Raga Bhairavi

Posted on 06 March, 2020 • 3 min read

In Indian Classical music concerts, you may have heard many artists concluding their recital with Raga Bhairavi. Have you wondered why?

Bhairavi is traditionally an early morning raga as per the Indian time classification of Ragas. In the past, when time restrictions of a public concert were rare, great musicians of those days often sang through the night. The concert many times ended early morning at dawn, and hence with Raga Bhairavi. This tradition has come down the ages, and it has now become a custom where Indian music concerts are often concluded with Bhairavi even if it isn’t morning!

Independent of its history, Raga Bhairavi is a beautiful Raga offering plenty of scope to improvise. A variety called Mishra Bhairavi is often performed where liberties with notes are taken to give a different feel and perspective to the Raga.

In this session, I present 6 different takes on Raga Bhairavi. There is an interesting story behind this. While working on the recording process of Chandraveena, we were trying out different microphone positions to get the best and closest to natural sound of Chandraveena. With every placement of the microphones, we created short recordings. I started with Bhairavi, and it struck me - why not continue with Bhairavi? And while at it, I have also made an attempt to approach the Raga differently every time. All 6 takes were done in one session. Each of them are short alap pieces.

Program Notes

Raga Alapana in Bhairavi

Raga Alapana is an improvisation and a systematic presentation of a Raga. This part has no rhythmic accompaniment. It has three parts - Alap, Jod and Jhala. This format is also known as Ragam and Tanam. Here a short Alap is presented.

Here are some notes about the Raga.

Raga - Bhairavi (also called Sindhu Bhairavi)

Scale - Sa re ga ma Pa dha ni

Family - Todi

Melakarta - Hanumatodi (Sa re ga ma Pa dha ni)

Prahar - 1st and 2nd prahar (equivalent to 6 AM - 12 PM), though its now become an all Prahar Raga!

Reading the scale

In Indian Classical Music, the seven notes in an octave are called Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni and then Sa comes again. Notes with a capitalised first letter are called Tivra. Notes written fully in lower case are called Komal (or flat) notes. This Raga has all komal (or flat) notes. Sa and Pa are always written with a capitalized first letter.

Prahar

In Indian Classical Music, Ragas are classified into Prahars (time periods of a day or night) which are said to represent the most appropriate time to perform the Raga.