas are derived from basic parent scales. These are known as melakartas in southern India. There are 72 melakartas and all the south Indian ragas correspond to their parent scales in their ascending aroha and descending avroha note structures. This is a more comprehensive system than in the north of India, where there are ten parent groups known as thaats. A thaat is simply a particular grouping of 7 swaras or notes.

Ragas belong to three classes or jatis according to the number of notes that ascend or descend.Sampurna ragas use all the seven notes SA RE GA MA PA DHA NI (such as the Bilaval and kafi ragas.) Ragas using six notes are known as sadava and examples of these are puriya and gurjari todi. The five note ragas such as bhupali and malkauns are known as odava. In addition to these three main types ragas may be of mixed class where the number of notes is different both up and down. Asavari for example is an odava-sampurna raga as it has five notes ascending (aroha) and seven descending (avroha). A raga should not have more than 7 nor less than 5 notes. No such limitation exists in flamenco.

Every raga has a key note known as the vadi.This sound is dwelt on and accentuated constantly throughout the piece and is used to begin and end all variations. It is eagerly awaited and desired so that tension may be resolved.

A raga can immediately be identified by its catch phrase (pakad) which only emerges when there is an elaboration of a number of patterns (vistar). A raga is essentially a melody where all notes are sung or played in succession. The absence of harmony and the movement from one note to another is what distinguishes Indian music from Western music. Much use is made of embellishments such as meends slides, andolitas swings, kampitas shakes and mirhs or slurs. A raga is given shape and beautified by numerous ornaments, alamkaras and other devices, the best known of which are taans. The jabra taan creates a trembling throaty effect; the kut taan uses notes in a fast zigzag manner; the choot taan has upward and downward movements at great speed; the gamak taan uses each note twice in virtuoso displays of technique.

According to Indian ancient theory, the musician's task in exploring mood is made easier if the performance takes place at the time and in the atmosphere appropriate to the raga. So if a raga which embodies the atmosphere of spring is played in spring it will be more effective than if it were played in winter. The right atmosphere responds to the raga as it were, just as the sympathetic strings of a sitar vibrate to enrich the melody being played on the main strings. This is why particular times and seasons are deemed suitable for particular ragas.

Yet the time theory is an honoured one in all Indian classical music. There are ragas appropriate to the early morning, the late morning, the noon and afternoons.Midday and midnight ragas usually have GAb and NI b (Bb); and the ragas before twilight must have SA(C), M(F) and PA(G). The ragas of the sunrise and sunset belong to the special sandhiprakash, the twilight group. In general the time of the ragas performance is determined by the position of the vadi. If the vadi is in the purvanga (lower tetrachord) then it would be suitable for the hours between midnight and mid-day, or noon.

In a full rendering the most important part of the raga is the alap or beginning, when the mood of the raga is established in a slow, meditative and rhythm-free exposition known as the vistar where each note is given full significance.

In Indian music as the raga develops, an element of rhythm is brought in with the percussion instrument, either the tabla or pakhavaj in north India and the mridangram in southern India. Here raagas rhythm is all important, and both soloist and percussionist improvise sometimes echoing each other, sometimes going into individual raagaa variations of rhythmic counterpoint and at other times playing raaga in unison. In this last section of the raga, the virtuosity of the musicians can be fully displayed. Here the increasing complexity and speed of the variations generate tremendous excitement. Equally so in flamenco, the Bulería often ends a piece in a flurry of excitement and technical prowess.

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