Ragas

1. Nada, shruti, swar

• Nada — musical sound; the raw material of music.
• Shruti — a historical concept of fine pitch distinction, traditionally discussed through 22 shrutis. This is not a universal psychophysical minimum, an equal-step scale or a frequency chart shared by all ragas.
• Swar — a musical note; the seven basic swaras are Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni (Shadja, Rishabh, Gandhar, Madhyam, Pancham, Dhaivat, Nishad).

2. Saptak (octave) & registers

• Saptak — the set of seven swaras spanning an octave.
• Three registers: mandra (lower), madhya (middle), tara (upper). Notation marks a lower dot for mandra and an upper dot/mark for tara.

3. Achal & chal swar (fixed and movable notes)

• Achal swar — fixed: Sa and Pa never change.
• Chal swar — movable: Re, Ga, Dha, Ni have shuddha (natural) and komal (flat) forms; Ma has shuddha and tivra (sharp) forms.
• So twelve notes in an octave: Sa, komal/shuddha Re, komal/shuddha Ga, shuddha/tivra Ma, Pa, komal/shuddha Dha, komal/shuddha Ni.

4. Sa as a movable tonic

• Sa (Shadja) is not a fixed pitch; the singer chooses a comfortable tonic and all other swaras are relative to it. Finding and holding one's Sa (with a tanpura/surpeti drone) is the first practical skill. This is why notation is tonic-relative.

5. Thaat (parent scale)

• A thaat is a parent scale used to classify ragas. The Bhatkhande system uses ten thaats (e.g. Kalyan, Bilawal, Kafi, Bhairav, Asavari…). A thaat is a classification tool, not a raga: many ragas share one thaat but differ in grammar. E.g. Yaman belongs to Kalyan thaat.

6. Raga vs scale

• A raga is more than a scale: it is a melodic framework with rules — which swaras, how they ascend/descend, which are emphasised or rested on, characteristic phrases, and mood/time associations. Two ragas can share the same notes yet be different ragas through their movement.

7. Aroha–avaroha, jati

• Aroha — ascending line; avaroha — descending line. These show which swaras a raga uses going up and down (they can differ).
• Jati — the raga's "class" by note-count in aroha/avaroha: audav (5), shadav (6), sampurna (7); e.g. sampurna–sampurna = 7 up and 7 down.

8. Vadi, samvadi, nyas, pakad, chalan

• Vadi — the most prominent swar of a raga (its "king"); samvadi — the second most prominent.
• Nyas — resting/pause swaras.
• Pakad — the catch-phrase that identifies a raga; chalan — its characteristic melodic movement.
• Varjit swar — notes omitted from a raga; vakra — an oblique (zig-zag) rather than straight movement.

9. Alankar / palta (patterned exercises)

• Alankar can mean ornamentation; in exercise teaching it also refers to patterned swara exercises or paltas. Such melodic patterns run across the swaras (e.g. SRG–RGM–GMP…) used to train pitch, agility and evenness. The foundation of daily riyaz.

10. Ornaments (swar-alankaran)

• Meend — a smooth glide between notes; kan-swar — a grace note; murki — a quick cluster ornament; khatka — a sharp cluster around a note; gamak — a forceful, oscillating ornament; andolan — a slow, deliberate oscillation on a note. Ornament use is strongly gharana- and raga-specific.

Start with a relationship

When a singer chooses Sa, the other swaras are understood in relation to it. Two singers can perform the same raga at different absolute pitches without changing its name. During a given performance the reference normally stays stable; “movable tonic” does not mean moving it whenever a phrase becomes difficult.

What the drone contributes

A tanpura or another sustained reference makes the tonic audible while the melody moves. Hear the sung note against that reference, not only against the preceding note. Returning to Sa is a useful check on whether the tonal centre has drifted.

A drone is not a chord progression. Its sound also does not tell you every note or phrase allowed in the raga. Drone tuning depends on the raga and performance.

A first listening exercise

1. Listen to the reference without singing and identify the pitch being treated as Sa.
2. Hear a short demonstrated phrase and its return. Did the resting pitch agree with that reference?
3. Compare two performances in different keys. Listen for similar relationships, not identical absolute frequencies.

Common confusions

Changing playback speed can change pitch unless the player preserves it. A keyboard display may label a key C or D; that label becomes Sa only by the musician’s choice. A written S does not by itself specify a frequency or octave.

See Raga · Laya · Alap for the wider vocabulary.

Seven names, more than seven pitch positions

Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha and Ni are the seven swara names. Re, Ga, Dha and Ni can have komal forms; Ma can have a tivra form. In the common terminology used here, Sa and Pa are achal. This vocabulary should not be confused with a rule that every performance uses equal-tempered keyboard tuning.

Registers

Mandra, madhya and tara describe lower, middle and upper registers. The same note name may occur in more than one octave. A missing octave sign can therefore change a phrase substantially even when its sequence of letter names looks correct.

Reading notation

S R G M P D N are shuddha notes, r g d n are komal notes, and M^ is tivra Ma. ↑ marks the upper octave and ↓ the lower; unmarked notes are in the middle octave. — continues the previous sound, · marks an unsung position, and parentheses indicate grace notes.

Lyrics and syllable rows

Full lyric text, Roman transliteration, meaning and beat-aligned syllables serve different purposes. Syllable rows use Roman letters or Devanagari; each cell shows their timing, holds and repetitions. Case such as D in a lyric transliteration must not be interpreted as a swara outside the score's notation layer.

Reading in Hindi

The English and Hindi pages use the same note symbols, octave arrows and duration signs. Hindi meanings explain the lyrics without changing the music.

Shruti is not an extra piano keyboard

The inherited glossary introduces the traditional count of 22 shrutis. That should not be taken to mean 22 equal steps or 22 universally fixed frequencies to be used mechanically in every raga. Precise pitch treatment belongs with the musical tradition, phrase and demonstration under discussion.

Check your reading

Before singing a row, identify its tonic convention, altered notes, octave signs and duration marks.