Two Ragas may look very similar in terms of their aarohana and avarohana, but sound totally different.
Take for example the aarohana and avarohana of the Ragam Mohanam:
S R G P D S
S D P G R S
Mohanam has five notes, i.e. is an audav-jati ragam and takes the higher varieties of R, G and D
The notes in the Ragam Shivaranjani are the same as Mohanam. The only difference is that Shivaranjani uses sadharana gandharam instead of antara gandharam, i.e. a lower flatter variety of G than Mohanam.
The Aarohana and Avarohana of Shivaranjani is as follows (I have used Hindustani notation to keep things simple at this stage as Carnatic notation can get confusing):
S R g P D S
S D P g R S
The clips above are from ragasurabhi. When you listen to them, pay particular attention to the way the note G, i.e. the Gandharam is intoned. It’s the same note, but is treated differently in each example.
The two Ragams “feel” and sound quite different. Shivaranjani has an altogether more sombre feel than Mohanam.
You must be logged in to post a comment.