On Raga Basant Mukhari
Chetan Vinchhi
Rajan P. Parrikar wrote:
>
> In article <ufsNx$Um9GA.150@upnetnews05> "DinLav" <din...@email.msn.com> writes:
>
> >just like to add that a very illustrative rendition of the raag has been
> >made by Malini Rajurkar - (Alurkar audio video cassette # AA 146).
> > Lavanya Dinesh
>
> Could you please cite the bandishes? I am curious if she has sung
> Ratanjankar.
The Basant Mukhari bandishes wonderfully sung by Malini
Rajurkar on the Alurkar release are:
Vil.Ektaal
Sthayi-
x
mAlaniyA lAo ri guNd lAo ri
harvA saras sugandhit ata suNdar
Anatara-
sAjan ghar AilA
bhailo AnaNd ata
lAooN garvA dArooN
harvA saras sugandhit ata suNdar
Drut Teental
Sthayi-
x
uThat jiyA hook suni koyal kook
birahA agan dhari rain dinA nAhi
chain pare mohe kA ri karooN
Antara-
lagan lagi milave ko chAhe
jiyA nahiN mAnat nis din
neer jharat nainan soN
C
Rajan P. Parrikar
>The Basant Mukhari bandishes wonderfully sung by Malini
>Rajurkar on the Alurkar release are:
>
>Vil.Ektaal
>
>Sthayi-
> x
>mAlaniyA lAo ri guNd lAo ri
>harvA saras sugandhit ata suNdar
>
>Anatara-
>
>sAjan ghar AilA
>bhailo AnaNd ata
>lAooN garvA dArooN
>harvA saras sugandhit ata suNdar
This one is due to Ratanjankar too!
r
Sajjad Khaliq
Rajan P. Parrikar (parr...@ferrari.Colorado.EDU) wrote:
: There are a few good recordings available. Mr Khan of San Rafael and
: Mr R. Shankar of Encinitas have both recorded the rAga, although I do
: not recall their treatment in detail other than to say they're "good."
: I have listened to a marvellous private recording of Basavraj Rajguru (thanks
: to his disciple Nachiketa Sharma) that has him rendering a vilambit kHayAl
: in roopak. Basavraj's treatment goes a trifle light on the Bhairav angle and
: instead the Bhairavi ang preponderates. Mr Ajoy Chakraborty has also recorded
: the rAga but you won't catch me recommending this mediocre, listless,
: garden-variety bongwit to anybody even on a moonless night. But you might
: still want to check it out for the rAga treatment.
Ali Akbar Khan gave an excellent performance of Basant Mukhari for
BBC Radio 3, in 1974. Probably the best Basant Mukhari I have heard.
Vilayat Khan has played Basant Mukhari in public, although there is no
commercial recording. I feel however, that Imrat Khan's rendition on
surbahar in the "Bahar of Surbahar" T-series CD perhaps surpasses his
brother's rendition.
--
Sajjad Khaliq / Hamilton / Ontario / Canada
TANSEN8106
Hi to all
Ustad Ghulam Hassan Shagan of LAhore has also sung a very good Basant Mukhari
at the Pakistan Music Conference two years ago....
Regards
Tansen
Surajit A. Bose
Rajan,
You mention that Vakulabharana and Basant Mukhari seem to have identical
scales. I wonder about Ijhaaz Bhairav, which too is a sampuurNa raaga that
replaces the shuddha nishaad of single-malt Bhairav with a komal nishaad.
Ratnakar Pai sings Ijhaaz Bhairav.
From a student of Pai saheb's, I gather that Ijhaaz Bhairav has been
around in the Hindustani tradition for longer than Basant Mukhari. I'm
told that Ijhaaz Bhairav is one of the several lesser known raagas in the
Atrauli Jaipur repertoire (Bahaduri Todi, Nat Kamod, Saavani, Shudh Nat)
that usually are cordially ignored by performers from other gharanas.
Can you confirm, clarify, or otherwise shed light on this?
-s
--
To respond by e-mail, remove "nospam" from my address.
vishkr...@hotmail.com
In article <6m6s9d$8...@lace.colorado.edu>,
parr...@ferrari.Colorado.EDU (Rajan P. Parrikar) wrote:
>
> In article <6m678j$o...@lace.colorado.edu>
> parr...@ferrari.Colorado.EDU (Rajan P. Parrikar) writes:
>
> >If Sanjeev Ramabhadran is reading this, it would be interesting
> >to see what he thinks.
>
> Also, it would be nice if Vish Krishnan were persuaded to
> chip in with his substantial pocket change. He should be able
> to augment the list of filmi Basant Mukharis. Furthermore,
> since Sir Vish is known to be M-centric and he may be able to
> throw a new angle or two into the discussion (M-centrics are
> those select few who are wired such that they almost always
> perceive the Sa at the location where the rest of the universe
> knows the madhyam is).
Dr. Parrikar,
I am counting all the change. Ain't much here. A couple of
points, just in passing:
1. Establishing the "sa": Admittedly a subjective matter
in the absence of definitive ambient clues provided by
e.g. the tablaa or the taanpura. So we are talking only
about that rather large set of "in-doubt" compositions,
mostly to be found in movie songs, or in Western Classical
movements. For what it is worth, I will share with you
(what I am now convinced is) my subconscious method.
My determination of the "sa" is tied to the middle C, i.e.
to my inaccurate guess as to where the concert pitch C should
be. Invariably, I find myself mapping the "sa" to any cadence
in the song nearest to such an inaccurately established C.
It is thus less a matter of being F-centric (or M-centric
as you put it), and more a pathological obsession with
finding a reasonably confident resting place around the C.
In "o basanti" for instance, the words "paagal" and the
second occurrence of "naa >
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Rajan P. Parrikar
In article <sbose1-1906...@tc6-1.tc.nd.edu>
Namashkar.
You have raised an excellent point. I had deliberately avoided mention
of Hijaj (also called Hijaj Bhairav) in the interest of focus.
The name Hijaj comes to us from one of the basic (12?) Persian maqAms.
However, there is no consensus (ancient or modern) among Indians on just what
the constituent swaras of this melodic unit are (I haven't myself checked
or read the Persian sources and this would be a good way to go). For
instance, Pundarik Vitthal (from around the time of Emperor Akbar) states
the swaras in his treatise "Ragamanjiri" as: S r G M P d n, coincident with
Vakulabharana/B-Mukhari. Other vidwAns such as Somnath and Bhavabhatta (circa
the muslim bigot Aurangzeb) have also talked about Hijaj in their works but
I have no recollection at this moment of what it is they said. However, the
competing versions for Hijaj have been the usual Bhairav/Mayamalavagaula
scale of today (whence the appendage Bhairav to Hijaj) and also the scale of
Raga Nat Bhairav. The latter is claimed by some eminent scholar-musicians
even today to be the old Hijaj Bhairav packaged under a new brand, although
I do not know what (if any) their basis for the assertion is. So much for
the Hijaj polemic.
I am inclined to tread on the assumption that Pundarik Vitthal had it right
and that the Jaipur folks picked up on his trail. That is how I first knew
Hijaj to be before I stumbled upon the alternative viewpoints. Subbarao too
is aligned with this swara-prayog in "Raganidhi." This begs the question -
what, if anything, separates Hijaj Bhairav from the current day Basant Mukhari?
Unfortunately, it has been many years since I was last actively acquainted
with the rAga and my recollection is hazy, therefore I shall withhold any
definitive remarks. What would be wonderful is if you could give Ratnakar Pai's
rendition a critical hearing and come back with an exegesis.
There are a few pertinent pointers to consider:
(a) In Basant Mukhari the rishab is freely used in ascent as S r G, whereas
in Bhairav there is a subtle, but discernible, manner in which the rishab
is passed over sometimes in ascent: S G M d etc. The formal term for the
rishab (or any other swara) in that mode is 'langhan alpatva' (langhan =
skip, alpatva = small measure/quantity). Check if this feature is found in
Pai's Hijaj. (Terms such as bahutva, alpatva etc are important constructs
in understanding the shastraic foundations of rAgas and we shall talk about
them in a future post).
The r-d pair is of special significance in Bhairav, but not in B-Mukhari
and you may find the pronounced Bhairav-like Andolan around d: G M (n)d (n)d P
which is absent in B-Mukhari. The G M (G)r approach towards the rishab is
shared by B-Mukhari so we may not be able to purchase much from that
observation (although just to confuse you a bit at this point, recall my
comment about Basavraj Rajguru de-emphasizing that route. Was it deliberate
inorder to keep it distinct from Hijaj? We don't know, may never know, since
he's no longer alive). Also, the madhyam is not very strong in canonical
Bhairav but is in B-Mukhari. Finally, Bhairavs in general have a very
gambheera air about them.
(b) There is another Bhairav-prakAr that JaipurwAllAhs are fond of
which goes by the name Virat (virAT) Bhairav. It uses the same scale
as B-Mukhari plus an additional shuddha dhaivat in an occasional special
passage (G M P D n D etc). But here's the nub: even without the shuddha
dhaivat, with movement confined to the B-Mukhari swaras, Virat Bhairav
has quite a different flavour. Some of it is accounted by the points
mentioned in (a) above. But there are also occasional special sanchAras
such as S G m (n)d P, G M n d M G (not how the pancham is skipped in
descent) that set it apart from B-Mukhari. Something for you to be alert
while listening to Hijaj.
Re. youe comments about Jaipur repertoire of special rAgas:
Yes, there are certain rAgas that are especially dear to some gharAnAs,
either due to stylistic/idiomatic reasons or for the fact that some
gharAnA bigwig actually developed the rAga himself. Jaipur and Agra,
two gharAnAs which have a real pulse for abstruse melodies, have their
gharAnA favourites and staple. It is not true at least for most of
the rAgas you've listed that they are exclusive Jaipur tenants. Kamod
Nat, Savani, Bahaduri Todi etc, although very unique in their treatment
in Jaipur hands, find other patrons, notably from the Agra clan. There are
of course some that are exclusively gharAnA possessions (see for instance,
the recent recording of Shruti Sadolikar of Raga Dagori, a creation of
Alladiya Khan). In recent times, many rAgas created by contemporary musicians
have crossed gharAnA boundaries freely (Allaudin Khan's Hemant, Jagannathbuwa
Purohit's Jogkauns etc) and in the coming years that trend is likely to
strengthen.
Warm regards,
r
vishkr...@hotmail.com
In article <6m6s9d$8...@lace.colorado.edu>,
parr...@ferrari.Colorado.EDU (Rajan P. Parrikar) wrote:
>
> In article <6m678j$o...@lace.colorado.edu>
> parr...@ferrari.Colorado.EDU (Rajan P. Parrikar) writes:
>
> >If Sanjeev Ramabhadran is reading this, it would be interesting
> >to see what he thinks.
>
> Also, it would be nice if Vish Krishnan were persuaded to
> chip in with his substantial pocket change. He should be able
> to augment the list of filmi Basant Mukharis. Furthermore,
> since Sir Vish is known to be M-centric and he may be able to
> throw a new angle or two into the discussion (M-centrics are
> those select few who are wired such that they almost always
> perceive the Sa at the location where the rest of the universe
> knows the madhyam is).
Dr. Parrikar,
I am counting all the change. Ain't much here. A couple of
points, just in passing:
1. Establishing the "sa": Admittedly a subjective matter
in the absence of definitive ambient clues provided by
e.g. the tablaa or the taanpura. So we are talking only
about that rather large set of "in-doubt" compositions,
mostly to be found in movie songs, or in Western Classical
movements.
My determination of the "sa" is tied to the middle C, i.e.
to my inaccurate guess as to where the (concert) C should be.
Invariably, I find myself mapping the "sa" to any cadence
in the song nearest to such an inaccurately established C.
It is thus less a matter of being F-centric (or M-centric
as you put it), and more a pathological obsession with
finding a reasonably confident resting place around the C.
In "o basanti" for instance, the words "paagal" and the
second occurrence of "naa ja" provide the dominant cadences.
The latter is close enough to the C. Thus, the "paagal&q>
WARVIJ
>(b) There is another Bhairav-prakAr that
>JaipurwAllAhs are fond of
>which goes by the name Virat (virAT) Bhairav.
Rajan -- while you're on the subject, perhaps
you could expatiate a bit on the theme of Virat?
I have no material in this raag, but find it fascinating.
Warren
Prince Kohli
Posting this for Vish Krishnan; the whole is certainly greater than
the sum of its (previously posted) parts.
-Prince
In article <6m678j$o...@lace.colorado.edu>
parr...@ferrari.Colorado.EDU (Rajan P. Parrikar) writes:
>>If Sanjeev Ramabhadran is reading this, it would be interesting
>>to see what he thinks.
>
>Also, it would be nice if Vish Krishnan were persuaded to
>chip in with his substantial pocket change. He should be able
>to augment the list of filmi Basant Mukharis. Furthermore,
>since Sir Vish is known to be M-centric he may be able to
>throw a new angle or two into the discussion (M-centrics are
>those select few who are wired such that they almost always
>perceive the Sa at the location where the rest of the universe
>knows the madhyam is).
>
>Warm regards,
>
>
>
>r
Dr. Parrikar,
I am counting the change. Ain't much here. A couple of
points, just in passing:
1. Establishing the "sa": Admittedly a subjective matter
in the absence of definitive ambient clues provided by
e.g. the tablaa or the taanpura. So we are talking only
about that rather large set of "in-doubt" compositions,
mostly to be found in movie songs, or in Western Classical
movements.
My determination of the "sa" is tied to the middle C, i.e.
to my inaccurate guess as to where the C should be.
Invariably, I find myself mapping the "sa" to any cadence
in the song nearest to such an inaccurately established C.
It is thus less a matter of being F-centric (or M-centric
as you put it), and more a pathological obsession with
finding a reasonably confident resting place around the C.
In "o basanti" for instance, the words "paagal" and the
second occurrence of "naa ja" provide the dominant cadences.
The latter is close enough to the C. Thus, the "paagal"
falls on the "pa" (that the word starts with the "pa"
sound is a mere coincidence!) leaving me in absolutely no
doubt as to its basant mukhaari leanings.
The same holds true for 'vikal moraa manwaa". The "moraa"
stop is around the C, as the "manwaa" is near the F. Those
are the crutches.
A near-C cadence helps a lot, otherwise, my brain
electronics will forever be looking for a note to latch on
to. But I would still assert that in this mindless game of
snapping the "sa", the convenience of a cadence is merely
a confidence booster, not an absolute necessity.
I may be completely wrong in my quest for the right "sa",
but it remains my algorithm for C-fishing. The method
clearly brings up several other questions, notably -
what if there is no such convenient cadence, or, equally
troublesome, what if there is more than one such stop?
All that for another discussion perhaps.
2. Other basant mukhaari songs from (Hindi) movies: It would
seem to be a raaga for the easy picking, and yet, there
are several near misses. One possible reason may be that
basant mukhaari tempts the drifter. Its one-note distance
from a host other raagas attractive to movie composers
(e.g. bhairav, bhairavi, aheer bhairav, chaarukeshi) makes
it relatively easy to take a quick digression into one
of those neighbours and then return to the original phrase
hopefully without compromising the F-centric message in
the main body.
The movie songs that come to mind are characterized by
such infidelity almost without exception, some more than
others.
Foremost, there is "jaago mohan pyaare", oft held up
as a bhairav icon for movies. Is it? The B-flat is just
too strong. The few occurrences (I can think of only 1)
of the shuddh nishaad can both be overlooked as aberrations
well within the 1-sigma deviation allowed for movie
compositions. I would think Salil Chowdhury had basant
mukhaari in mind. The resting place for "pyaare" just
before the interlude is a good wholesome madhyam. We
want that.
It is also tempting to suggest another Salil Chowdhury-
Lata gem ("man re, hari ke gun gaa.." from MUSAAFIR).
That however may be taking the notion too far. The song
has a weighty poorvaang, doesn't necessarily stress the
madhyam, and most importantly, takes a substantial stop
at the lower shuddh nishaad. The bhairav intent is clear.
No matter, a good example of drifting between bhairav,
basant mukhaari and, yes, bhairavi too. Such meandering
makes for an endearing movie melody.
In that regard, Hemanta Mukherjee surprises us with the
tandem song from DURGESH NANDINI ("kahaa.n le chaley ho
bataa do musaafir") by showing his resistance to temptation.
This may well be among the truer implementations of the
raaga for filmi purposes.
The point here is that a few wannabee bhairav songs may
have ended up somewhat as basant mukhaari in implementation
because of an infrequent shuddh nishaad. One ends up
thus looking for intent in addition to the delivery.
The raaga loses ground on another front as well, that of
a domineering komal gandhaar.
There is Madan Mohan's 'wo dekho jalaa ghar kisi kaa"
from ANPADH. The initial promise of an honest b.m. fades
away as the komal gandhaar claims key territory.
Ravi did an above average Asha solo from DOOR KI AWAAZ (??).
I have fond memories of "TooT gayee mere man ki muraliyaa".
It digresses through the occasional use of the komal ga,
and still manages to retain the b.m. effect for the most part.
The ascent of the main body is almost jogiyaa (or guNkali)
in nature, but a strong komal nishaad defines the intent.
I suspect Roshan's music will have something to offer. It
usually does. He of all composers would have the creativity
to exploit the raaga's one-note juxtaposition with a few
others. I am frustrated in not being able to recall even
one such example, and yet, I believe there are some.
cheers
vish
Surajit A. Bose
Vish,
> My determination of the "sa" is tied to the middle C, i.e.
> to my inaccurate guess as to where the C should be.
> Invariably, I find myself mapping the "sa" to any cadence
> in the song nearest to such an inaccurately established C.
> It is thus less a matter of being F-centric (or M-centric
> as you put it), and more a pathological obsession with
> finding a reasonably confident resting place around the C.
This is very interesting, but may I submit that it doesn't strike me as
being a particularly efficient way to identify the Sa in a film song? For
one thing, given that the scale in Indian music identifies intervals from
an arbitrarily established tonic, and (unlike in Western music) not
absolute frequencies, identifying the C does not necessarily establish the
Sa.
Admittedly C is used as the tonic fairly frequently in film songs. But C#
is used just as frequently; in fact, I'd say it's more common to hear film
songs take C# as the tonic rather than C.
On the other hand,
> In "o basanti" for instance, the words "paagal" and the
> second occurrence of "naa ja" provide the dominant cadences.
> The latter is close enough to the C. Thus, the "paagal"
> falls on the "pa" (that the word starts with the "pa"
> sound is a mere coincidence!) leaving me in absolutely no
> doubt as to its basant mukhaari leanings.
I'd agree with you here about where the Sa falls; the "paagal" is on the
"pa." And yup, it does sound like Basant Mukhari.
Your discussion of "jaago mohan pyaare" is fascinating.
> Foremost, there is "jaago mohan pyaare", oft held up
> as a bhairav icon for movies. Is it? The B-flat is just
> too strong. The few occurrences (I can think of only 1)
> of the shuddh nishaad can both be overlooked as aberrations
> well within the 1-sigma deviation allowed for movie
> compositions. I would think Salil Chowdhury had basant
> mukhaari in mind. The resting place for "pyaare" just
> before the interlude is a good wholesome madhyam. We
> want that.
To make explicit what you've said, the prelude has a very prominent shudh
nishaad:
Sa' re' Sa' re' Ni Sa' dha Ni .. ..
ja ga u ji yaa raa chhaa ye ~~ ~~
repeated over the next couple of lines.
Also, consider "jyot kaa pyaasaa pyaas bujhaae":
Pa dha Pa dha re' re' Sa' re' Sa' Ni Sa' Sa'
jyo .. t ka pyaa saa pyaa .. sa bu jhaa e
But the komal nishad [B-flat? I hear it as a C natural, but I don't have
perfect pitch] is prominent too. In the prelude:
Pa dha ni .. .. ma Pa dha .. .. Ga ma Pa 'ni Sa re
jaa go he ~~ ~~ me re man ~~ ~~ mo ~~ han pyaa ~~ re
However, the resting place for the "pyaare" just before the interlude (on
the sam) is not a madhyam; it is a pancham:
Ga ma (ni)dha .. .. Pa dha mama Pa .. Pa ..
jaa ~~ go ~~ ~~ mo ~~ hana pyaa ~~ re ~~
I don't hear the prominent madhyam of Basant Mukhari here. Strictly
speaking, since there is a shudh nishad, this can't be Basant Mukhari;
since there is a distinct komal nishad as opposed to a mere grace-note
presence around an oscillating komal dhaivat, it can't be Bhairav either.
So let's allot Salil the 1-sigma deviation and try to choose between the
two.
Circumstantial evidence? I hear this strongly as Bhairav simply because
the song rips off a traditional Bhairav chhoTaa khayaal:
jaago, mohana pyaare tuma
saa.Nvarii suurat torii more mana bhaaye
su.ndar shyaam hamaare
praat samaya uThi bhaanudaya bhayo
gvaal-baal saba bhuupatii Thaa.De
tumharii daras ke bhuuke pyaase
uThii uThii na.ndakishore, jaago mohana pyaare tuma
The opening line of the chhoTaa khayaal goes thus:
| Ga ma dha .. | .. Pa dha mama | Pa .. .. .. | maPa dhaPa ma Ga |
| jaa ~~ go ~~ | ~~ mo ~~ hana | pyaa ~~ ~~ ~~ | re~~ ~~ ~~ tu ma |
| 0 | 3 | x | 2 |
practically identical to the Salil melody. The rest isn't as close.
Nonetheless, you speculate that Salil had Basant Mukhari in mind. I rather
doubt it. Given that a komal nishad can hang around the dhaivat in Bhairav
(admittedly not prominently), while a shudh nishad is entirely absent in
Basant Mukhari, and given that there's a traditional bandish in Bhairav
that parallels the Salil song too closely for coincidence, I'd be willing
to bet that Salil had Bhairav rather than Basant Mukhari in mind.
A propos "jaago mohan pyaare," the song exists in different versions on
different recordings; I've heard various bits and pieces of alaap,
saahitya, and orchestration mysteriously appear and disappear. I have, for
instance, a JAAGTE RAHO cassette that has a very full prelude, interludes,
and coda: fuller by several rhythm cycles than those on other recordings
I've heard. Yet this cassette has only two stanzas. The stanza "bhiigii
bhiigii a.Nkhiyo.n se musakaaye" disappears. The quest is on for a truly
complete recording.
ChristianAMR
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PEeD7AmyVI
-----
Copying from another thread : ( Parrikar )
"This is a vakra raga and a shade of Raga Bhairav is introduced. The
following chalan captures the essence (M=shuddha madhyam):
S G M P M..., G M P d (Pnd)n d P M P M..., G M (G)r, S
uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
"uuu" denotes faster pace. "