Thaat Flipping – Basics

Gateway to IndiaThere are 12 notes in Indian Saptak (septave). Two out of these twelve have only one instance. These are ‘Sa’ and ‘Pa’ or the first and the fifth. All other notes have two instances, lower and upper or Komal and Tivar. Here are these twelve notes written as they appear in the Saptak.

Sa, Pa and all Tivar notes are capital, the Komal or lower instances of 5 movable notes are shown in the lower case:

S, r R, g G, m M, P, d D, n N.

Now, here are the notes of Bilaval Thaat (Natural Scale):

S, R, G, m, P, D, N

In Bilaval, the four out of five movable notes (R, G, M, D and N are movable notes as they can have two instances) are Tivar or are in upper position. Only Madhyam or M or the fourth is in its lower position. Now, let’s swap the positions of all notes in Bilaval.

Thus this:
S, R, G, m, P, D, N
will become
this: S, r, g, M, P, d, n

The new Thaat has Sa, Komal Re, Komal Ga, Tivar Ma, Pa, Komal Dha and Komal Ni. Which Thaat is it? Moreover, how many Thaats in the current “Ten Thaat System” comply with this system?
Write the 10 Thaats down and swap the Komals with Tivars. Let’s see what you get.

I will post the answers to these questions in the next post.

sangtar.com > Music Theory > Advanced Theory

One thought on “Thaat Flipping – Basics

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *