Glossary
Achala swara
is the unmoving note. There are two such notes on the Indian scale. These are SHADJA, which is the tonic note, and its fifth, the PANCHAMA swara. They are the same as C and G of the Solfege. These notes have no sharps or flats to them.
Alap
is the opening out and spreading of the substance of a raga. It denotes the development of a raga through improvisation in such a way that the raga’s form and spirit are revealed, while observing all the laws that govern the raga
Andola (m)
is one of the ten gamakas mentioned in the Sangeeta Makaranda.
It is a grace and consist of a long amplitude vibrato that bends the note in relatively quick succession but not fast enough to make the sound feel like a vibrato.
It produces a kind of stress and emotional quality in the raga’s note.
Aroha
is a series of notes in the ascending order of pitch.
Arohanatwa is the ascending state of a raga in ALAP, where its scale is still to ascend and explore the upper reaches of the raga scale.
Avarohana
is the descending scale of notes of a raga.
Been
is a seven-stringed instrument with frets and two large resonators. The instrument is held obliquely, the left resonator resting on the shoulder of the player. The instrument has a solemn sepulchral tone, deep and mysterious.
Assad Ali Khan is a contemporary master of this instrument in Hindustani music.
Bol
literally means a phrase of music in words or mnemonics with the rythmic solfa syllables of tala like dha dhin dha.
Other bols are : dha dhi na dhi ti na (Dadra tala)
Or : dha dhin dhin dha dha tin tin, ta tin tin, dha dha dhin dhin.
(Deepchandi tala)
Rupak is tin tin na dhi na dhi na.
Keherwa is dha gi na tinaka dhi na.
Dhammar has fourteen matras and is played on a drum called pakhawaj. This tala accompanies dhrupad singing. Its bol is ke dhita dhita dha aa, ke tit tit ta
aa.
Etc.
Chikari
are two strings, one tuned to the middle octave shadja and the other to the upper octave shadja in sitars, surbahar and other string instruments.
They are found at the end of a set of strings on which tune is played. These are the strings that are played in the jhala sequence of performance.
Dhrupad
is a form of Hindustani classical music older than the khayal. It has a great dignity and grace of carriage and archtecture. It has four sections : it is begun at a slow pace but picks up pace and is later sung in multiples of its basic pace.
It is believed that Raja Mansingh of Gwalior (1486-1517) was the father of this type of performance.
Gamaka
is the generic nomenclature for all graces and ornaments.
It is ideal when the gamaka is unconsciously incorporated as an expression of feeling or meaning : In the Hindustani tradition there are several varieties of gamakas : meend, andolan, ghaseet, and muddit.
Gayaki
means a singing style. An imitation of a vocal style produced on an instrument is often called gayaki ang. The instrumental approach to music is transcended and the instrument is made to sing as though with a human voice.
Gharana
is a school or style of singing in Hindustani music. The ragas of Hindustani music have distinctive characteristics that change with gharana, and these may derive from the the place of origin of a style, distinctives voices, the style of singing and the approach to music.
These styles are known as gharanas. These have names from various towns and cities of India where the guru who first espoused the style lived. So you have names
like Agra, Jaipur, Gwalior, Bhendi bazar, Rampur, Kirana, Indore, Sham Chaurasi, Vishnupur and so on.
Guru
this word means preceptor, who takes the student from darkness to light :« Gu » means darkness and « ru » means to shine forth.
Jhala
is the fast paced of an instrumental composition played on a sitar or sarod or any of the usual stringed instruments.
It is a rhythmic use of the CHIKARI strings of the instruments that produces the sound of ankle bells, adding to the resonance of the main melody. Several laya patterns are played on this.
Jod
is that stage of an alap when the laya is brought into the alap in a manner which gives the alap a special lift and a language.
When from the vilambit tempo an instrumentalist moves his alap to the madhyalaya or medium tempo, this transitioin is called jod.
Kala
means art. It can also mean the basic unit of time.
Kayal
is a word of Persian origin meaning « imagination ». It is believed to have developped out the qawwal style of singing and through the period of Amir Khusro became an important part of the Hindustani music tradition.
The arrival of the khayal, which slowly displaced the old dhrupad style of singing, effected a revolutionary change in the Hindustani classical music tradition.
The khayal’s structure requires a high order of improvisational skill in the musician at several levels and layers of the raga. The range and scope of improvisation covers the whole range of human experience from the mystic to the frontiers of mathematical and intellectual exploration.
It is the most challenging musical forms in the raga inheritence of the subcontinent.
Kitt
is a mnemonic of the tabla played with both hands on the tabla.
Ki is played with the full palm flat on the left half of the tabla and the tt follows with three fingers of the right hand on the right half of the tabla.
Kriti
is one of the most highly evolved forms of musical composition in the Carnatic school : every composer in the carnatic school has attempted to compose kritis and contributed richly to this form of music. Literally, « kri » means fulfilment, meaning « him that does ».
Kritis form the bulk of musical compositions in Carnatic music today.
Unlike the KHAYAL in Hindustani music, the kriti is a fully composed piece of music,
complete in its architecture and motion.
Kriya
is a mode of counting time. There are several kinds of kriyas. The NISABDA kriya which is silent and the MARGA kriya and SASABDA kriya. These too have nissabda sections.
Nissabdha kriya is the act of reckoning rhytm without sound.
Kshana
is the smallest division of time that can be conceived in a kala or between two beats.
Laya
literraly means to merge. The term also refers to tempo and indicates the speed and gait of a piece of music in the form of a regularly repeated beat at a recognizable speed.
The vilambit laya is slow, the madhya laya is medium paced and the dhrut laya is fast. There is also a term maran laya which is so slow that is likened to death.
Matra
is a unit of time measure and is used at the basic unit of the 108 Talas of Indian music.
Meend
is a smooth uninterrupted glide from one note to the other. Its closest equivalent in Western music is the portamento of bowed instrument.
Mohara
is the concluding seal of a performance, sometimes done three time like a Hindustani TIHAYI. It is usually done in rythmic display. The finish then feels conclusive and final.
Mridangam
is the classical two-faced drum used as percussion in carnatic music, and played horizontally with the two hands by laying it on the lap.
Mridangam literally means « made of clay ». It is made out of a scooped out single block of wood, usually a neem tree or jack or coconut.
The two skin tympani on the two sides are dampened by a smooth paste of rice and water on the left side and a black dampener made of iron dust and rice on the right.
In the hands of a good player, the mridangam could sound like a human voice, rich and tempered, and has a calling intonation which in temple and kacheri, is very evocative.
Mukhyang
is the most important part /phrase of a raga that gives the raga its particular identity :
It is also called PAKAR, which means « to hold ». It is thus the phrase that helps provide a grip on the raga.
Navarasa
are the nine types of emotional colouring.
These include shringara which is love, hasya which is merriment or laughter, karuna which is compassion, raudra which is anger or ferocity, vira which means heroism, bhayankara which is terror, bibhasta which is disgust, adbhuta which is wonder and shanta which serenity or tranquillity.
There are also two other rasas which have been added on the list above in later years. There are bhakti, which is devotion and vatsalya, which is tenderness.
Pakhawaj
is a cylindrical two-faced drum which accompanies been and dhrupad performance.
Prahar
is approximately three hours of time. It relates to the time of ragas and the period of performance.
This division of the day is related to the concept of the inner rotation within the human body in step with the diurnal and nocturnal rotation of the earth.
Raga
constitues the basis of the music of indian music. A raga is neither a melody nor a mere scale, nor is it a mode. The principle on which a raga is built are as follow: a raga must have a minimum of five notes up and down the scale. it can have more notes - six or seven. The raga scale must have two pivotal points situated in each tetrachord. (set of four notes dividing the scale in two segments, the upper one and lower one). These notes are called VADI and SAMVADI. The raga motion is organised toward these notes. The raga also has a set of notes called PAKAD, which provide a grip on the raga. These are characteristic turns of phrase by wich the raga's principal charcteristic can be recognised.
Sanchara
literally means motion. In music it indicates a manner of exploration of the terrain of a raga with a particular gait, geometry, progression and rest.
Santoor
is a harp-like instrument played with both hands using sticks. It is believed to be a kashmiri instrument: its entrance into classical music is of recent origin. Its principal players are Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma and Om Prakash Chaurasia.
Sarangi
is a bowed instrument and is a basic accompanying instrument in Hindustani music. Today this instrument is also played solo. It has twenty-seven strings and is fretless. Its sound is a close approximation of a human voice of the soprano range.
Sarod
is one of the most popular concert instrument of today. The word has come from the Persian « sarood » meaning sweet.
It is a variant of the rabab and its present shape has a metal plate fitted across the instrument’s belly. The sarod has steel strings while the rabab, its ancestor, had gut strings : it is played with a plectrum.
Ustad Amjad Ali Khan is one of the most eminent sarod player of actual times.
Shadja
is the very first note of the Indian scale. This note therefore becomes the tonic note, an ACHALA SWARA. Its nature include all the various techniques of voice production using head and chest and dental, humming and sinus notes.
It is called shadja as it has all the suceeding six notes of the scale incipient within it and one of the techniques of swarasadhana is intended to make it possible for the practitioner to produce six distinct positions within that single note.
Shehnai
is a clarinet kind of wind instrument somewhat like the nagaswaram of the Carnatic system and is played in a celebratory vein.
Its sound is deemed to be auspicious. The father of the shenhai in recent times is Ustad Bismilla Khan.
Shruti
constitues the microtonal intervals between notes. The word shruti is made up of two parts : « shru » meaning to hear and « tina » which is to involve or use.
A sound that is audible is a shruti and the Indian musical scale has twenty-two shrutis.
The seven notes have innumerable shrutis, several of which are difficult to identifiy except in a emotional or in a psychological sense.
While mathematical positioning of these notes can be done, the linguistic basis of Indian music makes these microtonal intervals a part of the language and its utterance in speech.
The seven swaras (notes) are : Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni, Sa.
Sitar
is one of the most popular of Indian classical instruments. Its name has Persian roots in which « seh » meant three and « taar » meant strings.
The old « sethar » had three strings.
Surbahar
is a large sitar whose strings are thick and whose frets are heavy. Its tone is deep and its technique is identical to that used for sitar.
For alap, jod and jhala, this instrument has a special dignity of tone and texture that is curiously attractive.
Swara
is described as a note. In actual fact the swara is not a note. The note is an instrumental or mechanical sound. The swara, on the other hand, is always a human utterance. Instruments, when playing swaras, have to be specially trained to produce the imitation of a vocal sound. The word has its roots in Sanskrit in which « swa » stand for self and « ra » stand for shinning forth. Ragas are not made from notes but from swaras.
Taan
is the word that describes certain musical figures in wich the notes have designs and patterns that grow at various speeds.
Tabla
is the most popular percussion instrument of Hindustani music : it consists of a pair of drums, of which one is the treble (dayan) and the other the bass (bayan).
Together they produce a fine texture of sound :
The basic tonic note is tuned on the right drum and the left is tuned one octave below.
One the of the greatest tabla soloist of today is Ustad Zakir Hussain.
Tala
is often described as rythm in English. Tala is not a rythm ; it is part of language and the spoken cadence of poetry. It is defined in terms of matras in repating cycles of beats that expand to a stressed point called the sam down to a relase called khali.
Some well-known and commonly talas are as follows :
Adi tala is a cycle of eight matras. Its beats fall on the first, the fifth and the seventh matras.
Ektal has twelve beats and is played on the tabla.
Teen tala (teentaal) is the most popular in the Hindustani music and there are a large number of compositions in this tala.
It has sixteen matras with beats on the first, fifht and thirteenth matras : its khali (relase, for the rotation) is on the ninth matra.
Other cycles exist based on six matras, fourteen matras, ten matras, four matras, seven matras. Each of them have their own names.
Tanpura
is a drone instrument usually with four strings. Its two middle strings are tuned to the singing pitch of the performer or player. The two other strings are tuned one to the fifth or the fourth below the pitch and the fourth string is tuned to the tonic or the octave below.
Thaat
is the name given to the ragas which Pandit Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande selected out of the seventy melakartas of the Carnatic system to constitue the main ragas from which all others are derived.
There are ten thaats based on the Venkatmukhi approach and is now universally accepted in Hindustani classical music.
These thaats have the names of the ragas and these ten are :
Bilawal, Khamaj, Poorvi, Kafi, Bhairavi, Kalyan, Bhairav, Marwaa, Asavari, Todi.
Thumri
has a preemnient place among light classical music varieties. Among the styles of thumri singing, the Ounjabi and Lucknavi are the most predominant. The thumri is often in The Punjabi tala, a kind of teen tala. There are several ragas in which thumris are sung and its delcacy and appeal are obtained by a judicious mix of ragas.
Vadi
is a word that has its root in « vad » which means to speak. It is a note in the scale of a raga that is evocative and produces the feeling of the raga.
It is usually positioned in the lower part of the tetrachord and has its consonant note in the upper tetrachord called the samvadi.
Both together constitute points of tension and intensity of the raga scale and play a pivotal role in making raga come alive.
Vakra
really means twisted or non regular.
Its indicates a break of continuity or regularity in the accepted order of notes in the aroha-avarohana of the ragas.
Veena
is any stringed instrument, in the sense that it produces musically meaningful sound.
The number of veenas in music are many.
Even the human body is likened to a musical instrument when fully trained and is often reffered to as gatra veena.
is the unmoving note. There are two such notes on the Indian scale. These are SHADJA, which is the tonic note, and its fifth, the PANCHAMA swara. They are the same as C and G of the Solfege. These notes have no sharps or flats to them.
Alap
is the opening out and spreading of the substance of a raga. It denotes the development of a raga through improvisation in such a way that the raga’s form and spirit are revealed, while observing all the laws that govern the raga
Andola (m)
is one of the ten gamakas mentioned in the Sangeeta Makaranda.
It is a grace and consist of a long amplitude vibrato that bends the note in relatively quick succession but not fast enough to make the sound feel like a vibrato.
It produces a kind of stress and emotional quality in the raga’s note.
Aroha
is a series of notes in the ascending order of pitch.
Arohanatwa is the ascending state of a raga in ALAP, where its scale is still to ascend and explore the upper reaches of the raga scale.
Avarohana
is the descending scale of notes of a raga.
Been
is a seven-stringed instrument with frets and two large resonators. The instrument is held obliquely, the left resonator resting on the shoulder of the player. The instrument has a solemn sepulchral tone, deep and mysterious.
Assad Ali Khan is a contemporary master of this instrument in Hindustani music.
Bol
literally means a phrase of music in words or mnemonics with the rythmic solfa syllables of tala like dha dhin dha.
Other bols are : dha dhi na dhi ti na (Dadra tala)
Or : dha dhin dhin dha dha tin tin, ta tin tin, dha dha dhin dhin.
(Deepchandi tala)
Rupak is tin tin na dhi na dhi na.
Keherwa is dha gi na tinaka dhi na.
Dhammar has fourteen matras and is played on a drum called pakhawaj. This tala accompanies dhrupad singing. Its bol is ke dhita dhita dha aa, ke tit tit ta
aa.
Etc.
Chikari
are two strings, one tuned to the middle octave shadja and the other to the upper octave shadja in sitars, surbahar and other string instruments.
They are found at the end of a set of strings on which tune is played. These are the strings that are played in the jhala sequence of performance.
Dhrupad
is a form of Hindustani classical music older than the khayal. It has a great dignity and grace of carriage and archtecture. It has four sections : it is begun at a slow pace but picks up pace and is later sung in multiples of its basic pace.
It is believed that Raja Mansingh of Gwalior (1486-1517) was the father of this type of performance.
Gamaka
is the generic nomenclature for all graces and ornaments.
It is ideal when the gamaka is unconsciously incorporated as an expression of feeling or meaning : In the Hindustani tradition there are several varieties of gamakas : meend, andolan, ghaseet, and muddit.
Gayaki
means a singing style. An imitation of a vocal style produced on an instrument is often called gayaki ang. The instrumental approach to music is transcended and the instrument is made to sing as though with a human voice.
Gharana
is a school or style of singing in Hindustani music. The ragas of Hindustani music have distinctive characteristics that change with gharana, and these may derive from the the place of origin of a style, distinctives voices, the style of singing and the approach to music.
These styles are known as gharanas. These have names from various towns and cities of India where the guru who first espoused the style lived. So you have names
like Agra, Jaipur, Gwalior, Bhendi bazar, Rampur, Kirana, Indore, Sham Chaurasi, Vishnupur and so on.
Guru
this word means preceptor, who takes the student from darkness to light :« Gu » means darkness and « ru » means to shine forth.
Jhala
is the fast paced of an instrumental composition played on a sitar or sarod or any of the usual stringed instruments.
It is a rhythmic use of the CHIKARI strings of the instruments that produces the sound of ankle bells, adding to the resonance of the main melody. Several laya patterns are played on this.
Jod
is that stage of an alap when the laya is brought into the alap in a manner which gives the alap a special lift and a language.
When from the vilambit tempo an instrumentalist moves his alap to the madhyalaya or medium tempo, this transitioin is called jod.
Kala
means art. It can also mean the basic unit of time.
Kayal
is a word of Persian origin meaning « imagination ». It is believed to have developped out the qawwal style of singing and through the period of Amir Khusro became an important part of the Hindustani music tradition.
The arrival of the khayal, which slowly displaced the old dhrupad style of singing, effected a revolutionary change in the Hindustani classical music tradition.
The khayal’s structure requires a high order of improvisational skill in the musician at several levels and layers of the raga. The range and scope of improvisation covers the whole range of human experience from the mystic to the frontiers of mathematical and intellectual exploration.
It is the most challenging musical forms in the raga inheritence of the subcontinent.
Kitt
is a mnemonic of the tabla played with both hands on the tabla.
Ki is played with the full palm flat on the left half of the tabla and the tt follows with three fingers of the right hand on the right half of the tabla.
Kriti
is one of the most highly evolved forms of musical composition in the Carnatic school : every composer in the carnatic school has attempted to compose kritis and contributed richly to this form of music. Literally, « kri » means fulfilment, meaning « him that does ».
Kritis form the bulk of musical compositions in Carnatic music today.
Unlike the KHAYAL in Hindustani music, the kriti is a fully composed piece of music,
complete in its architecture and motion.
Kriya
is a mode of counting time. There are several kinds of kriyas. The NISABDA kriya which is silent and the MARGA kriya and SASABDA kriya. These too have nissabda sections.
Nissabdha kriya is the act of reckoning rhytm without sound.
Kshana
is the smallest division of time that can be conceived in a kala or between two beats.
Laya
literraly means to merge. The term also refers to tempo and indicates the speed and gait of a piece of music in the form of a regularly repeated beat at a recognizable speed.
The vilambit laya is slow, the madhya laya is medium paced and the dhrut laya is fast. There is also a term maran laya which is so slow that is likened to death.
Matra
is a unit of time measure and is used at the basic unit of the 108 Talas of Indian music.
Meend
is a smooth uninterrupted glide from one note to the other. Its closest equivalent in Western music is the portamento of bowed instrument.
Mohara
is the concluding seal of a performance, sometimes done three time like a Hindustani TIHAYI. It is usually done in rythmic display. The finish then feels conclusive and final.
Mridangam
is the classical two-faced drum used as percussion in carnatic music, and played horizontally with the two hands by laying it on the lap.
Mridangam literally means « made of clay ». It is made out of a scooped out single block of wood, usually a neem tree or jack or coconut.
The two skin tympani on the two sides are dampened by a smooth paste of rice and water on the left side and a black dampener made of iron dust and rice on the right.
In the hands of a good player, the mridangam could sound like a human voice, rich and tempered, and has a calling intonation which in temple and kacheri, is very evocative.
Mukhyang
is the most important part /phrase of a raga that gives the raga its particular identity :
It is also called PAKAR, which means « to hold ». It is thus the phrase that helps provide a grip on the raga.
Navarasa
are the nine types of emotional colouring.
These include shringara which is love, hasya which is merriment or laughter, karuna which is compassion, raudra which is anger or ferocity, vira which means heroism, bhayankara which is terror, bibhasta which is disgust, adbhuta which is wonder and shanta which serenity or tranquillity.
There are also two other rasas which have been added on the list above in later years. There are bhakti, which is devotion and vatsalya, which is tenderness.
Pakhawaj
is a cylindrical two-faced drum which accompanies been and dhrupad performance.
Prahar
is approximately three hours of time. It relates to the time of ragas and the period of performance.
This division of the day is related to the concept of the inner rotation within the human body in step with the diurnal and nocturnal rotation of the earth.
Raga
constitues the basis of the music of indian music. A raga is neither a melody nor a mere scale, nor is it a mode. The principle on which a raga is built are as follow: a raga must have a minimum of five notes up and down the scale. it can have more notes - six or seven. The raga scale must have two pivotal points situated in each tetrachord. (set of four notes dividing the scale in two segments, the upper one and lower one). These notes are called VADI and SAMVADI. The raga motion is organised toward these notes. The raga also has a set of notes called PAKAD, which provide a grip on the raga. These are characteristic turns of phrase by wich the raga's principal charcteristic can be recognised.
Sanchara
literally means motion. In music it indicates a manner of exploration of the terrain of a raga with a particular gait, geometry, progression and rest.
Santoor
is a harp-like instrument played with both hands using sticks. It is believed to be a kashmiri instrument: its entrance into classical music is of recent origin. Its principal players are Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma and Om Prakash Chaurasia.
Sarangi
is a bowed instrument and is a basic accompanying instrument in Hindustani music. Today this instrument is also played solo. It has twenty-seven strings and is fretless. Its sound is a close approximation of a human voice of the soprano range.
Sarod
is one of the most popular concert instrument of today. The word has come from the Persian « sarood » meaning sweet.
It is a variant of the rabab and its present shape has a metal plate fitted across the instrument’s belly. The sarod has steel strings while the rabab, its ancestor, had gut strings : it is played with a plectrum.
Ustad Amjad Ali Khan is one of the most eminent sarod player of actual times.
Shadja
is the very first note of the Indian scale. This note therefore becomes the tonic note, an ACHALA SWARA. Its nature include all the various techniques of voice production using head and chest and dental, humming and sinus notes.
It is called shadja as it has all the suceeding six notes of the scale incipient within it and one of the techniques of swarasadhana is intended to make it possible for the practitioner to produce six distinct positions within that single note.
Shehnai
is a clarinet kind of wind instrument somewhat like the nagaswaram of the Carnatic system and is played in a celebratory vein.
Its sound is deemed to be auspicious. The father of the shenhai in recent times is Ustad Bismilla Khan.
Shruti
constitues the microtonal intervals between notes. The word shruti is made up of two parts : « shru » meaning to hear and « tina » which is to involve or use.
A sound that is audible is a shruti and the Indian musical scale has twenty-two shrutis.
The seven notes have innumerable shrutis, several of which are difficult to identifiy except in a emotional or in a psychological sense.
While mathematical positioning of these notes can be done, the linguistic basis of Indian music makes these microtonal intervals a part of the language and its utterance in speech.
The seven swaras (notes) are : Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni, Sa.
Sitar
is one of the most popular of Indian classical instruments. Its name has Persian roots in which « seh » meant three and « taar » meant strings.
The old « sethar » had three strings.
Surbahar
is a large sitar whose strings are thick and whose frets are heavy. Its tone is deep and its technique is identical to that used for sitar.
For alap, jod and jhala, this instrument has a special dignity of tone and texture that is curiously attractive.
Swara
is described as a note. In actual fact the swara is not a note. The note is an instrumental or mechanical sound. The swara, on the other hand, is always a human utterance. Instruments, when playing swaras, have to be specially trained to produce the imitation of a vocal sound. The word has its roots in Sanskrit in which « swa » stand for self and « ra » stand for shinning forth. Ragas are not made from notes but from swaras.
Taan
is the word that describes certain musical figures in wich the notes have designs and patterns that grow at various speeds.
Tabla
is the most popular percussion instrument of Hindustani music : it consists of a pair of drums, of which one is the treble (dayan) and the other the bass (bayan).
Together they produce a fine texture of sound :
The basic tonic note is tuned on the right drum and the left is tuned one octave below.
One the of the greatest tabla soloist of today is Ustad Zakir Hussain.
Tala
is often described as rythm in English. Tala is not a rythm ; it is part of language and the spoken cadence of poetry. It is defined in terms of matras in repating cycles of beats that expand to a stressed point called the sam down to a relase called khali.
Some well-known and commonly talas are as follows :
Adi tala is a cycle of eight matras. Its beats fall on the first, the fifth and the seventh matras.
Ektal has twelve beats and is played on the tabla.
Teen tala (teentaal) is the most popular in the Hindustani music and there are a large number of compositions in this tala.
It has sixteen matras with beats on the first, fifht and thirteenth matras : its khali (relase, for the rotation) is on the ninth matra.
Other cycles exist based on six matras, fourteen matras, ten matras, four matras, seven matras. Each of them have their own names.
Tanpura
is a drone instrument usually with four strings. Its two middle strings are tuned to the singing pitch of the performer or player. The two other strings are tuned one to the fifth or the fourth below the pitch and the fourth string is tuned to the tonic or the octave below.
Thaat
is the name given to the ragas which Pandit Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande selected out of the seventy melakartas of the Carnatic system to constitue the main ragas from which all others are derived.
There are ten thaats based on the Venkatmukhi approach and is now universally accepted in Hindustani classical music.
These thaats have the names of the ragas and these ten are :
Bilawal, Khamaj, Poorvi, Kafi, Bhairavi, Kalyan, Bhairav, Marwaa, Asavari, Todi.
Thumri
has a preemnient place among light classical music varieties. Among the styles of thumri singing, the Ounjabi and Lucknavi are the most predominant. The thumri is often in The Punjabi tala, a kind of teen tala. There are several ragas in which thumris are sung and its delcacy and appeal are obtained by a judicious mix of ragas.
Vadi
is a word that has its root in « vad » which means to speak. It is a note in the scale of a raga that is evocative and produces the feeling of the raga.
It is usually positioned in the lower part of the tetrachord and has its consonant note in the upper tetrachord called the samvadi.
Both together constitute points of tension and intensity of the raga scale and play a pivotal role in making raga come alive.
Vakra
really means twisted or non regular.
Its indicates a break of continuity or regularity in the accepted order of notes in the aroha-avarohana of the ragas.
Veena
is any stringed instrument, in the sense that it produces musically meaningful sound.
The number of veenas in music are many.
Even the human body is likened to a musical instrument when fully trained and is often reffered to as gatra veena.
