Make friends with Ragas starting with Raga Yaman

The seventh instalment about Baiju Bawra

The fifth installment of Baiju Bawra

The fourth installment about Baiju Bawra

The is the third installment about Baiju Bawra

The second installment about Baiju Bawra

The first installment about Baiju Bawra

People often ask, how do you identify the raga a song or a piece of music is based on? Here is a little Music Theory.

This is a brief history of the use of Indian Classical Music in Hindi Films (Part 2)

Let us start with a bit of history of Hindi film music and its relationship with classical music. First a small caveat: This is intended to

The sixth installment about Baiju Bawra

When a male and female singer sing a duet together they have to sing in the same scale, and if they sing in the male scale (say C#3) the female has to sing either in C#3, which is too low, or C#4 which is too high for the female singer as her naormal scale is around G#3 or A#3. If they sing in the female scale (say A#) the male has to sing in A#3, which is too high, or A#2 which is too low as the normal scale of the male siger is C#3 or D#3. Hence they sing in a scale which i

Raag Darbari "इश्क मुझ को नहीं वहशत ही सही मेरी वहशत तेरी शोहरत ही सही हम भी दुश्मन तो नहीं हैं अपने गैर को तुझ से मोहब्बत ही सही" (Ishq mujhko nahi vahashat hi sahi Meri vahashat teri shoharat hi sahi Hum bhi dushman to nahi hai apne Gair ko tujh se mhabbat hi sahi) These lines from a famous ghazal by Mirza Ghalib – in a sense, they display the uneasiness in a forlorn lover’s mind, but could equally be a stand-in for Raag Darbari, a raag that can display the interplay of myr

The next song that we will see is of a different mould. For one thing, one literally has to seek out Raag Darbari in it; Secondly, the image of the raag as a stately, sedate one would need a major overhaul in this song! (This of course happens with many raag.) The song is from the (older) movie ‘Azad’. Listen carefully to the song ‘Kitana haseen hai ye mausam, kitana haseen safar hai’ and locate the fleeting glimpses of Raag Darbari: If a composer were to first think of a raa