Gag bag: Raag

Raag Tilak Kamod

1:01:00 AM

Sometimes I wonder what is it about classical music that peaks my interest. I usually tend to get bored of things and quickly pass them by once I get a little hang of it. I might have blown off so many things only because they couldn’t generate enough mystery to keep me going at them. Classical music on the other hand is like this unsurmountable mountain. No matter how much you keep going at it, it just keeps surprising you and manages to keep you at bay. And it might just be this challenge which completely stumps me and makes me want it that much more.

Or maybe, it might just be so since it’s so rich and pleasant.

My experience or history in classical doesn’t go back long. I think the first time I really looked up what a raag was when I watched the movie Khuda ke liye. It had a beautiful song, called Tilak Kamod (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-4mY5dcMe8).

Funny as it sounded, it was my first exposure coming from within, to the wonderful world of raags. The song, a very famous bandish in the said raag, went something like this – Neer bharan kaise jaoo. And it completely managed to bowl me over. I have gotten feedback on the same song from multiple people, and I have always had varying reviews on it. But for me, somehow that song reminds me of my introduction to classical music.

Tilak Kamod, is a beautiful raag belonging to the Khamaaj thaat. To begin with, I must make it clear, that I have no knowledge of this raag at all. Whatever I have noted is mainly from the feel I have generated by looking it up thousands of times in the last 5-6 years, and I may be completely off while defining it or jotting it down. But for some reason, it is my most beloved raag, and it has managed to make a special place in my heart. It’s a very melodious raag, and usually works with romance as its main theme. I feel that happens because of its wonderful weight on the pillar notes, Pa and Sa. Pa and Sa are the only two notes which don’t have a komal or a teevra side to them, making them the ideal resting place during the raag’s presentation. It’s a shaadav-sampoorna raag, meaning it uses 6 notes during ascent, and all 7 notes during descent. And it also employs its own magic, by the use of komal ni during descent. And you will figure it out, when and if I can manage to point it out so, as to why that one note makes so much difference when used. For example: In the second part of the song Neer Bharan Kaise Jaoo (mentioned above), the line goes, "Chanchal chapal hat nat khat, manat na kahu ki baat, binati karat main to, gayi re haar sakhi." In this line, the part where the song goes "binati karata main to", there is a subtle use of the komal Ni.

Let us look at the ascent and descent of the raag first, or as we call it, the aaroh and avaroha of the raag.

Aaroh – Pa Ni Sa Re Ga Sa, Sa Re ma Pa Ni Sa

Avaroha – Sa Pa Dha ma Ga Sa, Sa Re Ga Sa, Sa Ni Pa Ni Sa, Sa Re Ga Sa

Pakad – Pa Ni Sa Re Ga Sa, Sa Re Pa ma Ga Sa Ni

As you will have observed, the descent isn’t sequential. It meanders its way alternating between high and low notes, thereby creating a wonderful step-up step-down melody when played. It’s a night time raag, meaning it will often be sung, or rather, it’s true characteristic will only appeal when sung or heard at night. But then, if you ask me, this raag manages to conquer time itself, so the time of the day never actually mattered to me.

Because of its use of 8 out of the 12 notes, there is a lot to be explored within this raag. Also, its defining characters and its vaadi samvadi notes stress the fact that this exploration, though vast, is bound by a certain set of rules, and it is because of these rules, that the raag sounds what it sounds like.

When you give it a listen, you will immediately connect with it. The reason is, this raag is used widely in many compositions even in light/ semi-classical compositions. Because of its nature and the emotion it portrays, using this raag as the base for composing everyday songs becomes ideal. Of course, singing and emoting the real feeling requires a lot of skill and talent from the performer.

I will note a few famous songs, both in Hindi and Marathi. I will again try to play the notes for the song below:

1. Gagan sadan tejomaya – Sung by Lata Mangeshkar - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bpKU4WKnlY

2. Ravi me, ha Chandra kasa – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKNH6j231ek Sung by Asha Bhosale/ Vasantrao Deshpande (and many others)

Anoushka Shankar recently came out with an album called Land of Gold. The instrumental piece Reunion is based off this raag. The composition is:

Reunion - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2SyNolfVCk

There are a lot of classical compositions. Ones which immediately come to my mind are:

Mukul Shivaputra - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKJvCIqvYPs
Shubha Mudgal - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpLjoa_6D6c
Shruti Sadolikar - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5GQY1zm2g0
Veena Sahasrabuddhe – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGsRYi4GZbA

I have managed to fall in love with this raag over and over again. No matter how many times I listen to it, it never ceases to please and amaze me. To me, this raag is like the cold water from a serene blue crystal clear lake, on a hot summer. It will refresh you like never before right from the first gulp, and will be something of which you just can’t have enough of.

Classical

My view of a राग..

4:08:00 PM

Music has always been something of a mystery to me. Not because it is rare, but more so due to its abundance. It is found in everything, from the living to the non living to the abstract. It is a powerful tool, and has an ability to bring out emotions which only few other art forms manage to bring out in me. And it is no surprise, that people all over the world have tried to understand and unravel the depths of this great art form.

My knowledge is very restricted, and very biased, coming from an Indian family where music is being played at every moment. Music was an answer to everything, and also the perfect excuse to just about anything. I could easily skip studies, work on the pretext of listening to music. And this came from the understanding that listening to music or being somehow connected to music was better than anything else I might have been doing.

Overtime, as the music taste evolved within me, I tried to listen to more and more different types of music. And somehow for some reason, I just kept falling back to Indian classical music. And I may have tried to be the rebellious child by trying to listen to some different music genres just so that I don’t become one of the typical Indian people who will always say that everything Indian is better than anything else in the world, but I seem to have no other option but to come back to this. I have come to realize that with whatever little I understand about music, no one else has made such a deep and vast study of music in general and its implications with respect to mood, emotions and human behavior as the stalwarts of Indian classical music have.

I think that is all I will say about the “why”.

Let me now directly jump into the “what”. So what is Indian classical music? I would say, it is a collective study of probably 2000 years or so of music and the science behind it. Why Indian? Well, that is because it originated within the Indian subcontinent. And this has nothing to do with present day India. Indian classical music has contributions from the whole of the continent, and has a lot of input right from Urdu, Pashto, Arabic, Hindi, Sanskrit languages. Which region wise would cover regions from Persia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka.

Over the years, two major forms of music evolved, with each form giving precedence to some details in music over the other, and thereby basing the whole study on those features. I can think of Carnatic and Hindustani Classical music as the two main branches. And since my exposure to Carnatic music is almost equal to zero, I will elaborate only on Hindustani classical music.

Hindustani classical music is based off of 3 major pillars, which make up the music within it.

Sur (swar) - Is the musical note. (can be further broken down into Shruti).

Taal – This is the beat, or the clock which binds the music piece.

Laya – This is the tempo.

Together, with these tools, you can formulate any musical piece. After all, a musical piece is nothing but musical notes bound together in a cyclic beat structure, bound by a natural tempo to make it sound melodious.

It could be something as simple as humming a tune, the heart beating, snoring, or the chirping of birds.

Now without further ado, I will step into the Raag or the Raaga. I don’t want to be a know-it-all, and hence what I intend to do is to post Raag examples over a period of time. And that should make things easier for me to put, and for the reader to understand as well.

As a simple definition, a raag is a combination of swaras. And that implies that the raag can then move only within the boundaries of the notes it is made up of. But that’s not all there is to it. There are rules on how to move from one musical note to another. And rules on how to apply a musical note while playing it or singing it. What that means is that a Rishabh (Re) (D in western) played in Raag Yaman will not be the same as that in Raag Bhoop. And its small intricate details such as these, that make the whole system complex and spell bounding at the same time.

As an introduction, the swaras (notes) are:

Sa – Shadja

Re – Rishabh

Ga – Gandhar

ma – Madhyam

Pa – Pancham

Dha – Dhaivat

Ni – Nishaad

These are the 7 main notes (shuddha), and then there are 5 other notes, which are

Komal re – Soft Rishabh

Komal ga – Soft Gandhar

Teevra Ma – Sharp Madhyam

Komal dha – Soft Dhaivat

Komal ni – Soft Nishaad

As a rule, every Raaga always has Sa (this is because it is the starting point of the Raag, and hence it can’t be avoided. It is the note with whose help the other notes are defined).

To make this clear, it essentially sets the benchmark for the frequency of the notes. Once the Sa is defined, you can say that Re will be 1 note above it, Ga will be 2 notes above it and so on. Without the Sa, you have nothing to base your note off.

Another rule is that you have to have one of Ma or Pa within your raag. Yet another one is that you can’t skip more than 4 notes when defining a raag. And the last rule (well there maybe more) is that the raag should have atleast 5 notes. You can’t have a raag with just Sa Re Ga Ma.

For notations, we will use Sa Re Ga ma Pa Dha Ni for the shuddha swaras, and re ga Ma dha ni for the rest of the komal and teevra swaras.

For the octave below (Mandra Saptak) the usual (Madhya Saptak) , we will use a underline below the note, and for the octave above (Taar Saptak) the usual, we will use an overbar.

Well, that was for starters. I shall keep posting something on Raag as and how I find time.

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Raag Tilak Kamod

My view of a राग..

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Gag bag

Raag Tilak Kamod

My view of a राग..

About Me

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