Unfolding Of a Raga

The unfolding of the raga's swaras or notes has often been referred to as the unfolding of the 'note' petals of a mystic flower. Which was in fact the layout of musical notes during the days of the Sama Veda?

When the Sama Veda was first composed, it was not sung, but chanted, in what are now the first three notes of the scale: Sa, Re, and Ga. According to the Naradya Shiksha, at some point, to these three notes were then added a fourth fifth, sixth and then a seventh note, to get a complete scale, the three note-petals on either side of the Sa or mystic kernel of the flower. By which the note scheme now consisted of Ma, Ga, Re, Sa, Ni, Dha, Pa - set clockwise, or in the descending order. It was a truly meditative approach.

No matter, how blissful the music then sounded, it was not felt to be very audible, as it could not be heard beyond a point. As more and ore people began to come and listen, musicians looked for ways and means to make the music louder. So one day certain higher-pitched notes were conceived to expand Sa's range further to become more audible, notes Re, Ga, Ma, in higher pitches in the same middle register, and giving them names.

The new string of notes came to be called the saptak or the new seven-note scale, which could be heard loud and clear. However, the scale was so mesmering due to its higher pitch that the notes in the lower register came to be neglected. It was thought that the middle register was the real scale, instead of that which was earlier part of the natural swara-circumference of Sa, which had been the same on either side of the note. Instead of being the gateway to meditation, the Sa became a note only, and the scale came to be treated in linear fashion, instead of what it actually was - a clockwise, cyclic expansion of the Sa.

With the 20th century came the microphone that helped musicians project their music naturally rather than by compulsions of having to shout the notes to have them heard. There was a return - another shift in emphasis - to the natural dictates of the scale of ancient times, a scale that emanated from Sa rather than beginning form Sa.

Ustad Amir Khan would say that the microphone was the most liberating piece of 'musicology' ever invented. Pandit Amaranth declared at a concert in New York, "you need to learn only half the Hindustani raga" - the rest (the second half of the saptak or seven notes) was a repetition. Like the 'loading' sign on the computer before it opens a track to be seen and heard, the Sa was now meditated upon much more than the saptak had ever allowed for earlier. It had returned to its ancient roots. The raga was once again being unfolded petal by petal, swara by swara, to reveal the honey-centure of its mystic flower - which was more in the nature of meditation than singing the saptak, which tended towards linear phraseologies. This was now like Isaac Newton's psychophysical color circle, with its centre of gravity the color white, and its range of seven colors on all sides, the paralleled the seven notes of the scale.

Underlining the new approach. pandit Amaranth wrote in a composition for the raga Vibhas; Bhavana tapas gulab si /Ur kantak bhar / Jagat lubhavana, / Kar sadhana, bharyatana. "O musician in sadhana, be the spirit of the mendicant rose, who with thrones under its throat, brings joy to the world with his bloom".