Swaramjourney from सा to सां....

Music is an art and a science which is expressed through auditory medium and it is a science because it is made up of sounds and sounds is a part of physics which is universally applicable. It is an art because it is interpreted by different culture in a different way. In music 12 sound frequencies are recognized as musical notes or what in Indian music, called as “Swara”. The group of swaras are called as Sargam. Essentially out of these 12 swaras, 7 swaras are considered to be main swaras (Sa, re, ga, ma, pa, dha, ni) and the eight swara ‘sa’ is denoted as the closing swara. Generally when doing Riyaaz, singers have to match their frequency with that of the appropriate scale of harmonium. That is to hone the proper composition of swara and to do that, it is generally advised to do Kharaj Riyaaz. Kharaj Riyaaz is done for complete perfection of swara’s frequency along with something popularly known as “Thaharav”. Classical singing classes focus heavily on Kharaj Riyaaz. Riyaaz of Khar...

 •• Thaats in Hindustani Classical Music •• According to Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande (1860-1936), one of the most influential musicologists in the field of North Indian classical music in the twentieth century, each one of the several traditional ragas is based on, or is a variation of, ten basic thaats, or musical scales or frameworks. The ten thaats are Bilawal, Kalyan, Khamaj, Bhairav, Poorvi, Marwa, Kafi, Asavari, Bhairavi and Todi; if one were to pick a raga at random, it should be possible to find that it is based on one or the other of these thaats. For instance, the ragas Shree and Puriya Dhanashri are based on the Poorvi thaat, Malkauns on the Bhairavi, and Darbari Kanada on the Asavari thaat. It is important to point out that Bhatkande's thaat-raga theory is hardly infallible, but it is nevertheless an important classificatory device with which to order, and make sense of, a bewildering array of ragas; and it is also a useful tool in the dissemination of the music to studen...