temporal associations with ragas
Orlando Enrique Fiol
Orlando Enrique Fiol
As part of my Ph.D. ethnomusicology coursework at U. Penn, I am working on a
project analyzing scalar and melodic characteristics in two trios of ragas.
Toward that end, I'd like to ask
about musicians' and listeners' associations between raags and times of day or
night. When you learned which raags are associated with certain times of day,
did those associations seem logical, intuitive or entirely random? Did they
reinforce your own associations?
For those who feel comfortable discussing swaras, do you find that the shudha,
komal and tivra correspondences between raag scales and temporal times of day
make sense? For instance, many evening raags have tivra ma, while many early
morning raags have komal re. Do these swaras remind you of those respective
times?
Are there other aspects of raag performance such as pacing, phrasing, vaadi,
samvaadi and nyaas that contribute to raag associations with times of day or
seasons?
Many thanks,
Orlando Enrique Fiol
C Parthapratim
Whatever observation has been made so far points to a single fact that
the mode-time correlation is entirely a matter of cultural
conditioning. The Komal Re, and Tivra Ma exampe that you have given is
self-defeating as there are many major modes meant for evening that
contain Komal Re, 2 Thaats (general groups of modes/Ragas) are
dedicated two evening that contain Komal Re. Same is true for Tivra
Ma. Lot of morning Ragas contain that note. Temporality depends not on
the notes used, not even on the Vadi-Samvadi pair or their placement
on the octave in general.
However,some people try to differentiate between morning and evening
Ragas by laying emphasis on the ascending or descending phrases in a
Raga. According to this theory, the evening raga should contain more
descending phrases as it is a journey towards relaxation (thoracic
studies will also support this view). However, again counter-examples
in pre-recorded music are aplenty.
All what I can say, it is a matter of convention, norms, not of
rationality so far. There might be some logically comprehensible
correlation that is yet to be unearthed.
Ciao!
Abhay
(snip)
> All what I can say, it is a matter of convention, norms, not of
> rationality so far. There might be some logically comprehensible
> correlation that is yet to be unearthed.
FWIW: Sunita Deshpande, in her article on Mallikarjun Mansur in her
second book, says that Mansur essentially ridiculed the concept of
temporal association with raaga-s, but wasn't willing to buck the
trend or to speak out against it. When she took him to task for
following/not openly questioning the tradition if he didn't believe in
it, he told her, "Whoever finds it a battle worth the while is free to
take it up", and refused to comment further on it.
(The book is in Marathi; I am not sure if it has been translated into
English. The book consists of a series of long essays, at least three
being on musicians: Mansur, Kumar Gandharva, and Vasantrao Deshpande.)
Warm regards,
Abhay
PK
objective reality can be debated to no end. The raags certainly carry
the sense of time .. and ahir bhairav is certainly a morning raag and
I like to listen to Malkauns at night. Many raags carry a strong
sense of time, and one should not dismiss the idea so easily.
I don't care who says what in her book ..... unless Ptji himself was
able to clarify and justify what he meant, one should not take the
gossip too seriously. Ptji himself was obviously a great vidwan, but
what info we have above is neither here nor there. In his own
peformances I remember him singing bhimpalasi in an afternoon
concert... so....
There are some losely defined rules but no real solid rule about use
of specific notes & timing. For example kR is morning raags such as
bharav is not as strong as evening raags like Marwa. Jhasaheb talks
about this at one point in his demos.
- PK
C Parthapratim
The kR closest possible to S in in Multani. Also Purvi's r is known as
ati-komal. These ragas are by no means morning Ragas. On the other
hand, all Shuddha stuff like in Bilawal isa morning Raga.