Thaat

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A Thaat (

The term thaat is also used to refer to the frets of stringed instruments like the sitar and the veena.^[3] It is also used to denote the posture adopted by a Kathak dancer at the beginning of their performance.^[4]

History

The modern thaat system was created by

According to Bhatkhande, each one of the several traditional ragas is based on, or is a variation of, ten basic thaats, or musical scales or frameworks. The ten thaats are Bilawal, Kalyan, Khamaj, Bhairav, Poorvi, Marwa, Kafi, Asavari, Bhairavi and Todi; if one were to pick a raga at random, in theory it should be possible to classify it into one of these thaats. For instance, the ragas Shree and Puriya Dhanashree are based on the Poorvi thaats, Malkauns on the Bhairavi thaat, and Darbari Kanada on the Asavari thaat.[7]

System

In Indian classical music, musical notes are called swaras. The seven basic swaras of the scale are named shadja, rishabh, gandhar, madhyam, pancham, dhaivat and nishad, and are abbreviated to Sa, Ri (Carnatic) or Re (Hindustani), Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, and Ni and written S, R, G, M, P, D, N. Collectively these notes are known as the sargam (the word is an acronym of the consonants of the first four swaras). Sargam is the Indian equivalent to solfège, a technique for the teaching of sight-singing. The tone Sa is not associated with any particular pitch. As in Western moveable solfège, Sa refers to the tonic of a piece or scale rather than to any particular pitch.

In Bhatkhande's system, the basic mode of reference is that which is equivalent to the Western Ionian mode or major scale (called Bilawal thaat in Hindustani music, Dheerasankarabharanam in Carnatic). The flattening or sharpening of pitches always occurs with reference to the interval pattern in Bilawal thaat. Each thaat contains a different combination of altered (vikrt) and natural (shuddha) notes with respect to the Bilawal thaat. In any seven-tone scale (starting with S), R, G, D, and N can be natural (shuddha, lit. "pure") or flat (komal, lit. "soft") but never sharp, whereas the M can be natural or sharp (tivra, lit. "fast") but never flat, making twelve notes as in the Western chromatic scale. The sharp or flat tones are called vikrt swara (vikrt, lit. "altered"). Selecting seven tones in ascending order, where S and P are always natural whereas five other tones (R, G, M, D, N) can assume only one of its two possible forms, results in 2⁵ = 32 possible modes which are known as thaats. Out of these thirty-two possibilities, Bhatkhande chose to highlight only ten thaats prominent in his days.

In effect only

Note that thaats only give a rough structure of the raga and do not give an idea of how the raga should be sung. It is pakad of the raga that gives the chalan or way of singing of the raga.[10]

Basic thaats

Bhatkhande named his thaats after the prominent ragas associated with those thaats. Ragas on which the thaats are named are called Janak raga of that thaat.^[10] For example, Bilaval Thaat is named after the raga Alhaiya Bilaval. Alhaiya Bilaval raga is therefore Janak raga of Bilaval thaat. Ragas other than the Janak raga of a thaat are called Janya raga.^[10]

Many thaats correspond to one or other of the European

Ragas that don't fall in thaat system

There are many ragas that don't fall in Thaat system. Some ragas have been derived from Carnatic Music and hence do not fall under Hindustani Classical Thaat System. Some of them are:

1. Kirvani 2. Nat Bhairav 3. Charukeshi 4. Madhuvanti 5. Ahir Bhairav

Time of performance

Ragas are normally ascribed to certain periods of the day and night (See

However, the author of Nai Vaigyanik Paddhati says that the time of a Raga has no importance, especially during meditation by music or during learning or teaching as practiced by the music scholars. Also, it is clear in Bhatkhande Sangeet Shastra at various places that the time do not have any importance while reciting a raga.

References