Revision as of 22:29, 4 August 2015

A pronunciation guide

Indians, indeed, South Asians, need not read this guide. They will immediately guess our system, even if they do not know Hindi-Urdu,

For others:

Diacritical marks above vowels double their sound.

A diacritical mark above an ‘ñ’ makes it a nasalised, ‘half’ n as in soNg, briNg, bruNt, caN’t, loNg, ENglish etc.

Capital T and D mean that the T and D are hard, as in the English language.

The capital N denotes a hard n, which non-Indians might find cumbersome. They can stick to the normal n.

Small t and d indicate the soft t and d of Spanish, French and Italian. The d sound is close to the English th (as in THere, THis, THat etc.)

An accentuated é should be pronounced as in French.

The ThaaTs and their raags

Bilãwal

Notes (swar) used: shuddha (i.e. all swar of the natural scale)

Shown in paintings as: sensuous

Some raags in the ठाट (ThãT) called बिलावल (Bilãwal)

Khamãj

Notes (swar) used: The notes of Bilawal, with Komal Nishad instead of Shuddha Nishad.

Mood/ flavour (ras): shriñgãr ras (amorous/ love)

Kinds of music used in: light classical (horî, kajrî, Tappâ, Thumrî)

Shown in paintings as: sensuous, romantic, playful

Some raags in the ठाट (ThãT) called खमाज (khamãj)

The a in dvitîya is almost silent

Kãfî

Notes (swar) used: The notes of Khamaj Thaat + Komal Gãñdhãr

The ‘f’ sound does not exist in Hindi or most Indian languages. They have the ‘ph’ sound instead. Thus, the Hindi word for ‘successful’ is ‘saphal’ and not ‘safal,’ as is almost invariably assumed. For the same reason, you will find some scholarly sites that use the transliteration kãphî (for काफी) instead. It is a mediæval rãg. By then the ‘f’ sound had reached India with the Persian language. Therefore, unless an authority tells us why not, Indpaedia will continue to use the popular pronunciation, which is kãfî. (We repeat: just because safal is the popular pronunciation it does not become correct.)

Some raags in the ठाट (ThãT) called काफ़ी (kãfî):

Ãsãvarî

Notes (swar) used: The notes of Kafi + Komal Dhaivat

Mood: austere, ascetic, renunciatory.

Some raags in the ठाट (ThãT) called आसावरी (ãsãvarî)

Bhairavî

Notes (swar) used: All the komal swars, dhaivat (A), gandhar (E), nishad (B), rishabh (D). All 12 notes are used in compositions in Bhairavi.

‘Gender’: Feminine

Mood: Solemn.

Shown in paintings as: Feminine, as the divine wife of Bhairav (Lord Shiv).

Some raags in the ठाट (ThãT) called भैरवी (bhairavî)

Bhairav

Notes (swar) used: Komal Rishabh and Komal Dhaivat

Gender: masculine

Shown in paintings as: Ascetic, overwhelming

Some raags in the ठाट (ThãT) called भैरव (bhairav)

Some variants of Raag Bhairav: ahîr bhairav, alam bhairav, ãñañd bhairav, bairãgî bhairav, beehad bhairav, bhavmat bhairav, dévatã bhairav, gaurî bhairav, naT bhairav, shivmat bhairav.

Kalyãn

Distinguishing swar: teevr madhyam. (Indeed, it is teevr madhyam that differentiates evening/ night raags from dawn and sunset raags.

Mood: Feel-good

Some raags in the ठाट (ThãT) called कल्याण (kalyãN)

Variations include: ãñañdî kalyãN, khém kalyãN, savani kalyãN.

Mãrwã

Notes (swar) used: kalyãN Thaat plus komal rishabh.

Mood: Dusk. The end of the day, the coming of the night.

Some raags in the ठाट (ThãT) called मारवा (mãrwã)

Poorvi

Notes (swar) used: mãrwã Thaat plus komal dhaivat.

Mood: Serious

Shown in paintings as: graceful.

Some raags in the ठाट (ThãT) called पूर्वी (pûrvî):

ToDî

The raag Todi is depicted in this Rajasthani miniature painting (13 cm X 18 cm.), as it almost invariably is in Indian art: A young woman with a veena (musical instrument), a deer near her, and a forest or at least a tree close at hand. Such sets of ‘frozen music’ (raags depicted in paintings) are called the rãg-mãlã (Ragamala: the necklace of raags) series

Mood: Serene, sylvan, musical.

Some raags in the ठाट (ThãT) called तोड़ी (torhî is invariably spelt toDî, therefore, Indpaedia has succumbed)

Other Raags

Why this page?

This page was created in order to give laymen just the names and correct pronunciations of the Ten Thaats and the important raags/ ragas. (However, as the page grows it will have other information as well. It already does.)

Why should Indians, especially those who can read Hindi in Devanagari, need pronunciation guides to their own raags/ ragas?

Because of all the inaccurate information available in print and on the internet. Because of spellings like सिंदूरा (instead of सिन्धुरा), हिंदोल (instead of हिन्डोल), हामीर (instead of हमीर), जेजैवंती (instead of जयजयवन्ती or जैजैवंती; our problem is with the first जे, which should have been a जै), वसंत (instead of बसन्त), हंसकंकणी (instead of हंसकिंकिणी), मल्लार (instead of मल्हार), ललिट and Lalat (instead of ललित and Lalit), जैनपुरी (instead of जौनपुरी), र्गाधार (instead of गन्धार), देश (instead of देस), haunsdhwani (instead of hañsdhwani), रागेश्वरी (instead of रागेश्री) and बागेश्वरी (instead of बागेश्री). All these mistakes have been made by scholarly publications.

This tends to confuse even those who know the basics of Hindustani classical music.

Hence Indpaedia volunteers, who are not experts either, have constructed this page to the best of their ability. Please guide them through messages sent to the Facebook community, Indpaedia.com.