@Malavika Oh, please address me informally, by name, and the usual pronouns!

While on the subject of grahabhedam… If you haven't already, check out Pt. Jasraj's idea of Jasrangi Jugalbandhi, where two artists sing different raags at the same time, but in different shrutis, so they're actually singing in the same scale.

@Malavika That's very kind. But I'm really thankful that you invited me here and it's my fortune to be here where I can listen to, learn, and discuss Indian classical music.

I got interested in Carnatic and Hindustani music when I was sixteen. Heh, and I indirectly have to thank mathematics for it!

Before that I used passively listen to old movie songs, which I loved. I say passively, because I only listened to music when someone else played it. Though I really enjoyed it, somehow I never myself played music (as in, played cassettes) to listen to it.

And nobody in my immediately family regularly listened to classical music, and whatever little of it that I had heard of it by chance on TV or elsewhere never appealed much to me. I always loved the sound of the violin, though, and always kind of wanted to learn it.

Anyway, when I was sixteen, someone who'd just joined our school (and was in my class) started talking to me because he saw me working on some maths, because he loved maths too [I don't mean school maths — extra stuff that we wanted to learn out of interest]. We soon became friends

One day he was randomly singing some swaras, and I found it extremely beautiful, so I asked what that was. He told me it was Shriraga, a Carnatic raga. I wanted to know more, so he used to occasionally explain some music to me.

One day in an English lesson we had, Bhairavi raag was mentioned (the Hindustani one), and I asked him about it. And next time I went over to his house, he played a cassette of Bhairavi raag for me, and I loved it (the particular track was Amjad Ali Khan playing it on the sarod). So he lent it to me, and I went home and tried to play it.

But I wasn't very familiar with cassettes, beyond the basics… this sounds incredibly stupid, but back then I just couldn't figure out how to get to and play a particular track. It was actually a cassette with many different artistes performing in Bhairavi.

There were two vocal tracks, and two instrumental. I only liked the instrumental ones, but didn't know how to play just those. Also, it didn't help that for a long time I couldn't tell which one was Amjad Ali Khan and which was the other one (a Sitar-Sarangi jugalbandhi).

So basically I was forced to listen to everything, including the vocals, which I found unpleasant and even funny at times (when they sang in extremely high pitches, or indulged in extended akaars or taans)

But after listening to it for about five times, I actually started enjoying the vocals!

The other vocal track was a jugalbandhi with Bhimsen Joshi and Balamuralikrishna, in Sindhubhairavi. And I liked that too, but in that I liked Balamuralikrishna's singing — only, I thought (based on the rest of it) that what I liked was Hindustani, not Carnatic, so I thought this was Bhimsen Joshi -_-

(Later when I told my friend about this he corrected me, and I was sort of disappointed, haha)

Then later my parents saw I was really really interested, so I joined a (Carnatic) violin class and learnt it for about a year and a half (up to the first varnam, Ninnu Kori) [stopped the classes for the sake of 12ᵗʰ board exams, because I wasn't studying enough (for school, that is) — I've always been lazy, and studied only what I enjoyed]

Since then I've been studying music on my own. More theory than practice, but I've taught myself a bit of guitar, and more recently, kanjira (apart from violin, I mean)

And yeah, although at first I liked Hindustani more, now I enjoy and listen to more of Carnatic music — thanks to Balamurali. For a long time he was the only Carnatic singer I really liked listening to, though I also quite liked Bombay Jayashree. And later on, TM Krishna too. But for the past many years MD Ramanathan has also been my favourite, as much as Balamurali [I can't say I like either one more than the other, now].

They're the top two (for me personally, I mean. I don't at all mean that they're objectively the best).

Sorry for the wall of text, but I'm just excited at finding someone to discuss music with

@Malavika I also like Western Classical, although compared to Indian music, I've listened to very little of it, or I should say I haven't listened to it very carefully, as in spending a lot of time analysing the structure of compositions and such. Similarly I've also listened to certain kinds of rock music, mostly alternative rock (Evanescence, L'Âme Immortelle, and some others), but I don't listen to any of these regularly. Only once in a while when I'm in the mood.

Hi @M.Vinay :) So nice that you could drop by. Sorry, I was terribly busy yesterday and couldn't welcome you sooner.

@Malavika In film music, I love older songs, and some relatively recent ones — I saw you'd posted some songs from His Highness Abdullah. I love those

@M.Vinay I don't think I have favourites among the ragas yet, but I am definitely in the Bahudari mood right now :) I haven't heard this composition of Balamurali's before, thanks for sharing!

@Bahudari Ah, okay. And it's my pleasure! I just love sharing music

Please share freely in this room! :) Music is one of those pleasures in life that multiply by dividing, in a sense :)

Just went through your description of your musical journey, and what a unique experience, I should say :)

@Malavika Yeah, isn't it!

@M.Vinay And it delights me that there is another person who appreciates MDR's majestic music ^_^

@Bahudari Aha, likewise! "Majestic" is the right word to describe it. Majestic and meditative. What depth of voice, and what perfection of shruti too!

@Malavika Probably he is asking about what advantage, if any, there is in selecting Mayamalavagoula as the default scale for all basics lessons in Carnatic music. Similarly, if there are any disadvantages (maybe compared to some other system that uses a different scale).

From what I've read/heard, there is some reasoning behind this selection. In fact more than one are given, but I don't know which one is the original reason. Firstly, it's very symmetric. There is the basic purvanga-uttaranga symmetry, where the sequence S R G M is exactly the same (relatively) as P D N S' (if P is shifted to S). Of course, many other melakartha ragas also have this. For example, Shankarabharanam. But Mayamalavagowla has other symmetries as well.

Look at these pairs: S R, G M, P D, N S'.

Again, those four are equivalent. Each one is a single-semitone interval. So if you start with S R, then you get the other three by shifting that interval to G, P, and N.

You would've observed this already on the violin @Malavika

But in addition to this symmetry (that makes it easy), Mayamalavagoula has another quality that's important with regard to learning the fundamentals of Carnatic music: It has all three types of basic intervals: Shuddham (S R, G M, P D, and N S'), Chatushuti (M P), and Shatshruti (R G and D N).

In contrast, Shankarabharanam (which might arguably be another natural choice of scale for the basic lessons) does not.

@Malavika True. I've seen (on other StackExchange sites) that it's important to keep distinct questions separate.

This last explanation I heard from Prince Rama Varma (not personally, on YouTube).

It seems to be the most plausible reason, because I've also heard (from a distant relative of mine) that Harikambhoji is the basic scale used in Carnatic flute lessons. Because that's easiest to play on the flute

All valid points, @M.Vinay. But, I think I might disagree with the "ease of playing/singing" idea. The swarams in Mayamalavagoulai are arranged with varying gaps (as you already noted). So, Sa and Ri are close together, then there's a large jump from Ri to Ga, then Ga and Ma are close together, and Ma and Pa are slightly further apart, but not as much as Ri and Ga.

So, arguably, mastering Mayamalavagoulai before a ragam like Sankarabharanam which has largely equally spaced swarams, brings more voice control.

I am also not sure that Mayamalavagoulai is easier to play on the veena than Sankarabharanam. The varying intervals are possibly tougher to play than ones with more evenly spaced intervals, and they probably offer more scope for developing fine control of gamakas.

I don't play the veenai or the flute, though, so this is just my theorising, and a vague recollection from hearing this mentioned when I was quite young. I think I'll ask my mom what she thinks about the veenai part, since she practices the instrument.

@Bahudari I think the argument applies only to the basic varisai and alankarams. Of course, when you're really playing the raga it's not easier. But the symmetry and structure in the basic lessons mostly agrees well with those in the Mayamalavagoula scale. For example, S R S R S R G M…. For the first six notes you don't have to move your hand at all, and not even stretch your fingers. Then there's one jump to play G (but again none for playing G M).

Then the difficulty goes up slightly in the next one: S R G S R G S R…

And so on

But what you said applies to me too. I've never had a chance to try playing anything on a veena, so I'm extrapolating from my experience with the violin and guitar (arguably the guitar is similar in this aspect to the veena though).

@Malavika Yes, that's the one. He's such a wonderful teacher!

@Malavika Agreed! I've seen a couple of the videos before.

@Malavika Okay, then I will post some film songs here.

Let me start with Naadamaya, a Kannada song from the movie Jeevana Chaitra. The actor is Rajkumar, and he is the singer too!

The song itself is in Todi, and then at the end he sings some swarams in ragamalika: Todi, Mohanam, Darbari Kanada, then an akaar in Kanada (our Carnatic one), followed by more swaras and a short tanam in Hamsanandi

It reminds me of another film song that's in a ragamalika that begins with Todi: Aalaapanam, from the Malayalam movie Gaanam, sung by Yesudas and S. Janaki.

By the way, the actor here is Ambarish, who was also a Kannada actor, like Rajkumar!

Rajkumar is a decent singer, but you can still hear some apashruti here and there.

Yesudas and S. Janaki are just as delightful as always. Simply unparallelled.

Yeah. There are some more of his (semiclassical and other) songs that I will post later on : )

@Malavika Yes, he is such a natural actor. Devasabhatalam is a complete audio-visual treat. It's not just the amazing music, but the entire sequence itself (especially in the context of the whole story).