Raaga Difference

[Anantharaman Rajkumar]

I recently heard a song in raagam "Naaga gandhari". I felt that it resembles the raagam of "Eppo varuvaro, endhan kali theera"(I am
quickly not able to recall the raagam of this song).

Could you enlighten me with the difference between these raagas ?
They sound almost the same, that I wonder if there is any difference at all.

Thank you in advance.

R A J

[Nandakumar Gopalakrishnan]

>Thank you in advance.

>R A J

Naagagandhari the raga I think is a janya of Nata Bhairavi and in fact
I find a lot of similarities between the Dikshithar kriti "Naga gandhari
Raga ..." in Naga gandahari, and "Sri Valli Deva Senapate" in Nata
Bhairavi.

On the other hand "Eppo Varuvaro" is in the raga Jaunpuri (also the
song "Rama Mantra Jhapiso" and the old old MKT Tamil film song
"Sathvagunabodhan") and to me it sounds derived from Shanmugapriya.

Maybe you felt the resemblance coz Shanmugapriya is the Prati Madhyama
counterpart to Nata Bhairavi (with Shuddha Ma). But then this difference
and maybe some more is rather distinctive (to my ears) in the 2 ragas
in question.

Nandu

PS: I haven't checked the fact worthiness of my statements; yet they
might be worth something :-) I hope.

[Nandakumar Gopalakrishnan]

"Eppo Varuvaro" is in the raga Jaunpuri I believe. As also the songs "Rama Mantra
Jhapiso" and "Sathvagunabodhan" a Tamil film oldie by MKT. It seems to me to be
derived from Shanmugapriya.

On the other hand, Naga gandhari (I think) is a janya raga of Nata Bhairavi and
in fact I felt that the Dikshithar kriti "Naga gandhari" in the same raga and
"Sree Valli Deva Senapate" in Nata Bhairavi shared a likeness rather strong.

It's possible that the fact that Shanmugapriya is the Prati Madhyama equivalent
of NataBhairavi made you feel what you felt. However this striking difference
and maybe others (?), tell them apart - in my ear for one.

Nandu

PS: I haven't checked my statements for their fact worthiness. I'll let the
wizards handle that! :-)