Taala, Jaathi, Nadai

Last night I was trying to make Raaga understand the relationship among Taala, Jaathi and Nadai. I found that the following analogy helped her a bit – Taala is like a ruler (scale), it is a general term that defines rhythm, speed and time cycle. Jaathi is like the centimeter lines on the ruler, they […]

raagabox 2010 Reloaded

Since my fireside chat with Prince Rama Varma during the summer of 2010, I have listened to more Behag than ever before. His love for Behag definitely\ inspired me and I am certain that the simple and melodious compositions in this raaga will make you fall in love as well. Enjoy a few new uploads […]

Visual Guide To Raagas

Recently we added a few visuals of raaga scales on the keyboard for anyone interested in playing the harmonium or keyboard. Please take a look. Thanks to Subbu for gathering this information and putting it all together. A few songs are mislabeled and will be fixed shortly.

Music Pressure Cooked

[source: http://www.thehindu.com/arts/article952354.ece] As a young girl, every single music class with my father and guru Lalgudi Jayaraman was an experience to be remembered and cherished. Like his other students, I was also fed the staple diet of technical aspects in music such as korvais, poruttams, tricky eduppus and challenging pallavis. But there was much more […]

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things

A few of my favorite bhajans. Please share your favorites DISCLAIMER: raaga association is my understanding and may be totally off, don’t blame me if you are not awarded “Sangeetha Kalanidhi” because you trusted my opinion! Now, leave the awards and titles, who cares, just enjoy the bhajans by clicking on the links. 1. Jaya […]

Akhanda Bhajan, A World Bhajan Idol Showdown?

This weekend devotees from the Sri Sathya Sai Baba centers all over the world will undertake an enormous endeavor as in every year for the past 30+ years, to sing bhajans as a group for 24 full hours non-stop (Akhanda Bhajan). What’s the “Why” of Akhanda Bhajan – Is it an opportunity to show off […]

What Is Your Pitch (Sruti)?

What does it mean when we say someone’s singing is “besur?” It means that they are not singing in pitch. This pitch is called sruti in the south (the word sruti is translated in different ways, this is one of them) or sur/ swar in the North. Finding and maintaining one’s pitch is of fundamental […]

Raga and Emotions

Each raga evokes different emotions when it’s played/heard. Here is a small list of ragas associated with appropriate emotions. This is quite interesting to me because each raga although has its own emotion tied to it in a generic sense, to a large degree, I think it also depends on the listener’s mental state. For […]

A Song And A Raaga

When you think of a raaga do you right away think of a song or bhajan? It happens to me all the time, I think of Hamsadhwani and even before I complete the thought the bhajan Maha Ganapathe Namosthuthe pops up in my mind. The moment Sindhubhairavi passes my mind, I think of Jaya Panduranga […]

The raagabox Story

A few people have asked me to share how raagabox started. It’s just a small short story, I write it here for anyone curious or looking for inspiration – One day an young man, Akash, sang a beautiful bhajan Hey Krishna at the Boston Sai Center that I attend frequently. Akash and I had known […]