Raga

Raga
Raga is the Pivotal concept of Carnatic music. This concept is India's proud contribution to world music. The ideal of absolute music is reached in the concept of Raga. Raga is much more than a scale. It is defied as that which colors the mind in ancient text.A raga is in some ways a kind of mystical expression with a musical personality of its own. The whole structure of Indian music is built around the concept of raga. Indian melodies of the classical type are based on ragas.

Raga can be loosely defined as melody type or expressive mode. It consists of series of upto seven notes, which bear a definite relationship to adhara shadja and which occur in a particular sequence. They derive their personality through notes of defined pitch entering into their formation. It is the arrangement of particular swaras, in conformity to recognised aesthetic laws that establish the rupa (form) of raga.

Raga alapana is the presentation of pharases admissible in the raga in such a manner as to bring out its distictive characteristics. The arohana and avarohana constitute the briefest description of a raga. It gives the concsise form of the outline or framework of the raga.

Raga classification

Melam and Janyam Ragas are classifed into Janaka ragas and Janya ragas. Janaka ragas, also known as Melakartha or Sampurna raga has all seven notes (saptha swara) in their arohana and avarohana. There are 72 such janaka ragas arranged in a definete, serial order. A Janya raga is said to be derived from a janaka raga. It takes the same swaras as in its melakartha raga, but may take fewer swaras.

Sudha Madhyama and Prathhi Madhyama Raga: There are seventy two such melakartha ragas each with its own set ot janya ragas. As mentioned before ragas can take variations only in Re (Re1, Re2, Re3), Ga (Ga1, Ga2, Ga3), Ma (Ma1, Ma2), Dha (Dha1, Dha2, Dha3) and Ne (Ne1, Ne2, Ne3). The first 36 of 72 melams use Sudha Madhyamam (Ma1) and are called Sudha Madhyama ragas. The later 36 use Prathi Madhyaman (Ma2) and are called Parathi Madhyama ragas. So within each category they can differ only in Re, Ga, Dha and Ne. These are systematically divided into six chakras, with six melams per chakra.

Katapayadhi Sankya: The name and number of Melakartha raga is systematically defined by Katapayadhi Sankya method. The letters Ka, Ta, Pa, Ya, etc are assiged numeric numbers. From the first two characters of each melam, and mapping it to the number corresponding to the character, the mela raga's number is identified. For example, the raga "Dheera Shankarabaranam" has Dhe and Ra as its first characters, tha map to 9 and 2. By juxtaposing the 2nd character's number with the 1st one we get 29, which is the mela kartha number of the raga. Ragas like Chakravagham are represented with Cha and Ka (6 and 1, thereby 16) instead of 'k'.

Vajra Raga: Janya ragas is called Vajra raga if upto three swaras are deleted in the arohaana, avarohana or both., Vajra ragas are furher classified into shadava (only six swaras present in aarohanam / avarohanam of raga; or one vajra) and audava (only five swaras present; two being vajra). As mentioned before, a raga with all seven notes is called sampurna raga. Note that a raga with only four notes in aarohana or avarohana is not considered since atleast five swaras are required to give an individuality to the raga. Also janayas can have different number of swaras in arohanam and avarohanam giving rise to eight types of varja ragas.

Upanga and Bashanga Raga: Another type of raga classification classifies them as Upanga raga if janya takes only the swaras of the melakartha (as they usually do), Bashanga raga if they take a foreign swara in either arohanam, avarohanam or both (from somether melakartha) and vakra raga if arohana or avarohana or both take zig-zag course or twist. Vakra ragas are further classifed into Sampurna vakra if arohana and avarohana are sampurna (with all seven notes present) or Vakra varja if they have less than seven notes. Vakra ragas also are classified into Ekaswara vakra, Dviswara vakra, Triswara vakra or Chatusswara vakra based on number of vakra swaras in the raga (one, two, three and four respectively). Four is the maximum number of vakra swara that a raga can accomadate. In Bashanga raga, the foreign note is known as annya swara. The number of Bhashanga ragas used in Carnatic music is 26.

Basic

Swara

Indian music has seven notes or swaras as with all systems of music. Swara is defined as "that which is able to please of its own accord". These seven swaras are called Shadjamam, Rishabham, Gandharam, Madhyamam, Panchamam, Dhivatham and Nishadham. These are often represented as Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Da and Ne, by their first syllable.

Swara and Swara Stanam

Of these seven swaras, Sa and Pa donot admit variations and are called achala (fixed) or avikratha (changeless) swaras. The other five (Re, Ga, Ma, Da and Ne) admint of two varieties each. The terms Komal and Tivra are used to distinguish these two, with komala swaram lower in note than the tivra swaram. Thus we have

Sudha (Komal) and Chathusruthi (Tivra) Rishabam,Sadharana (komal) and Antara (tivra) gandharam, Sudha (Komal) and Prati (Tivra) Madhyamam, Sudha (Komal) and Chatussruthi (Tivra) dhivatham and Kaisiki (komal) and Kakali (Tivra) Nishadham.

With this, there are 12 distictive swaras corresponding to notes in Carnatic Music.

In addition, four of the swaras, Ri, Ga, Da and Ne extend to another variety overlaping with the next swarastanam. This give rise to four more swaras totalling 16. Note however that the note (swara stana) is shared between two swaras.

1. Shadjama

• S = Shadjama = First key of the octave= C(western)
  

2. Rishaba

• R1 = Shudhdha Rishabha = Second key of the octave=C#(western)
• R2 = Chathushruthi Rishabha = Third key of the octave=D(western)
• R3 = Sathshruthi Rishabha = Fourth key of the octave=D#/Eb(western)

3. Gandhara

• G1 = Shudhdha Gandhara = Third key of the octave=D(western)
• G2 = Sadharana Gandhara = Fourth key of the octave=D#/Eb(western)
• G3 = Anthara Gandhara= Fifth key of the octave=E(western)

4. Madhyama

• M1 = Shudhdha Madhyama = Sixth key of the octave=F(western)
• M2 = Prathi Madhyama = Seventh key of the octave=F#/Gb(western)

5. Panchama

• P = Panchama = Eigth key of the octave=G(western)

6. Daivatha

• D1 = Shudhdha Daivatha = Nineth key of the octave=G#/Ab(western)
• D2 = Chathushruthi Daivatha = Tenth key of the octave=A(western)
• D3 = Sathshruthi Daivatha = Eleventh key of the octave=A#/Bb(western)

7. Nishadha

• N1 = Shudhdha Nishadha = Tenth key of the octave=A(western)
• N2 = Kaishika Nishadha = Eleventh key of the octave=A#/Bb(western)
• N3 = Kaakali Nishadha = Twelveth key of the octave=B(western)

The sudha swaras, also known as Prakrithi swaras, have the prefix Sudha. This is usually the lowest pitched note for that swara. The vikratha swaras have prefixes like chatussruthi, shatshuruthi, sadharana, antara, etc. In Hindustani music, sudha swara usually refer to Sankarabharana scale (Bilval).

Carnatic Music

It is the classical music of Southern India. The basic form is a monophonic song with improvised variations. There are 72 basic scales on the octave, and a rich variety of melodic motion. Both melodic and rhythmic structures are varied and compelling. This is one of the world's oldest & richest musical traditions.

History of Carnatic Music

Carnatic Music has its roots in the distance past. The earliest extend theoritical work is the Natya Sastra by Bharatha, a treatise on theater, dance and music dating between the second century B.C to the fifth century A.D. Through centuries many more important scholarly books on music have been written, perhaps the most noteworthy of which was the medieval Sangeetha Ratnakara by Sarangadeva.

Purandaradasa (1484-1564), sometimes called the Father of Carnatic Music, composed not only many songs but the standard lessons and exercices that are still memorized by every music student today. A golden age occurred between about 1750 and 1850 when the forms and performaces style that have continued to the present day were set. Thousands of new krithis (compositions) were composed, new ragas were invented, and the conceptual form of older ragas expanded.The Sangitha trimurthis (big three) , Sama Sastry (1762-1827), Tyagaraja (1767-1847) and Muthuswamy Dikshitar (1777-1847) dominated this period.