Question regarding Mohana ragam
Kamala Anupindi
answer to this question to date.
why is mohanam a janya of harikambhoji and not of dheerasankarabharanam?
or take it one step further (as a friend of mine pointed out), why
not a janya of mechakalyani ?
the S R2 G3 P D2 S pattern fits perfectly in all three melakartas
(28, 29 and 63).
how does one decide which melakarta a ragam belongs to if the
swaras fit more than one melakarta? do we just take the easy was
out and say it belongs to the very first melakarta it fits into?
any info is appreciated !
kamala
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NPAC, 111 College Place, Syracuse, NY 13244
URL: http://www.npac.syr.edu/users/kamala/homepage/
V. Chandramouli
--------------------
First, I am increasingly getting convinced that each raga has an individuality
and should be treated as an entity in itself rather than trying to establish
its parentage. Ragas like Mohanam are so natural to arise
in a melodic setting that they probably existed before the mela system came about.
But for classification purposes one theory has it that substitute the lowest pitch variety of the missing note to get the parent mela. Using this rule we get
Harikambhoji as the parent. To me if that is so, then Mohanam must have at
least some things in common with its parent. Is that so ? I believe not.
Can more knowledgeable/experienced people comment ?
--Chandramouli
Todd Michel McComb
Todd Michel McComb <mcc...@shellx.best.com> wrote:
>It was decided some time back that any raga which can belong to more
>than one melakarta (based on adding notes; not bhashanga ragas) is
>assigned to the first such melakarta possible.
BTW, it was not always this way. Mohanam is a janya of Shantakalyani
#65 in the melakarta scheme used by Dikshitar.
Todd Michel McComb
mcc...@best.com http://www.best.com/~mccomb
Todd Michel McComb
C S Ramarao <cram...@neuron.uchc.edu.> wrote:
>In article <4e0mfs$d...@newstand.syr.edu>
>While mOhanam is a good example to discuss this issue, there are a
>number of rAgAs that can belong to more than one janaka rAga. All
>auDava rAgAs and all SADava rAgAs and the combinations there in
>(meaning five and note rAgAs). It is a question that I also wanted an
>answer of for a long time. I would like to know the answer to this
>question too.
It was decided some time back that any raga which can belong to more
than one melakarta (based on adding notes; not bhashanga ragas) is
assigned to the first such melakarta possible.
I don't see any reason to make more of the melakarta system than what
is there. That is the rule; that is all.
Sanjeev Ramabhadran
>
>why is mohanam a janya of harikambhoji and not of dheerasankarabharanam?
>or take it one step further (as a friend of mine pointed out), why
>not a janya of mechakalyani ?
>
>the S R2 G3 P D2 S pattern fits perfectly in all three melakartas
>(28, 29 and 63).
>
Yeah! I actually also was wondering this same thing. For example, in the
north, Bhupali is said to be from Kalyan thaat (analogous to
MechaKalyani) and Deshkar from Bilaval thaat (analogous to
DhiraShankarabharanam)...neither is from Khamaj thaat...
How do we get Mohanam from Harikambhoji, and how do we decide for cases
like this? For that matter, couldn't it be derived from Vachaspati too?
Sanjeev Ramabhadran
C S Ramarao
> why is mohanam a janya of harikambhoji and not of dheerasankarabharanam? or why not a janya of mechakalyani ?
While mOhanam is a good example to discuss this issue, there are a
number of rAgAs that can belong to more than one janaka rAga. All
auDava rAgAs and all SADava rAgAs and the combinations there in
(meaning five and note rAgAs). It is a question that I also wanted an
answer of for a long time. I would like to know the answer to this
question too.
rAmArAo
Ranganathan Srikanth
Mohanam might be pentatonic. But it has a rupam that
varies from one performer to the other.
MLV's mohanam is of a certian type while
DKP's is of another. Though both singers are
very clear about the pure notes, the chaya
they impart is different.
I guess the hindustani singers clarify
this difference on a larger scale by calling
"X" ang ki "Y" rag. While the raga sung is "Y"
one can impart different chayas. This difference
could be acheived by very minute hints or by sometimes
explicit inclusion of a bhashanga (foreign) note.
Maharajapuram visvanatha iyer used to, more than implicitly, include
the kalyani nishada in prayogas that it gave a mohana kalyani
chaya. One may classify his mohanam under mechakalyani.
DKP's mohanam has a very strong harikamboji chaya to my ears.
This has got essentially to do with which notes are being
hinted at. Certian notes are jiva swaras of an unique mela. If those
notes are strongly hinted at without actually using them then
one get a feeling of that anga. By "hinting at a note" I mean a very quick
passage through that note or mirror through as an anuswara. Sometime
by not hinting at a note one can rule out influences completely of that mela.
Sama is a janya of harikamboji while it could fit into
dhira shankarabharanam too. One may use the above arguments
or its likes to explain this too.
srikanth
Amitava Sarkar
>From: mcc...@shellx.best.com (Todd Michel McComb)
>Subject: Re: Question regarding Mohana ragam
>Date: 24 Jan 1996 13:38:34 -0800
>In article <4e5rkt$1...@threed.uchc.edu>,
>C S Ramarao <cram...@neuron.uchc.edu.> wrote:
>>In article <4e0mfs$d...@newstand.syr.edu>
>>While mOhanam is a good example to discuss this issue, there are a
>>number of rAgAs that can belong to more than one janaka rAga. All
>>auDava rAgAs and all SADava rAgAs and the combinations there in
>>(meaning five and note rAgAs). It is a question that I also wanted an
>>answer of for a long time. I would like to know the answer to this
>>question too.
>It was decided some time back that any raga which can belong to more
>than one melakarta (based on adding notes; not bhashanga ragas) is
>assigned to the first such melakarta possible.
>I don't see any reason to make more of the melakarta system than what
>is there. That is the rule; that is all.
>Todd Michel McComb
>mcc...@best.com http://www.best.com/~mccomb
What exactly is the benefit of knowing the melakarta i.e. why is a melakarta
important if one knows the notes used in the raag? Do all the raags in a
melakarta share anything else in common?
Amitava
Krishna Kunchithapadam
Looks like time for a Usenet rerun (note the date on the
following URL). For a discussion on janaka-janya relationships,
look at:
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~krisna/rmic/rmic.1992.07.25.html
mohanam can be classified as the janya of 4 different mela ragas.
The list of possible janaka melas and the justification for the
classification are given below:
---------------------------------------------------
mela Justification
---------------------------------------------------
harikamboji smallest katapayadi number
shankarabharanam similarity
vachaspati why not
kalyani similarity, graha-beda arguments
---------------------------------------------------
I am not sufficiently motivated to repost the graha-beda
arguments. For those who are interested in trying it out for
themselves, start from the kalyani derivatives, eliminate two
notes from each and try to derive the mohanam derivates. Of the
valid solutions, one has mohanam being derived from kalyani.
--Krishna
Todd Michel McComb
My opinion follows....
In article <asarkar.25...@mcimail.com>,
Amitava Sarkar <asa...@mcimail.com> wrote:
>What exactly is the benefit of knowing the melakarta i.e. why is a melakarta
>important if one knows the notes used in the raag?
This question is a lot like asking "what is the benefit of knowing the
genus of an animal species?" The answer is that the classification is
basically a theoretical convenience, but it could still conceivably make
explicit common traits which might have gone unnoticed. If one knows
a raga (or an animal) sufficiently well, the melakarta assignment is
simply bookkeeping. But then both of these things help one to learn,
presumably; as well as to "discover" new items within the scheme. In
terms of what the melakarta system has actually accomplished, I think
it is mostly the latter.
>Do all the raags in a melakarta share anything else in common?
The only case where this is an interesting question is with bhashanga
ragas. Aside from that, it is only the notes. Sometimes the notes
themselves might dictate phrasing possibilities, more often not.
Krishna Kunchithapadam
rama...@ecn.purdue.edu (Ramasubramanian Ramakrishnan) writes:
:
: I think there are several hundred people who asked this question and never
: found a satisfactory answer. That probably says something: Finding an
: answer to that question is probably not important.
:
No. To me this confusion about janaka-janya relationships is
indicative of the fact most people who take part in such
discussions do not know even the rudiments of what they are
talking about.
It is easy to explain away ignorance with a plea to irrelevance.
Such an approach is never productive.
:
: My opinions:
:
: * Why find a melakartha for every raga, when most of the popular janya
: ragas were older than their 'parent' melakatha?
:
The reason is one of taxonomy. No one in their right minds would
claim that a hierarchical classification is the be-all and end-
all in the taxonomy of ragas.
However, any attempt at such a classification has many
properties.
* The classification needs to be justified. This means that the
taxonomist should undertake a non-trivial analysis of the
characteristics of the putative janaka and janya ragas. This
analysis is a "good thing".
* The classification can be critiqued. The criticism must be
based on objective data about the entities in question. This
objectivity is also a "good thing".
* The classification (and its successive refinements) will
increase the amount of knowledge about musical facts and
musical relationships (just as taxonomy in the living world
helps categorize, analyze and learn more about living
organisms).
* Even the breakdown of a classification scheme can teach us.
Knowing where and why a taxonomy breaks down is useful, if only
for building a better taxonomy.
Simply not attempting to tackle a problem because of some fuzzy
misconceptions is appropriate only for ignoramuses.
--Krishna
Ramasubramanian Ramakrishnan
|> In article <4e0vp2$n...@mozo.cc.purdue.edu>
|> rama...@ecn.purdue.edu (Ramasubramanian Ramakrishnan) writes:
|> :
|> : I think there are several hundred people who asked this question and never
|> : found a satisfactory answer. That probably says something: Finding an
|> : answer to that question is probably not important.
|> :
|>
|> No. To me this confusion about janaka-janya relationships is
|> indicative of the fact most people who take part in such
|> discussions do not know even the rudiments of what they are
|> talking about.
|>
|>
I am glad you realized that..
Subu
Suresh Kolichala
> not a janya of mechakalyani ?
>
> (28, 29 and 63).
Just for picking nits, doesn't the symmetry of melakarta scheme would
mean an even number of melakartaas fitting the pattern of mohanam? Since
the missing M could be M1 or M2 and missing N could be N2 or N3 (because
of D2, N1 can't be used, right?) there must be four (2c1 x 2c1) melakartas
that can be argued to be janaka raagaas for mOhanam. By the way, the numbers
are 28, 29, 64 and 65.
Regards,
Suresh.
Suresh Kolichala
> or take it one step further (as a friend of mine pointed out), why
> not a janya of mechakalyani ?
>
> the S R2 G3 P D2 S pattern fits perfectly in all three melakartas
> (28, 29 and 63).
Just for picking nits, doesn't the symmetry of melakarta scheme
mean an even number of melakartaas fitting the pattern of mohanam? Since
the missing M could be M1 or M2 and missing N could be N2 or N3 (because
of D2, N1 can't be used, right?) there must be four (2c1 x 2c1) melakartas
that can be argued to be janaka raagaas of mOhanam. By the way, the numbers
are 28, 29, 64 and 65.
Let me see, attending the Cleveland festival this year may help me develop
a musical appreciation that go beyond this simple mathematics. :)
Regards,
Suresh.
C S Ramarao
should fall under more than one mELakarta.
ramarao