S-r-g-mM-d-n-S

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A truly oddball creation I stumbled upon in Subbha Rao’s 1965 Raga Nidhi Vol. 3: “Meladalan and ‘Thatavidhwamasa’ are pseudo-names which Acharya Brahaspati…has given to a raga the identity of which [he] wants to keep unpublished for certain reasons. He points out, however, that it is an ancient raga which he wants to bring into life again”. Both these titles mean ‘destroying the foundational scales’: indicating Brahaspati’s boundary-pushing intentions – the raga’s SrgmMdnS swara set, which contains all five vikrit positions, is perhaps best summarised as ‘Bhairavi komal Pa’ (a ‘disallowed thaat’ in both North and South India due to the presence of ‘mM & no Pa’). Akin to the Western Locrian Mode, the scale is also the ‘missing member’ of the Bilawal murchana set – generally ignored in Hindustani music due to the awkwardness of tivra Ma inevitably functioning more like a ‘komal Pa’ (see below for more rare congruents). Rao, who gives a vadi-samvadi of Sa–ma, notes “andolan on tivra Ma…this raga is appealing when sung in vilambit”, also adding that re is omitted in aroha, and ni in avroh. Frustratingly, I can’t track down any of Brahaspati’s own renditions (his bandish is entitled Nada Sindhu Athaha Hai) – but Ulhas Bapat’s independently-created Parijat (gat transcribed below), which takes the same swaras, is an outstanding demonstration of the scale’s multidirectional possibilities: I’d describe it more as ‘decentered’ than ‘dissonant’, with the santoor’s evenly-weighted timbres allowing for murchana-shades of multiple ragas, notably including Bageshri (from ga) and Khamaj (from dha). Also see Lalit (the main ‘komal Pa’ raga) and Ahir Lalit (the only other ‘mM/no Pa/komal ni‘ raga I can identify) – as well as my geometric analysis of the nine ‘unfilled thaat’ scales. Ripe for exploration!

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Aroha: SrgmMdnS

Avroh: SndMmgrS

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Chalan: (variable)

—Ulhas Bapat (2003)—

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[gat, e.g. 27:43] grn, dS (S)Srn Srg mMdMm grn, dS; mMdS, rS gS mS MS dSrg mMdMm grn, dS; gMdSg r (nd)M MM (d)n md d, Mmg; grn, dS…

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• More •

Histories, melodies, mythologies, etc…

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After I posted this page on the r/icm forum (Aug 2023), several intriguing suggestions came in. As per multi-instrumentalist Chris Stephens (who also contributed to my entries for Imratkauns and Shivawanti), “Kushal Das put out a record called Raga Moods back in 2001, and the fourth track is ‘Madhyam se Bhairavi‘ [Bhairavi from ma’] – which could be another candidate for ‘komal Pa‘ status. Although it sounds like a different approach to Meladalan, as what Pandit-ji is doing is shifting the Sa, therefore treating Bhairavi’s [dha as a komal re]. The tanpura and his drone strings are tuned Sa-ma, like Bageshri or Malkauns“.

 

In other words, Das treats his sitar’s usual Pa-fret as a ‘new Sa’, which, by murchana, gives the scale form of Meladalan if considered from the new ma (i.e. Sa’s ‘original’ position: SrgmPdnS; PdnSrgmP > SrgmMdnS: although he also seasons his take with Bhairavi’s ‘mishra‘ shuddha Re, i.e. ‘Meladalan plus Pa‘). After a little more searching, I uncovered a recording of the same concept by Nikhil Banerjee (below) – almost certainly the inspiration for Das’ rendition, given his admiration for Banerjee (“I fell in love with his style…there was a point when I tried to imitate him with all my might, and I thought it worked rather well; but then I was ticked off by well-meaning veterans, who encouraged me to evolve my own musical persona…”). Others have followed in their wake: e.g. Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Indrajit Banerjee, & Josh Feinberg.

 

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—Madhyam se Bhairavi (Nikhil Banerjee)—

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And, after an extended early-2024 deep-dive into ultra-rare ragas, I found some more intriguing matches for Meladalan’s scale form. Nauhar Todi (below) brings a different spin to the same SrgmMdnS swara set, leaning into the familiarity of Todi’s rgrS catchphrase while prioritising the stability of shuddha ma (aside from Sa, the only shuddha swara on offer). Despite these differences, tivra Ma does still seem to retain an independent ‘komal Pa’ role (evident in Mashkoor Ali Khan’s refrain: rgrSm, grgMgrS).

 

This is also the case for Sadhana Shiledar’s recently-created Ritu: which she describes as being “based on a folk tune from the Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh”. Her rendition takes a curious path through the swaras, with both Ma variants held back in favour of slow explorations in the dnSrg range – in fact, tivra Ma doesn’t turn up until right at the end of the alap, but soon becomes vital to a refrain of S(r)g (m)M, mg(r)S. I applaud these modern ‘dhun-ugam’ experiments (and would love to hear the folk tune Ritu is based on)!

 

Multi-instrumentalist Ashish Dha also sent me his own fresh creation, Antariksh. He describes it as “a companion raga to Shivkumar Sharma’s Antardhwani [SrgmdNS]…together, they represent two paths to spiritual realisation: either you can become so humble that you become ‘nothing’, to squeeze through that tiniest of apertures known as ‘I am’ to Realisation; Or you can expand yourself to include all of existence, across space and time, smashing through all fetters into Realisation…”. Also see Trishanku, another of Dha’s inventions.

 

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—Nauhar Todi (Mashkoor Ali Khan)—

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• Classifiers •

Explore hidden inter-raga connections: swara geometries, melodic features, murchana sets, ragangas, & more (also see the Full Tag List):

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Swaras: -4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10+

Sapta: Audav | Shadav | Sampurna

Poorvang: SRGM | SRG | SRM | SGM

Uttarang: PDNS | PDS | PNS | DNS

Varjit: Re | Ga | Ma | Pa | Dha | Ni

Double: rR | gG | mM | dD | nN

Thaat: 10 | 32 | Enclosed | Inexact

Chal: All-shuddha | All-komal | Ma-tivra

Gaps: Anh. | Hemi. | 3-row | 4-row | 5-row

Symmetries: Mirror | Rotation | Palindr.

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Aroha: Audav | Shadav | Sampurna

Avroh: Audav | Shadav | Sampurna

Jati: Equal | Balanced | Av.+1 | Av.+2

Samay: Morning | Aftern. | Eve. | Night

Murchana: Bhup. | Bihag | Bilaw. | Charu.

Raganga: Bhairav | Malhar | Kan. | Todi

Construction: Jod | Mishra | Oddball

Origin: Ancient | Carnatic | Modern

Dominance: Poorvang | Uttarang

Prevalence: A-list | Prachalit | Aprach.

• Prakriti: (none found)

–Swara Geometries–

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• Core form: S–r–g–mM–d–n–S

• Reverse: SRGMPDNS (=Yaman)

• Negative: 3-2-3-2-2 (e.g. Malkauns)

• Imperfect: 1 (Sa)

• Detached: none

• Symmetries: mirror (g—D)

• Murchanas: Bilawal set

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• Quirks: ‘komal Pa‘ (=mMP) • ‘maximal‘ (swaras are optimally ‘spread out’)

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–Global Translations–

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• Carnatic: (~Lalitha)

S-R₁-G₂-M₁-M₂-D₁-N₂-S

• Jazz: Locrian

1-b2-b3-4-#4-b6-b7-8

• Pitch classes (‘fret-jumps’):

0-1-3-5-6-8-10-0

(1–2–2–1–2–2–2)

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o o • o • o o • o • o • o

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• Tanpura: Sa–ma

• Names: Meladalan, Thatavidhwamasa, (~Parajit, ~Antariksh, ~Ritu, Nauhar Todi, ‘Madhyam se Bhairavi‘)

• Transliterations: Hindi (मेलादालान)

—Ritu: Sadhana Shiledar (2018)—