Relative Familiarity of Melakarthas

Ideas and innovations in Indian classical music
Post Reply
vasanthakokilam
Posts: 10956
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01

Relative Familiarity of Melakarthas

Post by vasanthakokilam »

For some reason, I was thinking about which of the Non-Vivadhi melakarthas that I am familiar with. I relate to melakarthas in a few different ways: Can I identify them as a raga readily, what swaras they take, what is their melakartha number, what is the M2 equivalent of M1 melakartha etc.. It then occurred to me that there are quite a few that are in my total blind spots. So I listed them in the relative order of familiarity to me . It clustered around three major groups. Comfortable familiarity, Total Unfamiliarity and In Between. The relative order within each group is debatable.

I am only including the 32 Non Vivadi melakarthas.

So this is my list. What is yours?
---
Comfortable familiarity - In no particular order
---
Thodi
Shankarabharanam
Kalyani
Karaharapriya
Pantuvarali
Gamanashramam (purvikalyani)
Mayamalavagowla
Shanmukapriya
Simendramadyamam
Keeravani
Subapantuvarali
Harikambhoji

--
In between, somewhat familiar.. May struggle a bit to identify them, may draw a blank if asked what Swaras they take ( e.g which Dha does Sarasangi use? )

--
Charavakam
Charukesi,
Vachaspathi
dhenuka,
Vakulabharanam

Lathangi
Hemavathi
Dharmavathi
gowrimanohari
Natabhairavi

Suryakantam
Sarasangi

In this list, there is definitely differences in familiarity among the ragas. I struggled to establish the decreasing order of familairty. This is what I currently settled on but I can see shuffling it a bit. But definitely, Sarasangi is less familiar to me than Chakravakam. For some reason, I have a few blind spots among ragas in vogue like GowriManohari, Lathangi, Hemavathi, Dharmavathi etc. I think there are three sub groups as I have indicated above. Melakarthas in each sub group is closer in familiarity to me than ragas in the other group.
--
Total Unfamiliarity. No particular order.
--
Rishabapriya
Ramapriya
Namanarayani
Bhavapriya
Natakapriya
Kokilapriya
Shadvidhamargini
Suvaraangi

Recently I acquired some knowledge of Natakapriya while attending some concerts with fellow forumites but it is still too much at a distance to promote it to the second group
--

shankarank
Posts: 4043
Joined: 15 Jun 2009, 07:16

Re: Relative Familiarity of Melakarthas

Post by shankarank »

Bhavapriya cannot be unfamiliar, if you had listened to SSI - he sings SrI kAnta nIyeDa is at least a few recordings. of course in the most freely available tyAgaraja ramayaNam cassette of sIta kalayANam, Sri Balakrishna SAstrigal has sung it - so at least one might hear the rAgA if not know it by it's name.

nATakapriya was familiarized by TVS singing gIta vAdya naTana nATakapriyE of Thanajavur Sankara Iyer in cassette releases early 90s!

Ramapriya - that at least ramamanohari etc. , you will have to have travelled to U.S to know a musician called S Kalyanaraman exists and he has sung in this world! Or some dIkshitar buff singing smarAmyaham sada rAhum somewhere - DKJ was only familiar a bit through Radio relays of isai vizha somewhat - he may not sing that item in concerts!


Rest I totally agree :)

Post Reply