The Raag is the most illusive and the most important concept of Northern Indian Music. In essence a Raag is a set of predefined rules to build a melodic composition. In general, the following are the basic rules or characteristics of a Raag. These rules are described in a logical order:

1. A Raag must belong to one of the 10 Thaats of Northern Indian Music.
2. A Raag must have an ascending (aroh) and a descending (Avroh).
3. Every Raag’s Aroh and Avroh (ascending and Descending) must not contain less than five or more than 7 notes. This rule defines the Jati of a Raag. Read more about Jaties here.
4. A Raag’s notes must sound pleasant to the ear. Although this rule may sound very vague, but it is always mentioned in the set of rules. The reason being that theoretically there are so many Raags possible in a Thaat, but all those set of notes do not sound great together.
5. A Raag must have a Vadi and Samvadi note.
6. A Raag’s Vikrat notes and the Vivadi note must be defined.
7. A Raag must have a main phrase (Pakad).
8. A Raag’s flow must be defined and it should be unique. This rule defines how the notes are used according to a Raag’s Aroh/Avroh and Jati. Two Raags may have the same notes, the same ascending, the same descending and the same jati, if they have different Vadi and Samvadi notes, then the Pakad and flow of notes will change. Thus making them two unique Raags.Once all the above rules are defined the following rules automatically come into effect:
9. According to the Time Theory of Indian Raags, Every Raag has a Time slot of at least 3 hours.
10. There are many similar Raags that share some of their properties. When performing a particular Raag, knowing the other related Raags is very important.

These are the basics. Although we are only talking about the ‘basic Theory of Northern Indian music’, but I feel I must write a little more about the Raag concept. This is the heart of Indian music. So I will dedicate even my next post to the properties of a Raag.

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Now we must ponder two questions:

1. We now know that 484 unique scales are available in each Thaat, but when we apply this formula to all 10 Thaats and put all 4840 scales in one list, are they all unique?
2. If one can compile a list of all unique aroh/avrohs, can that list be called a list of Raags?

The answer to both these questions is ‘no.’

When we repeat the formula above, many identical scales are created.

How?

As an example, the difference between Bilaval Thaat and Khamaj Thaat is the position of ‘N’ (the seventh). ‘Nee’ is Tivar in Bilaval and is Komal in Khamaj. Now wherever ‘N’ has been omitted, all those scales will be identical in Bilaval and Khamaj. Check the following iluustrations. First you see both Thaats (Bilaval and Khamaj), when you press ‘next’, both show a Chhadav-Chhadav scale (6-6, ‘N’ or the seventh is missing). Thus the new scale is identical in Bilaval and Khamaj.

[iframe width=”100%” height=”350″ src=”https://www.sangtar.com/canvas/170202-bilaval-khamaj-Canvas.html”].

To be exact, Bilaval and Khamaj have 32 overlapping scales. There are hundreds others that overlap.

Secondly, A Raag is much more than an ascending and a descending. You cannot make  Raags just with unique scales. There are many Raags that have identical scales and yet are very different from each other. Raags have other characteristics, which give them unique personality. We will discuss properties of a Raag in the next post.

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There are 484 arohs/avrohs (ascendings/descendings) possible in each Thaat, thus there are 484 opportunities to make unique Raags in each Thaat. Here are some of the points that govern this theory and the illustrations below:
1. There are 3 main Jaties. (Sampooran, Chhadav and Audav)
2. There is only one (1) Sampooran scale in each Thaat.
3. There are six (6) Chhadav scales in each Thaat,
4. There are fifteen (15) Audav scales in each Thaat.
5. Raags need an ascending and a descending defined.
6. When used in pairs to make arohs/avrohs (ascendings/descendings), the three categories make Nine (9) subcategories.
7. All the examples shown here are in Bilaval Thaat (natural scale from ‘C’). It can be applied to any of the 10 Thaats mentioned in this post. So theoretically there are 4840 Raags in Northern Indian music.
8. The following illustrations are in Flash format. If you do not see anything, please download free flash player here.

Let’s count the Raags in all nine subcategories.
1. Sampooran-Sampooran (7-7): This category uses all 7 notes in Aroh and Avroh. As no alteration is possible, so every Thaat can have only one unique Sampooran-Sampooran aroh/avroh.
2. Sampooran-Chhadav (7-6): There are six (6) Chhadav scales available in each Thaat. When we pair them with one (1) Sampooran scale, it gives us 1×6=6 unique Raags. Use the next and previous arrows in the flash movie to navigate through the scales.
3. Sampooran- Audav (7-5): There are fifteen (15) Audav scales in each Thaat. When we pair them with one (1) Sampooran scale, it gives us 1×15=15 unique Raags.
4. Chhadav- Sampooran (6-7): In this Jati, the Aroh is Chhadav (6 notes) and the Avroh is Sampooran (7 notes). This gives us 1×6=6 unique Raags. This Jati is the flip side of Sampooran-Chhadav (2nd Jati).
5. Chhadav-Chhadav (6-6): Chhadav Arohs paired with Chhadav Avrohs give us 6 scales on both sides. When we put them together, we get 6×6=36 unique Raags.
6. Chhadav- Audav (6-5): when we pair six (6) types of Chhadav Arohs with 15 types of Audav Avrohs, we get 6×15=90 Raags.
7. Audav- Sampooran (5-7): this is the flip side of Sampooran-Audav (3rd Jati). Pairing 15 Audav Avrohs with 1 Sampooran Avroh give us 15×1=15 Raags.
8. Audav-Chhadav (5-6): When we pair 15 types of Audav (5 notes) Arohs with 6 types of Chhadav (6 notes) Avrohs, we get 15×6=90 Raags.
9. Audav- Adudav (5-5): 15 types of Audav Arohs, paired with 15 types of Audav Avrohs give us 15×15=225 unique Raags.

When we add the Raags created in all nine Jaties, it equals to (1+6+15+6+36+90+15+90+225) 484. Now by making the notes flat and sharp in each Thaat, we can multiply these by 10 (there are 10 Thaats),to create 4840 Raags.

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As I mentioned earlier, There are “three” (3) main Jaties (Categories) of Indian Raags:

1. Heptatonic or Sampooran or all seven notes
2. Hexatonic or Chhadav or 6 notes
3. Pentatonic or Audav or 5 notes

Nine (9) subcategories or Jaties are created by pairing the above three to make ascending and descending (aroh/avroh) pairs.

1. Sampooran-Sampooran (7-7)
2. Sampooran-Chhadav (7-6)
3. Sampooran-Audav (7-5)
4. Chhadav-Sampooran (6-7)
5. Chhadav-Chhadav (6-6)
6. Chhadav-Audav (6-5)
7. Audav-Sampooran (5-7)
8. Audav-Chhadav (5-6)
9. Audav-Audav (5-5)
10. Let’s explore these Jaties before proceeding any further. Let’s see how many alterations of a scale (Thaat) are possible in each Jati.

1. Sampooran  (7):  A Sampooran (or heptatonic) scale uses all seven notes in Ascending and Descending (Aroh-Avroh). So there is only one type of Sampooran scale in each Thaat. A sampooran scale looks like this:

1. S,R,G,M,P,D,N

2. Chhadav : Chhadav (or hexatonic) scales are made by omitting one note from the Suptak (septave). A Suptak has seven notes. Sa, or the keynote cannot be omitted. So there are six Chhadav scales in each Thaat.

1. S,G,M,P,D,N
2. S,R,M,P,D,N
3. S,R,G,P,D,N
4. S,R,G,M,D,N
5. S,R,G,M,P,N
6. S,R,G,M,P,D,

3. Audav: An Audav scale uses five out of the seven notes. There are 15 Audav scales in any Thaat. In the following list, the notes (2nd through 7th) are omitted in the following order:
2-3, 2-4, 2-5, 2-6, 2-7, 3-4, 3-5, 3-6, 3-7, 4-5, 4-6, 4-7, 5-6, 5-7, 6-7. Once you understand the pattern, it is very easy to build these 15 scales:

1. S,M,P,D,N
2. S,G,P,D,N
3. S,G,M,D,N
4. S,G,M,P,N
5. S,G,M,P,D,
6. S,R,P,D,N
7. S,R,M,D,N
8. S,R,M,P,N
9. S,R,M,P,D,
10. S,R,G,D,N
11. S,R,G,P,N
12. S,R,G,P,D,
13. S,R,G,M,N
14. S,R,G,M,D,
15. S,R,G,M,P,

Go over these lists until it makes perfect sense. Next we will pair them to create Sub-categories.

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As I mentioned earlier that a Raag must use minimum of ‘five’ to maximum of ‘seven’ notes, and we know, there are only seven notes, so we can divide Raags in three main categories (Jatis):
1. Sumpoorn (heptatonic or seven notes)
2. Chhadav (Hexatonic or six notes)
3. Audav (pentatonic or five notes)

When we play more than one note, we are either going up or down the scale. So every Raag has its own ‘ascending notes’ and ‘descending notes’. This way we can divide Raags into 9 sub categories (Jatis):

Now it is just matter of putting them together and you will get 484 Raags. Every Raag must have a keynote, in Indian music, ‘Sa’ is always the keynote, no matter where you establish it. Now we will go through all 9 Jatis and see how the Raggs in each Jati add up.

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Here are the ten Thaats and their notes. Only Vikrat (sharp and flat) notes are shown here. That means all other notes are natural.

As you see, that except the 10th (Bhairav) Thaat, all other nine Thaat can be divided into two groups.

• First five Thaats start from ‘none’ flat or sharp and then every Thaat has ‘one extra’ flat.
• Thaat No. 6-9 have fourth sharp (Ma Tivar). There is one extra flat in every next Thaat after the 6th Thaat, which has no flats (Komal).
• The Tenth Thaat is a very popular Thaat but it doesn’t fit into ‘adding one vikrat’ categorizing.

Here is an interactive infographic of these thaats.  In Indian music  a transposed scale still be called the same scale as long as the relation between notes stays the same. As in Jazz a Lydian is Lydian regardless of the key. In case the interactive animation doesnt load, there is a list view below as well. All following scales are from C:
[iframe width=”100%” height=”300″ src=”https://www.sangtar.com/canvas/170201-10thaats.html”].

1. Bilaval: C,D,E,F,G,A,B > 1,2,3,4,5,6,7
2. Khamaj: C,D,E,F,G,A,Bb > 1,2,3,4,5,6,7b
3. Kafi: C,D,Eb,F,G,A,Bb > 1,2,3b,4,5,6,7b
4. Asavari: C,D,Eb,F,G,Ab,Bb > 1,2,3b,4,5,6b,7b
5.  Bhairvi: C,Db,Eb,F,G,Ab,Bb > 1,2b,3b,4,5,6b,7b
6. Kalian: C,D,E,F#,G,A,B > 1,2,3,4#,5,6,7
7. Marva: C,Db,E,F#,G,A,B > 1,2b,3,4#,5,6,7
8. Pooravi: C,Db,E,F#,G,Ab,B > 1,2b,3,4#,5,6b,7
9. Todi: C,Db,Eb,F#,G,Ab,B > 1,2b,3b,4#,5,6b,7
10. Bhairav: C,Db,E,F,G,Ab,B > 1,2b,3,4,5,6b,7

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A Thaat is a parent scale. Raags are derived from the Thaats. Thaat system categorizes the Raags by defining the positions (sharp or flat)of notes. A Thaat cannot be sung or played. A Thaat is just a theoretical ‘Sumpooran’ (Heptatonic) scale.
A musicologist Lochan Kavi developed the first Thaat system in the 15th century. In his book ‘Raag-Trungini’, he writes that at that time there were nearly 16000 Raags mentioned in the old books, stories, and myths, that Lord Krishna’s ‘Gopees’ (he had 365 Gopees) sang for him. Lochan Kavi found that out of all those mentioned, only 36 Raags had distinct scales. Thus he categorized all known Raags to 12 ‘Males’, the Sanskrit word for Thaat.

Then a Southern musicologist Pundit Venkatmukhi, used a mathematical formula to create 72 Thaats. He divided the Octave into two tetra-chords and applied the following rules:

1. Every Thaat must use ‘Sa’ (the keynote or the first note)
   2. Every Thaat must have 7 notes.
   3. Every Thaat must use notes from the upper and lower half (tetra-chords).

If you follow these three rules, it creates 72 unique scales. As hard as it sounds, this method is actually very easy to understand (eventually I will write a post about this).

Unfortunately it didn’t make much sense in the Northern Music, where notes were getting popular in their modern position (same as western notes, with a minimum interval of a semitone). Finally a modern musicologist Pundit Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhunday chose 10 out of the 72 southern Thaats and made them standard ‘10 Thaats of Northern Indian Music‘.

A few things you should know about a Thaat:
These are the amended Thaat rules that musicologist Pundit Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhunday adopted for the Hindustani music.

1. Every Thaat has all and only seven notes. That is one of every note in an octave. If ‘C’ is your ‘S’ (Sa or the keynote), then every Thaat must have all seven ‘C, D, E, F, G, A, B,’ (S, R, G, M, P, D, N) notes.
2. The Flat and Sharp notes (Komal and Tivar) separate one Thaat from another.
3. A Thaat cannot be played, so it doesn’t have to be written in ascending and descending patterns.
4. A Thaat does not have to sound pleasant to ears as it does not contain any rules to play the notes.
5. All Ten Thaat are named after a famous Raag from that Thaat. As ‘Marva’ is a Thaat and it is named after ‘Marva’ Raag, which is the most famous Raag from this Thaat.

In the next post we will see these 10 Thaats and understand how they relate to one another.

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Here are a few very useful words. It is a good idea to use Indian words when playing Indian music, although I will keep using English words besides Indian words through out the blog. This post only includes melody related words. Commonly used rhythmic words were explained in an earlier post. Once again, do not spend too much time memorizing these words before hand. The following list is not in an alphabetical order. I have placed them in a logical order.

Thaat (Parent Scale): (pronounce ‘th’ as in ‘theory’): Thaat is a parent scale, from which the Raags are born. A Thaat always contains all seven notes and only exists in theory, which means a Thaat cannot be played or sung. Once you define how to sing a Thaat’s notes in a certain way, a Raag is born. There are ten Thaats in Northern Indian Music:

1. Bilaval
2. Khamaj
3. Kafi
4. Asavari
5. Bhairvi
6. Kaliaan
7. Marva
8. Poorvi
9. Todi
10. Bhairav

Raag: A Raag is a group of five (minimum) to seven (maximum) notes which sounds pleasant to the ears when sung or played on an musical instruments. Raags are derived from Thaats. There can be 484 unique Raags in every Thaat.

Svara (Note): A musical sound with minimum interval of a semitone is called a Svara. There are twelve Svaras (Notes) in an Octave and they have seven names as shown below

Jati (type): Jati is referred to the scale structure of a Raag. There are three main Jatis:

1. Sumpooran (Heptatonic or 7 notes)
2. Chhadav (Hexatonic or 6 notes) and
3. Audav (Pentatonic or 5 notes)

Vadi Svara (Dominant Note): The most important and most used note (suwar) in a Raag is called the Vadi Svara.
Sumvadi Svara (Sub-dominant Note): The next important note in a Raag is called the Sumvadi Svara. It is always a fourth or fifth from the Vadi note.
Vivadi Svara (Enemy Note): The name explains it all. Using this note will break the Raag. Although really experienced performers do use Vivadi notes in their performance just to show that how comfortable they are with their hold on a Raag. In general, stay away from it.
Verjit Svara (Forbidden Notes): The Notes, which are not used in a Raag, are called Verjit notes. Verjit notes are defined by the Jatis, i.e Heptatonic Raags have none, Hexatonic Raags have one and Pentatonic Raags have two forbidden notes.
Shudh Svara (pure, Natural Note): Notes as they appear in a major scale are assumed in their Shudh (natural) position. R, G, D and N are consider Shudh when they appear in their Tivar position and M is consider shudh when it apears in its Komal position.

Vikrat Svara (Moved Notes): Note which are played in a different position than as they appear in a major scale are called Vikrat Svaras (Sharps and Flats).
Komal Svara (Flat Note): In Northern Indian music all notes except first and fifth have two positions. The lower position is called Komal and the upper is called Tivar. When any of the notes which are Tivar in a natural scale are Vikrat (moved), they are called Komal Svaras (‘R’,’G’,’D’ and ‘N’ second, third, sixth and seventh). The Komal notes are underlined in the notation.
Tivar Svara (Sharp Note): When a note moves one step up from its Komal position that is called a Tivar Svara. Only ‘M’ (fourth) goes Tivar when it is Vikrat (moved). Ma or fourth is komal in a natural scale. A Tivar suwar is written with a standing line on it.

There is not much new to learn about note positions. Only thing to remember is that which notes go flat and which one goes sharp. here is a simple map of all 12 notes from ‘C’:

Aroh : ascending. Every Raag must have an ascending.
Avroh: Descending. Every Raag must have a descending.
Pakad (Catch phrase): The main phrase in a Raag, which gives it a distinguish characteristic, is called Pakad.
Taan: When a group of notes as a phrase is sung in a rhythm, it is called a Taan. There are two main categories of Taans: Spaat Taan and Koot Taan. These were discussed in this post.
Meend (Slur): When notes are changed without breaking the voice or the vibration of a string in a smooth up or down pull, that is a slur or Meend. Sometimes another word ‘Soote’ is used for bowed instruments.
Kun (Grace notes): When while singing or playing one note, another note is slightly touched, that is called a Kun. The Kun (grace) note is written right on top of the main note as:

This means ‘N’ (Nee) is slightly touched when the second ‘Pa’ is played.
Sthaee: The chorus of a song is called Sthaee.
Antra: The verse/s of a song is/are called Antra/s.

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