raaga

Rāga (Sanskrit, lit. "colour" or "mood"; or rāgam in Carnatic music) refers to melodic modes used in Indian classical music.^[1] It is a series of five or more musical notes upon which a melody is made. In the Indian musical tradition, rāgas are associated with different times of the day, or with seasons. Indian classical music is always set in a rāga. Non-classical music such as popular Indian film songs or ghazals sometimes use rāgas in their compositions.

Rāgini is an archaic term for the 'feminine' counterpart to a rāga.

योऽसौ ध्वनिविशेषस्तु स्वरवर्णविभूषितः ।

रञ्जको जनचित्तानां स च राग उदाहृतः ।।

"That which is a special dhwani, is bedecked with swara (notes) and varna and is colorful or delightful to the minds of the people, is said to be rāga" - Matanga in the Brihaddeshi.

Rāga describes a generalised form of melodic practice. It also prescribes a set of rules for building the melody. It specifies the rules for movements up (aaroha [आरोह]) and down (avroha [अवरोह]) the scale, which swaras should figure more and which notes should be used more sparingly, which notes may be sung with gamak, phrases to be used, phrases to be avoided, and so on. The result is a framework that can be used to compose or improvise melodies, allowing for endless variation within the set of notes.

The basic mode of reference in modern Hindustani practice (known commonly as the shuddha - basic - form) is a set which is equivalent to the Western Ionian mode — this is called Bilawal thaat in Hindustani music (the Carnatic analog would be Sankarabharanam). In both systems, the ground (or tonic), Shadja, Sa, and a pure fifth above, Pancham, Pa, are fixed and essentially sacrosanct tones. In the Hindustani system, in a given seven-tone mode, the second, third, sixth, and seventh notes can be natural (shuddha, lit. 'pure') or flat (komal, 'soft') but never sharp, and the fourth note can be natural or sharp (tivra) but never flat, making up the twelve notes in the Western equal tempered chromatic scale (Western enharmonic pitch equivalences like, for example, A♯ and B♭ do not apply; e.g.: Re tivra may, to a Western musician appear enharmonic to Ga shuddha in that system, but in practice is not.) A Western-style C scale could therefore theoretically have the notes C, D♭, D, E♭, E, F, F♯, G, A♭, A, B♭, B.

The Carnatic system has three versions — a lower, medium, and higher form — of all the notes except Sa, Ma and Pa. Ma has two versions (lower and higher), while Sa and Pa are invariant. Rāgas can also specify microtonal changes to this scale: a flatter second, a sharper seventh, and so forth. Tradition has it that the octave consists of (a division into) 22 microtones ("śrutis"). Furthermore, individual performers treat pitches quite differently, and the precise intonation of a given note depends on melodic context. There is no absolute pitch (such as the modern western standard A = 440 Hz); instead, each performance simply picks a ground note, which also serves as the drone, and the other scale degrees follow relative to the ground note. The Carnatic system embarks from a much different shuddha (fundamental) scalar formation, that is, shuddha here is the lowest-pitched swara.

By comparison, using the common tonic "C" for a western musician:

Rāgas and their seasons

Many Hindustani (North Indian) rāgas are prescribed a time of day or a season. When performed at the suggested time, the rāga has its maximum effect. During the monsoon, for example, many of the Malhar group of rāgas, which are associated with the monsoon and ascribed the magical power to bring rain, are performed. However, these prescriptions are not strictly followed, especially since modern concerts are generally held in the evening. There has also been a growing tendency over the last century for North Indian musicians to adopt South Indian rāgas, which do not come with any particular time associated with them. The result of these various influences is that there is increasing flexibility as to when rāgas may be performed.