Raagam
Now let us look at what is Raagam.
Each swaram is just one single musical note. When we sing a set of swarams together, it forms a raagam. However, not any combination swaram is a raagam. Certain swarams will not sound fine if they are sung one after the other. Only some combinations of the swarams or sounds will actually be pleasing to the ear.The order of swaram is very important. There are many different raagams. Each raagam has a unique combination of the swarams.
There are 2 types of raagams. One is the Melakartha raagam. And the second is the janya raagam.
The melakartha raagam is one which has all the swarms, i.e from to shadjam to nishadham, all the notes are present. A janya raagam is a derivative of one of the melakartha raagams. It will not have all the swarams.
Eg: Mayamalavagowlam is a melakartha raagam. It will have sa, re, ga, ma, pa, dha, ni.
Malahari is a janya raagam. It is derived from mayamalavagowlam. It has only sa, ri, ma, pa, dha, sa.
The important thing to note is that, mayamalavagowlam has a set of 7 swarams. But as we already discussed, many of the notes have a variant. So the janya raagam will exactly have the same variant as in the parent (melakartha raagam).
For instance, let us take ma. In mayamalavagowlam, the ma is shudha madhayamam. Hence malahari will also have only shudha madhyamam.
Each raagam has got significance and also is said to be sung in certain moods. But that topic is a little advance in my opinion and hence we will come to it a little later.
The swarams present in a raagam are depicted in short in the aarohanam and avarohanam of the raagam. Now what is that?…you have to wait for the next blog.
