C-A-B^b-A-G-E

• OVERVIEW •

C-A-Bb-A-G-E is surprisingly tasty, if rather impractical. Forms a ‘crunchy’ C13 chord…with the root(s) at the bottom. Seems silly, and it definitely is – but it’s essential to just shuffle things up sometimes. Anyway, J.S. Bach – probably the G.O.A.T. of global harmonic development – did similarly, famously ‘signing’ his name in The Art of Fugue as Bb-A-C-B (read as B-A-C-H in old German).

So have many other musical greats throughout history. Around the same time as Bach was writing his masterworks, the ‘Trimurti’ of great South Indian saint-composers were busy hiding the names of favoured Hindu gods in the twists of their song melodies (in Carnatic classical music, alpha-melodic wordplay is known as mudra). So be shameless in being silly, as long as it’s a genuine form of exploration too. What you can cook up with CABbAGE? And what else you can spell with the open strings? (See my full article for more: Alphamelodics: well-tuned words)

Pattern: 9>1>11>10>9

Harmony: C13 | 1-6-b7-6-5-3

• TUNING TONES •

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Guitar & global musicology on Instagram:

Raag Jog: exploring different ways the electric guitar can support a Dhrupad-ang nomtom (syllabic improvisation)…

(From ‘Around the World in Eight Ragas’: my show with Ashwin Baliga & Marc Clayton at Mehfil Space on 11 Jun 2026) @ashwinbaligaofficial @marc_plays_tabla @mehfilspace

#dhrupad #raga #indianmusic #icm #worldmusic

Jun 28

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Raag Kafi: Electric guitar improv around the adha bandish ‘Aaj Khel Shaam Sang Hori’

(From ‘Around the World in Eight Ragas’: my show with Ashwin Baliga & Marc Clayton at Mehfil Space on 11 Jun 2026) @ashwinbaligaofficial @marc_plays_tabla @mehfilspace

#raga #indianmusic #icm #worldmusic #ragaguitar

Jun 22

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Raag Jog: some sawal-jawab (‘question-answer’) fun with Marc Clayton on tabla

(From ‘Around the World in Eight Ragas’: my show with Ashwin Baliga & Marc Clayton at Mehfil Space on 11 Jun 2026) @ashwinbaligaofficial @marc_plays_tabla @mehfilspace

#raga #indianmusic #icm #worldmusic #ragaguitar

Jun 15

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Some tintal improv around a wonderful Durga bandish I’ll be playing at @mehfilspace @the_rose_hill in Brighton on Thu 11th June! with vocalist @ashwinbaligaofficial and @marc_plays_tabla

https://therosehill.co.uk/event/the-mehfil-space-presents-around-the-world-in-8-ragas/

‘Around the World in 8 Ragas’: exploring cross-cultural melodic forms (e.g. scales that turn up independently in Japan, India, Mali, etc)

#indianmusic #raga #icm #brightonmusic #ragaguitar

Jun 10

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Come see me play some bendy raga-guitar at @mehfilspace @the_rose_hill in Brighton on Thu 11th June! with vocalist @ashwinbaligaofficial and @marc_plays_tabla

https://therosehill.co.uk/event/the-mehfil-space-presents-around-the-world-in-8-ragas/

‘Around the World in 8 Ragas’: exploring cross-cultural melodic forms (e.g. scales that turn up independently in Japan, India, Mali, etc) – including this piece, a famous Bhairavi bhajan by Pt. Bhimsen Joshi (Jo Bhaje Hari Ko Sada)

#bhajan #raga #indianmusic #brightonmusic #ragaguitar

Jun 5

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tomato can jungle/DnB (distracted while cooking)

#drumming #percussion #dnb #jungle

May 23

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A great Jaunpuri gat from Senia-Shahjahanpur sarod legend Pt Buddhadev DasGupta, full of fast bends and slides (originally released for Joep Bor’s 1997 Raga Guide, in many ways a precursor to my own raga index)

Raag Jaunpuri: a late morning raga, likely originating in the Sultanate-era music of Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh (as per Subodh Agrawal: “The rulers of Jaunpur were keen patrons of the arts, and the last one – Sultan Hussain Sharqi – was himself a distinguished musician; it is probable that the Jaunpuri flavor of Asavari was developed by him, or under his patronage“). Rajan Parrikar elaborates on its “Asavariant” status, noting that some (including Omkarnath Thakur) see it as essentially indistinguishable from Shuddha Re Asavari, while others consider Jaunpuri to follow more ‘rounded’ melodic motions…

#sarod #ragaguitar #stratocaster #worldmusic #jaunpur

May 6

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just for fun…I had to defend the honour of my main instrument against my second instrument (many thanks to @mountainhead for the original video, as well as some tasty bends) – still no match for the surbahar’s meend range though!

#sitar #guitar #raga #bends #ragaguitar

May 4

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• SOUNDS •

Despite the tuning’s online name-notoriety, very few have released music in it. For two prominent, contrasting examples, compare Rob Scallon’s heavy CABbage recipe to Ichika Nito‘s delicate CABBAGE preparation (both set on 7-strings).

(And, because why not – read why ‘foley artists‘ love using actual cabbages to create film sound effects (“…A brutal fight sequence. I find myself wincing at the sound of every punch, although Monat-Jacobs had just extolled the virtues of working with a rubbery material such as cabbage…”)

• CABbage – Rob Scallon (2016):

“Cabbage (n.): cultivated culinary vegetable that grows a rounded head of thick leaves. Mid-15th-century, ‘caboge’, from Old North French ‘caboche’…from Old French ‘caboce’…a diminutive from Latin ‘caput’…from Proto Indo-European root ‘kaput’ [all these words mean ‘head’]…The comparison…to the head of a person – usually disparaging to the latter – is at least as old as Old French cabus: ‘head of cabbage, nitwit, blockhead.” (Etymology Online)

• NUMBERS •

• See my Tunings Megatable for further such nerdery: more numbers, intervallic relations, comparative methods, etc. And to any genuine vibratory scientists reading: please critique my DIY analysis!

• RELATED •

—Associated tunings: proximities of shape, concept, context, etc…

• Alphabet: a meta-signifier for alpha-melodics
• Ten Years: another surprisingly melodious word
• Mesopotamian: the tuning of Iraq’s capital city?

• MORE INFO •

—Further learnings: sources, readings, lessons, other onward links…

• More musical cryptography: see my Alphamelodic tunings article for more spelling-based tunings and broader global instances of similar phenomena (“there will always be a base level of consonance to any melody made exclusively from the letters ‘ABCDEFG’: as the absence of sharps/flats means that all these tones fit neatly into the C Major scale…So, despite the apparent chaos of spelling-derived methods, many of the resulting melodies showcase their own subtle structures and regularities. In a sense, there’s nothing remarkable about this: could you imagine if our written language really was just a structureless scrabble-bag of letters? What would it sound like?”)
• South Indian mudra signatures: from Smitha K. Prasad, and more in my Carnatic Primer article for Darbar (“the Trimurti often ‘signed off’ with a mudra…something that has an oddly hip-hop vibe. Shastri went by the mudra ‘Shyama Krishna’, and Dikshitar by ‘Guruguha’, both borrowing the names of Hindu gods…”) – also see Carnatic Drone tuning, used by electro-classical South Indian virtuosi including ‘Guitar’ Prasanna

Header image: a bundle of Brassica oleracea

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George Howlett is a London-based musician, writer, and teacher (guitars, sitar, tabla, & santoor). Above all I seek to enthuse fellow sonic searchers, interconnecting fresh vibrations with the voices, cultures, and passions behind them. See Home & Writings, and hit me up for Online Lessons!

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