In the Indian classical music scenario, artists of the North Indian classical system have often adopted most of the South Indian ragas to compose, elaborate and present these raagas in highly varied formats of raga music. In the process of this transition from South Indian to North Indian music, many ragas such as, Hamsaddwani, Keeravani, Chaarukeshi, Vaachaspathi, Lathaangi, Shanmukhapriya, Ramapriya, Ranjani, Janasammohini, Bhinnashadja etc… are most prominant raagas that have been cleverly handled by many stalwarts of North Indian musicians with elegance and sometimes at disdain- tend to lose their original texture to say the least.
I am going to discuss in this article a few of the above mentioned ragas, detailing in brief the phrases, groups of notes, vaadi-samvaadi aspects of the ragas and those ragas that have unique combination to the composition itself and vise-versa. For instance, I would take the raga Keervani the flamboyant and elegant South Indian raga which is the 21st scale of the 72 Melakarttaas system. A quint-essential aspect of keervani is easily discernible in the phrase “Pa Dha Ma, Magaga, GaRi, Dha Pa MagaGa Ri, Dha Sa Ni Ri…Sa” and these are so specially adopted in the South Indian music that almost 99% of the musicians who have adopted these Raagas into North Indian music-either fail to understand it or to incorporate south Indian touch in their north Indian music. This is probably because they don’t attempt the subtle and suggestive ways of oscillating the notes like “Re, Ga, Dha” in Keeravaani.
Raaga keeravani, the 21st Melakarrtaa in the 72 scales system of the South Indian Raaga structure system developed and grammatized by “Srinivasa Venkatamakhi”
This Raaga, has a very special ascending and descending order, even though is a ‘Sampoorna-Sampoorna” Raaga. The emphasis is given more on the notes “Rishabha” (Chatushruti Rishabha- in South Indian, Shuddha Re in North Indian music) and Shuddha Dhaivata- in south Indian, Komal Dhaa- in North Indian music.
Apart from this, there is a special Phrase which determines its beauty and uniqueness :-
” Pa-Dha-Ma”, followed by “Ma-Pa-Magaga-Ri” Which is rarely heard when most of the North Indian musicians play this Raaga.
Apart from this, the very approach of the note Dhaivata, or Dhaa is very subtle in South Indian style, where it is not only oscillating but also “Micro-tonally flatter” than the usual Komal Dhaa used in the North Indian music system. The best way to discern this subtlety would be to compare the Komal Dhaa of RAagas Bhairav and Nat Bhairav with that of Shree and Puryaa Dhanaashree. It is “Definitely” not the same as that of Raagas: Todi, Gurjari Todi(Gujree Todi) or Aasaavari. But it is similar to the Dhaa of Bilaaskhaani Todi.
When we elaborate the Raaga, Keervaani while most of the time “Karuna-Rasa” in Phrases like
“Pa-Dha-Ma” or ” Re–PAuse– Map-Pa-Dha(Quicker) Paa– Elongated” it is full of an aesthetic value that depicts the element of “Viraha” or Separation from the beloved for too long.
Once the Raaga has reached the upper octave, most of the time, the Phrases like “Pa-Dha-Ni–(Elongated)” or “Pa-dha-ni-Sa(Upper Octave)” is syggestive of the element known as “Kathora-Rasa” or one of “Toughness”
Most North Indian artists do not execute the Phrases like ” Pa-Dha-Ni” as ” Pa-Dha-Sani-Sa-Ni” that South Indian stalwarts do. Another important phrase is : “Dha-sa-ni-Ri(Elongated)” which sounds like “Dha-ni-Ri” is very similarly executed as done in “Nat-Bhairav” in the North Indian style.
The deeper and more emphatically Raaga based phrase is ” Ri-Ga-Ma-(Elongated) Pa-dha-paa(Elongaated) Followed by ” Sa(Meend) Dha-pa- Magaga- Gari–Elongated)
Examples of Raaga: Keeravaani-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN5fkz70lIk
(Keeravani-Part1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV9Tzh90Zf0
(Keeravani-part2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ul8BWpKqvo
(Keeravaani-part3)
So the very texture of raaga like Keeravaani changed over the years due to these kinds of adoption of the raga. The other important aspect of the raga is it being very akin to a slow tempo to medium tempo raga structure and very rarely would seem appropriate if rendered in faster tempo. The reason behind this is – keervani has very suttle and suggestive oscillation note “Dha Ma Re” and most of the North Indian musicians play the 3rd note which is “Ga” microtonally sharp than the way it was in the south indian style and the same happened to nishada and daivatha.
In some schools of music vaadi-swara or note is rishabha and samvaadi is panchama and in other schools vaadi-swara or note goes to rishabha and sumvaadi to dhaivatha, depending on the lyrics used by the composer each raga changes the scale and texture due to the rhythmic records for the composition and since the north Indian music system has a particular time frame for certain ragas, almost all the ragas in north Indian musician has adpoted this raaga to be rendered in morning time whilst others definitely taken it to be evening raga. The composition “Aba To Bhayee Bhor” by Pt. C.R. Vyas , a great musician of north Indian music who studied under great masters of almost 4 gharanas, was clearly indicative of the fact that keervani is a morning raga because of the lyrics he chose, it translates to “Wake-up my son, its dawn”
Another raga, which is also an adoption from south India to north India viz, charukeshi has been handled by many masters of Agra gharana have played music and lyrics to indicate that this was the morning raga even though there were certain phrases used by the composers to bring the raga charukeshi closest to late night raga,”darbaari-kaanhadaa”. In some other ragas such as Vaachaspathi and Lataangi, great musicians of north India have sung and played the faster compositions that indicate to the listners that these ragas resembles maarubihaag and natbhairav played with theevra-madhyama. Whereas, in south Indian music, both of these ragas are in ascending and descending orders. On the other hand, the raga shanmukhapriya which means the beautiful 6 faces deity, was cleverly composed by the north Indian rare raga called “khatt” or “shutth”.
more articles by Jagan Ramamoorthy
- Microtones,Microtonal music-Healing powers & Influence on Human Consciousness and DNA-An Eastern perspective
- 72 scales called Melakarrtaas–A rare gift to the music world
- Improvisation in Indian music– “ManoDharma”
- The Nature of Sound- “Naada”
- Traditional and Aesthetical aspects of Indian music
- Introduction to my style of music and my personal profile
- The Divine Sound- “Naada” Or “Pure Tone”
