
Raga (rāg /राग (Hindi), raga (Anglicised from rāgaḥ/रागः (Sanskrit)) or rāgam /ராகம் (Tamil language)) are the musical mode used in Indian classical music. "Rag" is the modern Hindi pronunciation used by Hindustani musicians; "Ragam" the Tamil form used by Karnatak musicians. A raga functions both as description and prescription. It describes a generalized form of melodic practice; it prescribes a set of rules for how to build a melody. It specifies rules for movements up (aarohanam [आरोहणम्]) and down (avarohanam [अवरोहणम्]) the musical scale, which note (music) should figure more and which notes should be used more sparingly, which notes may be sung with ''gamaka'', phrases to be used, phrases to be avoided, and so on.1 The result is a framework that can be used to musical composition or improvisation melodies, allowing for endless variation within the set of notes. Although notes are an important part of raga practice, it by no means exhausts what a raga is. A raga is more than a scale. Many ragas share the same scale. The underlying scale may have pentatonic, hexatonic or heptatonic made up of swaras. This provides one method of classifying ragas. Ragas that have five swaras are called audava (औडव) ragas; those with six, shaadava (षाडव); and with seven, sampoorna (संपूर्ण) (Sanskrit for 'complete'). Those ragas that do not follow the strict ascending or descending order of swaras are called vakra (वक्र) ('crooked') ragas. (To see the order of notes, check the article on swara.) The basic mode of reference is that which is equivalent to the Western Ionian mode (this is called ''Bilawal thaat'' in Hindustani music). All relationships between pitches follow from this basic arrangement of intervals. In any given seven-tone mode, the second, third, sixth, and seventh notes can be natural (''shuddha'', lit. 'pure') or flat (''komal'', 'soft') but never sharped, and the fourth note can be natural or sharp (''tivra'') but never flatted, making up the twelve notes in the Western equal tempered chromatic scale (but without Western pitch equivalencies like, for example, A# and Bb). Ragas can also specify microtonal changes to this scale: a flatter second, a sharper seventh, and so forth. There are 22 or of these microtones, called ''shrutis'', per octave. Furthermore, such variations can occur between styles, performers or simply follow the mood of the performer. There is no absolute pitch; 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. Some Hindustani (North Indian) ragas are prescribed a time of day or a season. During the rains, for example, many of the Malhar group of ragas--associated with the monsoon--are performed. Some musicians take these prescriptions very seriously. However, since the majority of concert hall performances take place in the evening and night, musicians often have to make concessions for the sake of public performance. The two streams of Indian classical music, Carnatic music and Hindustani music, have independent sets of ragas. There is some overlap, but more "false friendship" (where raga names overlap, but raga form does not). In north India, the ragas have recently been categorised into ten thaats or parent scales (by Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande, 1860-1936); South India uses a somewhat older, more systematic classification scheme called the melakarta classification, with 72 parent (melakarta) ragas. Overall there is a greater identification of raga with scale in the south than in the north, where such an identification is impossible. Note that the term "parent scale" is a metaphor, and is potentially misleading. It might seem to imply that scales came before ragas, or that ragas are made from scales. In fact, it's the other way round--parent scales (both melas and thats) were induced from raga practice. Again we stress that ragas are not scales. As ragas were transmitted oral history from teacher to student, some ragas can vary greatly across regions, traditions and styles. There have been efforts to codify and standardize raga performance in theory from their first mention in Matanga's Brhaddesi (~10th c.) Some people approach raga performance from the Vedic philosophy of sound; others from a Sufi perspective; still others approach raga primarily as an aesthetic entity; others approach it as a kind of combinatorics. Indian classical music is always set in raga, but all raga music is not necessarily classical. Songs range from being clearly in one raga or another to being in a sort of generalized scale. Many popular Filmi resemble ragas closely. Again, it is important to stress that just even if song shares a scale with a raga, it isn't necessarily "in" the raga. ==Footnotes== # Nothing other than the ''aarohanam'' and ''avarohanam'' (and, in Hindustani music, the pakad--melodic catch phrases) is ever actually written down; if such things are written, they are mostly neglected. The subtle rules of where to give gamakas to notes, what phrases are correct, and so on are usually codified in special songs called ''varnams''. These songs show the characteristics of the ragam in practice and are transmitted orally. ==External links== *[http://www.sawf.org/music/articles.asp?pn=Music/ Rajan Parrikar's guide to about 30 ragas] with audio examples. *[http://www.wyastone.co.uk/nrl/world/raga/ The Raga Guide] (4 Ragas, with ragamala paintings) *[http://www.chandrakantha.com/ David and Chandrakantha Courtney's Homepage] --an excellent introductory resource with audio samples. *[http://www.musicalnirvana.com/index.html Musical Nirvana] --includes some introductory material, raga descriptions, artist biographies and discographies, and a glossary; information on both Hindustani and Carnatic music. *[http://www.soundofindia.com/ Sound of India] --online music lessons, raga descriptions with audio, and musicological articles. *[http://www.itcsra.org/ ITC Sangeet Research Academy] --scholarly organization devoted to the promotion of Hindustani classical music; includes information on artists past and present, Hindustani sangeet (theory), and current events in the Indian classical world. Indian classical music Musical terminology ta:இராகம்
Could somebody please add the Devanagari versions of all the words in italics? While I know the script, I do not know how to encode it into HTML. The actual words written in Devanagari would be very helpful to those who want to pronounce the words precisely. Gokul -- Changed Rag (Hindi) to Rag (Sanskrit). This is in support of NPOV. Reasoning: Rag and its Devnagari script is first found in Sanskrit, the language of the Vedas, in which the concept originated. To cite it as Hindi implies that it was birthed in the Hindi language, whereas it is actually Sanskrit that later was absorbed into Hindi. : I was the one that mentioned Hindi as the language. It's not Raag in Sanskrit but Raagah. Why not use the Sanskrit term then? Because the Hindi word is the word that's used in Hindustani music today. IMHO, it's more important that we use prevalent terminology - in fact, the article doesn't make any claims about etymological origins. I've reverted the article. User:Ambarish 11:19, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC) == Mode of reference == This article says that the "basic mode of reference" in Indian music corresponds to the Ionian mode in Western music. As far as I can tell, this is not the case. If whoever wrote this intended to say that the "basic mode of reference" is Śańkaräbharaņam, let me point out that the corresponding scale in Western music is known as the Æolian mode, or more simply, the major scale. At any rate, if there is any such thing as a "mode of reference" in Indian music, it is more likely to be Mäyãmäļavagauļai, which has no Western equivalent.--User:Skal 18:46, 3 May 2005 (UTC) :Whoops. I'm wrong. The Ionian mode ''is'' Śańkaräbharaņam. But I still doubt whether this is the mode of reference, and not Mäyãmäļavagauļai.--User:Skal 19:01, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
See other meanings of words starting from letter:
Words begining with Raga:
Raga
Raga
Ragabash_(Werewolf:_the_Apocalypse)
Ragahavendra_swami
Ragahevendra_Swami
Ragaine
Ragam
Ragamuffin
Ragamuffin_cat
Ragan,_NE
Ragan,_Nebraska
Ragan651
Ragana
Ragas
Ragau
Ragavardhini
Ragavendra_Swami
Ragaz
Raga_rock
Raga
Raga (rāg /राग (Hindi), raga (Anglicised from rāgaḥ/रागः (Sanskrit)) or rāgam /ராகம் (Tamil language)) are the musical mode used in Indian classical music. "Rag" is the modern Hindi pronunciation used by Hindustani musicians; "Ragam" the Tamil form used by Karnatak musicians. A raga functions both as description and prescription. It describes a generalized form of melodic practice; it prescribes a set of rules for how to build a melody. It specifies rules for movements up (aarohanam [आरोहणम्]) and down (avarohanam [अवरोहणम्]) the musical scale, which note (music) should figure more and which notes should be used more sparingly, which notes may be sung with ''gamaka'', phrases to be used, phrases to be avoided, and so on.1 The result is a framework that can be used to musical composition or improvisation melodies, allowing for endless variation within the set of notes. Although notes are an important part of raga practice, it by no means exhausts what a raga is. A raga is more than a scale. Many ragas share the same scale. The underlying scale may have pentatonic, hexatonic or heptatonic made up of swaras. This provides one method of classifying ragas. Ragas that have five swaras are called audava (औडव) ragas; those with six, shaadava (षाडव); and with seven, sampoorna (संपूर्ण) (Sanskrit for 'complete'). Those ragas that do not follow the strict ascending or descending order of swaras are called vakra (वक्र) ('crooked') ragas. (To see the order of notes, check the article on swara.) The basic mode of reference is that which is equivalent to the Western Ionian mode (this is called ''Bilawal thaat'' in Hindustani music). All relationships between pitches follow from this basic arrangement of intervals. In any given seven-tone mode, the second, third, sixth, and seventh notes can be natural (''shuddha'', lit. 'pure') or flat (''komal'', 'soft') but never sharped, and the fourth note can be natural or sharp (''tivra'') but never flatted, making up the twelve notes in the Western equal tempered chromatic scale (but without Western pitch equivalencies like, for example, A# and Bb). Ragas can also specify microtonal changes to this scale: a flatter second, a sharper seventh, and so forth. There are 22 or of these microtones, called ''shrutis'', per octave. Furthermore, such variations can occur between styles, performers or simply follow the mood of the performer. There is no absolute pitch; 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. Some Hindustani (North Indian) ragas are prescribed a time of day or a season. During the rains, for example, many of the Malhar group of ragas--associated with the monsoon--are performed. Some musicians take these prescriptions very seriously. However, since the majority of concert hall performances take place in the evening and night, musicians often have to make concessions for the sake of public performance. The two streams of Indian classical music, Carnatic music and Hindustani music, have independent sets of ragas. There is some overlap, but more "false friendship" (where raga names overlap, but raga form does not). In north India, the ragas have recently been categorised into ten thaats or parent scales (by Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande, 1860-1936); South India uses a somewhat older, more systematic classification scheme called the melakarta classification, with 72 parent (melakarta) ragas. Overall there is a greater identification of raga with scale in the south than in the north, where such an identification is impossible. Note that the term "parent scale" is a metaphor, and is potentially misleading. It might seem to imply that scales came before ragas, or that ragas are made from scales. In fact, it's the other way round--parent scales (both melas and thats) were induced from raga practice. Again we stress that ragas are not scales. As ragas were transmitted oral history from teacher to student, some ragas can vary greatly across regions, traditions and styles. There have been efforts to codify and standardize raga performance in theory from their first mention in Matanga's Brhaddesi (~10th c.) Some people approach raga performance from the Vedic philosophy of sound; others from a Sufi perspective; still others approach raga primarily as an aesthetic entity; others approach it as a kind of combinatorics. Indian classical music is always set in raga, but all raga music is not necessarily classical. Songs range from being clearly in one raga or another to being in a sort of generalized scale. Many popular Filmi resemble ragas closely. Again, it is important to stress that just even if song shares a scale with a raga, it isn't necessarily "in" the raga. ==Footnotes== # Nothing other than the ''aarohanam'' and ''avarohanam'' (and, in Hindustani music, the pakad--melodic catch phrases) is ever actually written down; if such things are written, they are mostly neglected. The subtle rules of where to give gamakas to notes, what phrases are correct, and so on are usually codified in special songs called ''varnams''. These songs show the characteristics of the ragam in practice and are transmitted orally. ==External links== *[http://www.sawf.org/music/articles.asp?pn=Music/ Rajan Parrikar's guide to about 30 ragas] with audio examples. *[http://www.wyastone.co.uk/nrl/world/raga/ The Raga Guide] (4 Ragas, with ragamala paintings) *[http://www.chandrakantha.com/ David and Chandrakantha Courtney's Homepage] --an excellent introductory resource with audio samples. *[http://www.musicalnirvana.com/index.html Musical Nirvana] --includes some introductory material, raga descriptions, artist biographies and discographies, and a glossary; information on both Hindustani and Carnatic music. *[http://www.soundofindia.com/ Sound of India] --online music lessons, raga descriptions with audio, and musicological articles. *[http://www.itcsra.org/ ITC Sangeet Research Academy] --scholarly organization devoted to the promotion of Hindustani classical music; includes information on artists past and present, Hindustani sangeet (theory), and current events in the Indian classical world. Indian classical music Musical terminology ta:இராகம்
Raga
Could somebody please add the Devanagari versions of all the words in italics? While I know the script, I do not know how to encode it into HTML. The actual words written in Devanagari would be very helpful to those who want to pronounce the words precisely. Gokul -- Changed Rag (Hindi) to Rag (Sanskrit). This is in support of NPOV. Reasoning: Rag and its Devnagari script is first found in Sanskrit, the language of the Vedas, in which the concept originated. To cite it as Hindi implies that it was birthed in the Hindi language, whereas it is actually Sanskrit that later was absorbed into Hindi. : I was the one that mentioned Hindi as the language. It's not Raag in Sanskrit but Raagah. Why not use the Sanskrit term then? Because the Hindi word is the word that's used in Hindustani music today. IMHO, it's more important that we use prevalent terminology - in fact, the article doesn't make any claims about etymological origins. I've reverted the article. User:Ambarish 11:19, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC) == Mode of reference == This article says that the "basic mode of reference" in Indian music corresponds to the Ionian mode in Western music. As far as I can tell, this is not the case. If whoever wrote this intended to say that the "basic mode of reference" is Śańkaräbharaņam, let me point out that the corresponding scale in Western music is known as the Æolian mode, or more simply, the major scale. At any rate, if there is any such thing as a "mode of reference" in Indian music, it is more likely to be Mäyãmäļavagauļai, which has no Western equivalent.--User:Skal 18:46, 3 May 2005 (UTC) :Whoops. I'm wrong. The Ionian mode ''is'' Śańkaräbharaņam. But I still doubt whether this is the mode of reference, and not Mäyãmäļavagauļai.--User:Skal 19:01, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
See other meanings of words starting from letter:
R
RA | RB | RC | RD | RE | RF | RG | RH | RI | RJ | RK | RL | RM | RN | RO | RP | RS | RT | RU | RW | RX | RY | RZ |Words begining with Raga:
Raga
Raga
Ragabash_(Werewolf:_the_Apocalypse)
Ragahavendra_swami
Ragahevendra_Swami
Ragaine
Ragam
Ragamuffin
Ragamuffin_cat
Ragan,_NE
Ragan,_Nebraska
Ragan651
Ragana
Ragas
Ragau
Ragavardhini
Ragavendra_Swami
Ragaz
Raga_rock
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