In Hindustani (North Indian) classical music system, a thaat represents a Parent Scale that uses at least 7 swars/notes(out of the 12 swars) to make a Raaga or Raag. Out of these seven notes–sa re ga ma pa dha ni–Sa and Pa remains constant without variations but other notes: re ga ma dha and ni each have two variants (natural vs. flat, or natural vs. sharp), so there is a possibility of getting 32 different thaats, but 10 thaats are commonly used in Hindustani music.
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13 Characteristics of Carnatic Raaga
“Thrayodasa Lakshanas”–the thirteen characteristics of a Raga–which establish the swaroopa or melodic entity of the raga.
The thirteen characteristics of a Raga are:
Graha Hamsa Mandra Thara Nyasa Apanyasa Sanyasa Vinyasa Bhahutwa Alpatwa Sampoorna Shadava AudavaContinue reading
Indian musical notes
The solfege (sargam) is learnt in abbreviated form of swara: sa, ri (Carnatic) or re (Hindustani), ga, ma, pa, dha, ni, sa. Of these, the first that is “sa”, and the fifth that is “pa”, are considered anchors that are unalterable, while the remaining have flavors that differs between the two major systems.
The swaras in Carnatic music are slightly different in the twelve-note system. There are three types each of Rishabha, Gandhara, Dhaivata and Nishada. There are two types of Madhyama, while Pancham and Shadja are invariant. In Carnatic Music, swaras have prakruti and vikruti swaras. The vikruti swaras are Ri, Ga, Ma, Da and Ni. The rest — Sa and Pa — are prakruti swaras
Continue readingMelakartha Raagas
Melakartha is a collection of fundamental musical scales (ragas) in Carnatic music (South Indian classical music). Melakartha ragas are parent ragas (hence known as janaka ragas) from which other ragas may be generated.
The 72 Melakartha ragas are split into 12 groups called chakrās, each containing 6 ragas. The ragas within the chakra differ only in the dhaivatam and nishadam notes (D and N). The name of each of the 12 chakras suggests their ordinal number as well.
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