Melakarta Melodies- A Journey through the 72 Melakarta Ragas

The previous blog entry mentions about the saptha swaras, or seven notes, and how there are variations for five of the notes, viz R,G,M,D,N. The notes which are constant ie, S and P are known as Prakruti swaras, and the variating notes are called as Vikruti Swaras The 16 notes occupy a single octave, from base S to top S (Madhya sthayi to Tara sthayi S) where base S is the madhya sthayi and the top S is the tara sthayi S. Some notes overlap each other, based on their positions. These 16 swaras are called as Shodasa swarasthanas in Sanskrit. These full name of the notes are given along with the carnatic shorthand, and the western equivalent notation in brackets 1) Shadjamam- S (C) 2) Suddha Rishabam- R1 (C#) 3) Chatushruti Rishabam- R2 (D) 4) Shatshruti Rishabam- R3 (D#) 5) Suddha Gandharam- G1 (D) 6) Sadharana Gandharam- G2 (D#)  7) Antara Gandharam - G3 (E) 8) Suddha Madhyamam- M1 (F) 9) Prati Madhyamam-  M2 (F#) 10) Panchamam- P (G) 11) Suddha Dhaivatam- D1 (G#) 12) Chatushr

This blog is my loving effort to honour melakartha ragas in Carnatic music, not just the ones that are familiar or known like Thodi, Shankarabharanam, Kalyani et al, but also the rare and the unknown like Gayakapriya, Gavambodhi and Yagapriya. This blog is primarily for the average Carnatic music rasika, and this is a purely free effort of mine, and thus will not spend much on it to popularize. But it is my fervent hope and desire that whenever a rasika types in a rare carnatic raga, my blog should plop up and give them much needed information Things to know before reading the blog, for a layman who is wondering what the hell must be a melakartha raga A raga is a combination of swaras (swaras mean the basic note, noob :). A melakartha raga is a raga which has all the seven swaras in both its ascending order (arohanam) and descending order (avarohanam) in a proper order of Sa Ri Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni, and the reverse of Sa Ni Dha Pa Ma Ga Ri.  Anything less than this, say a raga does not have