Indian Scales

[garyinthailand]

Cool. Could you give me your just intonation scale in cents? Thanks

[Jesse]

Sure, the Just is (rounded to the nearest cent):
0, 112, 204, 316, 386, 498, 590, 702, 814, 884, 996, 1088, 1200

That said, I'm not totally sold on it although it did seem to be the most likely candidate on the web (in ratio form). If you have research that leads to others or you don't feel like it sounds right in TJ, please let me know.

[garyinthailand]

I'll inquire with my Indian contacts.

Me, I play piano. I'd happily do equal-T for the rest of my life,

But somehow I always thought there was only one Just intonation. Now I know better.

[garyinthailand]

I'm occupied for the next couple of days, but very keen on these experiments. A filter to convert native notation will be powerful. Hope you get a chance to work that up in near future.

It occurred to me that your xml format would allow for asymmetrical as well as non-linear scales, provided the range were bounded. The list of notes would just go up and then down again. Sort of like a vertical split-screen. I will try that.

I will try to get a handle on intonation issues. It might be gnarly. We might have to punt.

[garyinthailand]

I'm getting some good input from my sources about this, but it's not simple. Not clear if it makes sense to focus on the melakartas, as it seems they may represent more theory than practice.

Still, they are nice and simple to think about. Probably that's why everyone does. Stand by.

Ultimately, of course, our listing will be a crude sketch of an incredibly deep complex of musical traditions. Still, I'd like it to be good crude sketch.

I came across this quote, which I like:

"Indian music tied to notation has the same relationship to the actual performance as a stuffed animal does to a living one."

Some enjoyable (if perplexing) reading at: http://www.parrikar.org/raga-central

[garyinthailand]

The research is making progress. Of course, question and ideas come up.

1. North Indian (Hindustani) and South Indian (Carnatic) traditions are very distinct, with separate lists of ragas. Is it feasible to organize two categories under the Indian heading?

2. I'm now assembling my lists using Indian notation (S, R1, R2, etc.) rather than numeric scale-degrees, mostly because that's what my informants use. They can't review my material otherwise. I am thinking it would be very good if you can represent the Indian notation alongside the Western note names. I know you're working on this area of the program.

3. I found an interesting book-CD set on North Indian Ragas, with details and notated example recordings of a select 74 ragas. Check out http://www.wyastone.co.uk/nrl/world/raga/ for some good samples. Amazon's listing also. I'm thinking it might be sensible to adopt their list for the Hindustani ragas.

There's no comparable accessible reference for South Indian ragas. (The melakarta system, btw, is a purely Southern thing). If we adopt these 74 North Indian ragas and a comparable selection of South Indian ragas, vetted by my sources, is that too many?

My slogan is "Nothing hard was ever easy", and this fits. Cheers

[Jesse]

That sounds like a good number to me. No problem with the categories, we'll just make an Indian (North), and Indian (South) , or subsitute the parentheticals with (Hindustani) (Carnatic).

[garyinthailand]

The idea of using The Raga Guide as a reference was endorsed enthusiastically by my sources. That's a help. It's sold by Amazon, so the users can get it easily.

I should have a definitive list, with verified scale spellings, shortly. As mentioned, I'm assembling my list using Indian notation, in which our major scale looks like: S R2 G3 M1 P D2 N3 S'.

Converting 150 more or less complex scales to the text form you gave me is a job that none of us would look forward to. I'm hoping you'll be able to script a converting filter. I used to do that kind of thing, but it's been a long time...

Also, when the time comes I'd like to ask for a little space on the site to post additional documentation and scale files. There really is much more to a raga than just the scales. The downloads and traffic would also give you a way to document the user interest.

[Jesse]

Great! Don't worry about the formatting, I'll do the necessary conversions.

If you provide the content I can easily make a page for Indian scale details.

[garyinthailand]

Excellent. Here's a draft of the South Indian list you can use to work on the conversions. It's still being proofed, so don't treat it as any kind of gospel. Appreciate if you can send some files back for checking.

I think this might turn out rather well. It'll be interesting to see the response. I trust my friends and I will be on the beta list.