Today’s Indian music is based on the Thaat system, which is a derivative of Mukam System (Persian). Today’s natural scale is not the same as the original ancient natural scale.
The ten Thaats of modern Northern music are not able to cover 56 Moorshanas of Vedic music. And, there are scales (Thaats or Mails) and Raags in Indian music today that do not follow Bharat’s doctrine.
The questions often asked by the students of Hindustani music are:
1. Can one categorize 56 Moorshanas into 10 parent scales (Thaats)?
2. Are there any equivalent Moorshanas for Bhairav, Poorvi, Todi and Marva thaat?
3. Can one define 12 notes of an octave through the Sharuti system to establish all the Thaats?
4. is there any provision in Gram and Moorshana system to have an interval bigger than 4 Sharuties (such as Re komal to Ga Shudh in Bhairav or an interval of 3 semitones)?
Answers to all the above questions are; no, no, no and no.
Then what happened?
How did we go from one system to the other, which are not compatible with each other?
There is no simple answer. In essence, the practice of music did not change as much as its interpretation has. We need to understand both the old and new and then build a bridge to use the best of both worlds.
Next few posts will address this very issue.
If you have been following this blog, I hope it has widened your horizons. This blog is not about today’s headlines. It is about the ancient art of music. The very first article still stays equally relevant as the very last one. Do not forget to revise the old articles to keep the information fresh. Only revisions can turn a piece of information into knowledge, and without knowledge, there is no wisdom!
I have enjoyed reading your blogs. The depth of your writings on Indian music is truly impressive.Please continue to educate us. As a new initiate to playing Sarangi, I would like to hear your observation on the idea of playing of svar-vistar notation of rags currently available in literature. A solo rendition of svar-vistar on Sarangi, I have found to be very powerful and emotionally appealing. Please comment and thank you.
Thanks for your support. I am currently extremely busy working on two albums and preparing for our European tour. I have plans to add tons of practical material to this blog including Swar Visthars of Raags on different instruments. A Raagkosh database is also in the works.