Raga Bhairavi in Carnatic Music
A deep mathematical and musical exploration into the Indian Carnatic Music Raga Bhairavi that is older than 1,500 years. I give key examples of patterns and combinations used during Carnatic jazz style musical explorations of Bhairavi.
There are a total of 72 whole scales (also called Melakarta Ragas) in Indian Carnatic classical music, as I’ve gone through in a previous blog. In this article I’ll talk about one raga in Carnatic music called Bhairavi (different from the Hindustani Bhairavi) which is not one out of the 72, but derived from 2 of the ragas. Such derived scales are also called as Janya ragas.
But first of all, why are there only 72 Melakarta Ragas? It is because of mathematics and the way the human ear is sensitive in distinguishing pitch One super interesting concept is that the minimal difference between consecutive notes — whether it is semitones in Western classical music or adjacent swaras in Indian music, the difference between them is the same. This fascinatingly suggests that human ears can basically distinguish a very specific frequency interval — or this could just be the way music accidently evolved over millenia.
