Raga fundamentals

What a raga is, how it is described, and the 72-parent system.

Lessons

What is a raga? — A raga as a melodic framework: more than a scale, and not the same as a song.
Arohanam, avarohanam and scale shapes — Ascent and descent, 5-, 6- and 7-note ragas, omitted notes and zigzag paths.
Gamakas, phrases and key notes — The ornaments and phrases that give a raga its identity, and the roles of key notes.
Parent and derived ragas — The 72 melakartas, chakras, the katapayadi code and janya ragas.
Mood, time and season — Traditional associations of ragas with feelings, times and seasons, labelled as tradition.

Key terms

Amsa swara: In older theory, the 'dominant' note of a raga, the one around which the raga is organised.
Arohanam: The upward path of a raga: the notes in the order they are sung going up from Sa to the upper Sa.
Audava: A raga with five notes in its ascent or descent.
Avarohanam: The downward path of a raga: the notes in the order they are sung coming down from the upper Sa to Sa.
Bhashanga: A janya raga that borrows one or more notes from outside its parent scale (an anya swara).
Chakra: A group of six consecutive melakartas that share the same Ri and Ga. The 72 melakartas fall into 12 chakras, each with a name such as Indu, Netra or Agni.
Gamaka: An ornament: a shake, slide or glide applied to a note. Gamakas give each note in a raga its characteristic movement and cannot be separated from the raga.
Graha swara: The note on which a phrase, or in older theory the raga itself, begins.
Janaka raga: A 'parent' raga that other ragas are derived from. The melakartas are the parents in the modern scheme.
Janya raga: A 'derived' raga, built from a parent melakarta by dropping notes, changing the note order, or adding an outside note.
Jaru: A kind of gamaka: a slide from one note to another, passing through the pitches in between.
Jiva swara: The 'life' note of a raga: a note that is leaned on often and brings out the raga's identity.
Kampita: A kind of gamaka: an oscillation, where the note is shaken between itself and a neighbouring pitch.
Katapayadi sutra: A letter-to-number code. Applied to a melakarta's name, the first two syllables give its number, read in reverse (Ha-ri gives 8,2, so number 28).
Melakarta: One of the 72 parent ragas. Each uses all seven notes in straight order going up and coming down, and each has a fixed number from 1 to 72.
Nyasa swara: A note on which a phrase can comfortably stop and rest.
Parent scale: The melakarta from which a janya raga is derived, giving the full set of notes that the janya may draw on.
Prayoga: A characteristic phrase: a short run of notes that is typical of a raga and helps you recognise it.
Raga: A melodic framework: a set of notes plus the rules and typical phrases that give a tune its character.
Raga lakshana: The defining features of a raga: its notes, their order, key phrases, ornaments, and the notes that are stressed or avoided.
Rasa: Emotional flavour. Ragas are traditionally said to evoke particular moods, but this is a traditional view, and listeners often differ on it.
Sampurna: A raga that uses all seven notes in its ascent or descent.
Sanchara: A melodic movement or phrase in a raga, especially one that wanders up and down the scale.
Shadava: A raga with six notes in its ascent or descent.
Upanga: A janya raga that uses only notes from its parent scale.
Vakra: Zigzag. A raga is vakra when its notes do not move in a straight line up or down, for example S R G R G M instead of S R G M.
Varjya: Omitted. A varjya note is one that a raga leaves out of its ascent, its descent, or both.