Category archives: Books and periodicals

Indian music and the west – an account by Sangita Kalanidhi Trichy Sankaran

Tiruvarur to Texas, Carnatic musicians have transcended global cultures, echoing the seven notes to the West. Trichy Sankaran,to be honoured with the Sangita Kalanidhi today, summarises Carnatic music’s history in America in a chat with critic Veejay Sai

While everyone is aware of how Hindustani music became popular in the West, especially America, with maestros like Pandit Ravi Shankar and Ustad Ali Akbar Khan’s early overseas concert tours,1 how and when was Carnatic music an active part of the American culture? “It was Tanjore Viswanathan, the brother of Bharatanatyam legend Balasaraswati, who went on a Fulbright fellowship in 1958 to study Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Veena Balachander went in 1962 with Umayalpuram Sivaraman (mridangam) and Vellore Ramabhadran (kanjira, for this tour),” says mridangam maestro Trichy Sankaran. Balachander and flautist Ramani along with the aforementioned percussionists ideated a project called ‘Sangeetam Madras’ and extensively toured North America.

By 1963, mridangam vidwan Palghat Raghu travelled as a member of Ravi Shankar’s ensemble. By then a slow process of institutional interest seeped in amongst the American academia. “It was ethnomusicologist Robert Brown of Wesleyan University who showed great interest in bringing Carnatic music to America. He was a student of T. Ranganathan, the other brother (and a senior student of my guru Palani Subramnia Pillai) of Balasaraswati. They were invited as artistes in residence at Wesleyan University and that was the first ever such occasion for Carnatic musicians to go there,” adds Sankaran, in fond remembrance of his guru-bhai. Brown’s interest in Indian music grew from strength to strength and he would think up newer methods of spreading it to American music lovers. “Bob, as we called Robert, started an experimental project called ‘Curry Concerts’ which he would organise. These were a combination of a sumptuous Indian dinner followed by a concert and gained popularity in no time. He was one of the few ethnomusicologists who believed that the study of the art is important with its performing element. He put an emphasis on the performing artistes as well,” recollects Sankaran.

Brown later invited several other musicians like K.V. Narayanaswamy (KVN) and Palghat Raghu to Wesleyan. KVN, as an artiste in residency at the university, went on a coast-to-coast concert tour along with Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan and earned fame at the Hollywood Bowl music festival by 1967. Several vidwans left for American shores to take part in festivals like the Monterey pop festival and Woodstock festival. “Brown went ahead to invite Ramnad Krishnan and Ramnad Raghavan. But Krishnan didn’t stay around for too long as he was very homesick and wanted to return to his family in India. But while in America, he was recorded by a music company with T. Thyagarajan (violin) and T. Ranganathan (mridangam),” says Sankaran, with a chuckle in his voice. “The Western students were also not acquainted with our Indian manners. I had an initial culture shock with students addressing me with a “Hey”, but I slowly got used to it and we taught them Indian manners! Here, we were used to people calling us ‘sir”, “vidwan”, and so on. Ramnad Krishnan was in disbelief when students would walk up to him asking, “Hey Krishna, when is my next lesson man?” and he wasn’t used to being addressed in such a tone!” laughs Sankaran heartily, recollecting how many musicians took the effort to culture Western audiences to guru-shishya traditions. […]

Today, Carnatic musicians rub shoulders with world music greats and collaborate with music practitioners from every other genre. The seductive swaras have showed their triumph once again, reminding how great the power of Indian music is.

Source: The Hindu : Arts / Music : A brief history of star-spangled swaras and raga music
URL: http://www.thehindu.com/arts/music/article2764012.ece
Date Visited: 1 May 2012

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  1. On nearly all his foreign tours since the beginning of the Sixties, Ravi had used Alla Rakha as his regular tabla accompanist. They were closely identified with each other, especially outside India (since in India Ravi had continued to work with other tablists as well). Their partnership lasted until 1985, almost twenty-seven years, before they parted ways. – Source: p. 246 Raga Mala: An autobiography (New York 1999), edited and introduced by George Harrison, Additional Narrative by Oliver Craske [↩]

Find a copy of The Oxford Illustrated Companion to South Indian Classical Music

The Oxford Illustrated Companion to South Indian Classical Music
OUP India >> 
OUP worldwide >>

An indispensable and enriching reference for the connoisseur, practicing musician and dancer, interested amateur, impresario, teacher, and student, this completely revised, updated, and enlarged edition will also inform and engage anybody keen on learning more about Indian culture.

Publication date: 27/01/2009 (Hardback, 552 pages)

Critical acclaim from India and beyond
“Pesch’s sumptuous Illustrated Companion is a delight”, “the most thorough study of Carnatic music”, “a marvellous work”, “a thorough, and scientifically accurate companion to our classical music” that includes a “useful chapter on voice training”; in short “pure reading pleasure”

Used as textbook for this course, The Oxford Illustrated Companion to South Indian Classical Music is readily available. For order details please visit the publisher’s websites: Oxford University Press India & Global OUP >>

Please beware of inflated prices quoted for used copies compared to the publisher’s list price (see OUP India): the revised 2nd edition has been in print since publication.

Should your preferred supplier fail to deliver, copies may also be arranged arranged (at short notice & cost price) via Contact >>

Overview

  • Overview of music, instruments, composers, schools, etc.
  • Visuals of instruments, major composers, etc.; also colour plates
  • Biographical notes on musicians and composers
  • Guide to Pronunciation and Transliteration, Alphabetical Index of Ragas and Scales, Index of Names

Description | OUP India & Global OUP >>

This is a completely revised and updated edition of The Oxford Illustrated Companion to South Indian Classical Music, which includes the latest available information on the subject. Acclaimed as the most authoritative reference work on South Indian classical music, the Companionprovides an overview of the historical and cultural contexts of the music, its instruments, composers, leading practitioners, and schools.

The Companion features more than 120 line drawings and photographs of all the instruments discussed, as well as of major composers, and a special colour plates section, make this an indispensable guide to classical music of the sub-continent. With detailed biographical notes on musicians and composers, a guide to pronunciation and transliteration, an alphabetical index of ragas and scales, and more, this reference becomes truly invaluable.

An indispensable and enriching reference work for the connoisseur, practicing musician, interested amateur, impresario, teacher, and student, the Companion will be of interest to anybody keen to learn about Indian culture.

Disclaimer: hyperlinks are meant for fact-checking and information purposes only >>

What’s the difference between Hindustani and Carnatic music?

At first, this question seems easy to answer: just watch performers from either strand of Indian music and you’ll know Which is Which, merely going by the instruments in use, or how they dress and watching the body language involved: harmonium or sarangi vs. violin for melodic accompaniment for most vocal recitals, and tabla drums rather than a double-faced mridangam.1

M.S. Subbulakshmi © Dhvani Ohio
“Even at the peak of her career M.S.Subbulakshmi continued to
learn from other musicians” – R.K. Shriram Kumar >>
Tambura posture, fingering & therapeutic effect >>
Young Maestros 2018 © Sangeet Research Academy >>
The Raga Guide by Joep Bor >>

Even in the absence of other clues, experienced listeners know what distinguishes one concert item from another, in order to immerse themselves in that which endows “classically trained” musicians across South Asia with a deeply felt sense of unity: raga, aptly defined as a “tonal framework for composition and improvisation” by Joep Bor in The Raga Guide.

What binds Hindustani and Carnatic music lovers together is the experience of raga which, given its roots (lit. colour, beauty, pleasure, passion), denotes a cultural phenomenon rather than just a particular combination of notes. This means that raga-based music is more widely shared than one would expect in the modern world due to its capacity to transcend linguistic boundaries. In short, both strands of Indian music, Hindustani and Carnatic music, have absorbed a wide range of regional traditions throughout history. At the same time, “raga music” continues to serve as a vehicle for meaningful lyrics in any conceivable genre in addition to “classical” or “devotional” music. Even when rendered by an instrumentalist or sung without lyrics (as customarily done within both Hindustani and Carnatic recitals) each raga constitutes “a dynamic musical entity with a unique form, embodying a unique musical idea”. […] As regards Hindustani ragas, they “are known to musicians primarily through traditional compositions in genres such as dhrupad, dhamar, kyal, tappa, tarana and thumri. Good compositions possess a grandeur that unmistakably unveil the distinctive features and beauty of the raga as the composer conceived it.” (Joep Bor).

The Carnatic Trinity hailing from Tiruvarur (Tamil Nadu, 18th-19th c.):
the composers most revered and performed by Carnatic musicians
Muttusvami Dikshitar
Sri Tyagaraja
Syama Sastri
Painting by S. Rajam © Sruti Magazine >>
Composers on DhvaniOhio >>

A comparable range of genres is available to Carnatic musicians, including varnam, kirtana, kriti, ragam-tanam-pallavi, padam, javali, tillana with a notable difference: since the 16th century, Carnatic compositions take up more time in order to render the lyrics faithfully, as intended by their composers and jealously guarded by teachers, discerning listeners and critics alike.

It is hard to imagine how such ideas would have worked before the advent of the tambura or tanpura – another feature of Indian music which may explain why older scales and theories have fallen into oblivion ever since – in spite of frequent mentions in text books.

But it’s harder to explain the musical differences in plain language while listening attentively as their respective performances unfold: differences begin to multiply, mostly in ways too subtle for words. Such differences call for probing into the depths of Indian “classical” music in the sense of a particular branch of music that is governed by clearly defined rules as well as unwritten conventions valued by professionals and connoisseurs.

For Indian listeners, such distinctions are mostly associated with a particular region, like the northern Hindustani and southern Carnatic music even if deceptive when it comes to the birth places of noted Hindustani exponents: many famous musicians were born or trained in Bengal in the east, and Dharwad in the south, also known as “Hindustani music’s southern home“. Being associated with a famous regional tradition or lineage is mentioned in most programme notes, like the vocal gharana known as the “Dharwad Gharana” or “Gwalior Gharana” in Hindustani music; and likewise, southern musicians pride themselves for having learned their arts within a bani (“family tradition”) designated by a particular town, for instance Tanjavur (vocal), Lalgudi (violin) and Karaikudi (vina or veena).

Then there are the preferred languages used in song lyrics in the case of vocal music; and certain rhythmic patterns local listeners would instantly feel familiar with or, conversely, associate with “novelty” when first employed beyond their place of origin. The latter is eagerly anticipated toward the end of a recital. In the opening and main parts of a recital, the most obvious differences between Hindustani and Carnatic music include the following traits:

Tala practice in Carnatic music >>
Art © Arun V.C.
  1. Hindustani musicians prefer “accelerating” almost imperceptibly – from slow to fast tempo – during an alap (raga alapana, the melodic improvisation preceding a composed theme); this preference entails presenting fewer items compared to their Carnatic peers;
  2. many (though not all) adhere to the convention of associating rāgas with a specific time of the day, or a particular season ;2
  3. by contrast, a typical Carnatic or Karnatak concert opens with two or three items in a brisk tempo, including sections in “double tempo”, before elaborating a particular raga in a slow-to-fast format akin to the Hindustani format known as “imagination” (khyal or khayal) traceable to 18th c. court music;
  4. Carnatic recitals are enriched by arithmetic elements derived from the repertoires of temple and dance musicians, and coordinated by visible gestures (something listeners love to emulate for the sake of self-immersion or as a sign of appreciation); and not surprisingly, rhythmic intricacies were successfully adopted and refined as part of Hindustani tihai patterns, most successfully by Ravi Shankar in the course of collaborations with southern instrumentalists (duly acknowledged in Raga Mala: The Autobiography of Ravi Shankar); be it for his solo sitar recitals or novel, mostly temporary jugalbandi ensembles like the one documented on video: recorded in 1974 at the Royal Albert Hall in London: “As far back as 1945, I was absorbing the essence of these from the fixed calculative systems of the Carnatic system.” (To understand their application, watch a tarana on YouTube repeatedly, starting from 3:27) Unsurprisingly this process of give-and-take, once proven successful, has become too common to bother crediting it to any particular source, other than declaring it a “shared heritage” cherished by musicians and audiences all over the world: Unity in Diversity at its very best!

To appreciate some of the aforementioned characteristics in the context of South Indian music, listen to recitals by two of its most beloved exponents:

From the above mentioned differences follows the most important one, namely the amount of time assigned to compositions based on elaborate lyrics: the concise bandish in a Hindustani recital vs. the tripartite kriti several of which occupy pride of place in Carnatic music.

The standard syllabus for South Indian “classical” music is ascribed to 16th c. composer Purandara Dasa of Vijayanagar (modern Hampi in northern Karnataka as indicated on the music map seen below). His method proved so efficient as to provide a common ground for aspiring singers or instrumentalists from many regions and linguistic backgrounds. This may explain how such music invites the convergence of several voices or instruments into one (unison): a soloist accompanied by violin just as two vocalists (popular duos known as “Brothers” and “Sisters”), or pairs of flutes, lutes (vina) and violinists, all capable of achieving perfect alignment at any given moment during a recital; and this not merely for evenly paced motifs but with equal ease in richly embellished passages. For good measure, such feats require neither notation nor lengthy rehearsals but instead combine musical memory with considerable freedom to enrich predictable patterns with one’s own flights of imagination.

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As regards inevitable specialization such as a particular vocal or instrumental style, required for mastering certain melodic and rhythmic intricacies and compositions, there is an infinite variety to delve into: variety that explains the evolution of two great music “systems” that kept evolving and intersecting ever since musicologists became obsessed with classifying and validating certain features in the 19th and 20th centuries.

For non-Indian music lovers and students, Yehudi Menuhin’s reminiscences titled “Unfinished Journey” may be a good starting point: the violin virtuoso was among the first to appreciate fact that “Indian musicians are sensitive to the smallest microtonal deviations, subdivisions of tones which the violin can find but which are outside the crude simplifications of the piano (or harmonium)”. His interest in Indian violin music motivated Menuhin to invite the South Indian violin virtuoso Lalgudi Jayaraman to tour the UK and participate in the 1965 Edinburgh music festival.

For a better understanding of what Yehudi Menuhin meant by “smallest microtonal deviations”, listen to the very first composition most learners of Carnatic music have learned – a gitam (didactic song) by Purandara Dasa – in: A brief introduction to Carnatic music >>

Internet search screenshots for Indian music jazz fusion
“The classical music of the West has influenced
our musical culture” – Manohar Parnerkar in
Sruti Magazine August 2019 >>

Since then, musicians from various backgrounds have never ceased to contribute to an unprecedented intercultural dialogue: exponents of western classical, ecclesiastical and minimal music just as jazz, pop and film music, all set to explore new horizons together with their Indian peers.

Tips

  1. to explore the above topics on your own, refer the Indian sources recommended here >>
  2. in order to get a clear idea what this means in practice, listen closely to audio and video contents featuring two prominent families of violinists whose roots lie in South India: one known as the Parur bani (brothers M.S. Gopalakrishnan & M.S. Anantharaman), and the other brought into prominence by N. Rajam (Hindustani violin) and her brother T.N. Krishnan (Carnatic violin)

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Michael Zarky (Tuning Meister) for providing valuable tips and corrections for this post and previous Carnaticstudent courses including those offered in conjunction with university eLearning programmes.

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“There is music of mind, of the senses and of the heart” – Mahatma Gandhi >>
Photo © Ludwig Pesch

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  1. “The music of the Indian subcontinent is usually divided into two major traditions of classical music: Hindustani music of North India and Karnatak music of South India, although many regions of India also have their own musical traditions that are independent of these. […] In fact, many of these instruments are often used in both North and South India, and there are many clear relationships between the instruments of both regions. Furthermore, often instruments that are slightly different in construction will be identified by the same name in both the south and the north, though they might be used differently.” | Read the full essay “Musical Instruments of the Indian Subcontinent” by Allen Roda published by the Metropolitan Museum (New York) >> [↩]
  2. Noted musicologist V. Premalatha comes to the conclusion that as an “extra-musical factor”, association of time with rāga “survives very strongly in the North Indian system of music and has not affected the South Indian Music“. [↩]

Mahakavi Bharati: The Man, His Poetry, Those Times

Video lecture on the occasion of Mahakavi Subramania Bharati’s 100th death anniversary
play the facebook zoom recording (no fb-registration needed)

In commemoration of the 100th death anniversary of poet C. Subramania Bharati, join us on this virtual event as we celebrate the life and works of Mahakavi Bharati. Usha Rajagopalan is a writer, translator, and lake conservationist. Geetha Srikrishnan hails from a musically inclined family, and is a Classical Carnatic Musician.

An independent writer who moves from writing for children to translating Bharati’s poetry, Usha’s interest in Bharati’s poetry “was fuelled by hearing his songs sung by all ranks of singers”.

Read the full interview in The Hindu

Mahakavi Bharati’s great-granddaughter, Mira T. Sundara Rajan, highlights the humanistic traits that mark his patriotic poetry:

Internationalism was one of the keys to Bharati’s nationalism. Insularity of any kind was absolutely foreign to the poet’s temperament. On the contrary, his curiosity about the world was boundless, and he looked upon the varieties of culture and human experience as chief among the abundance of riches provided by the Divine Mother for humanity’s delight. For Bharati, nationalism could never mean a turning inward, a focus on national interest in the narrow sense, to the exclusion of the world at large. On the contrary, the world’s problems were India’s, and India’s were the world’s; so, too, were the shared ideals of culture, nature, and humanism that inspired his vision of Krutha Yuga, the epoch of enlightenment, which he unceasingly anticipated in all of his writings. […]

His appeal was to our common humanity, and neither tradition nor history could ever be a valid reason for denying it. […]

Source: “Subramania Bharati — The Eternal Revolutionary” by Mira T. Sundara Rajan, The Hindu, 12 September 2017
URL: https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/subramania-bharati-the-eternal-revolutionary/article19670435.ece
Date Visited: 25 May 2024

Selected Poems of Subramania Bharati
by Usha Rajagopalan

Ranging from the fiercely patriotic and the deeply romantic to the humbling intensity of devotion and the sharp criticism of self and society, this selection brings together poems that reflect the very essence of Bharati’s broad philosophy. Usha Rajagopalan’s translations echo the lyricism and transformative power that have lent Bharati’s poetry their distinctive and enduring quality. They seeks to complement what Bharati himself set out to do with the original text: to create an epic using ‘simple phrases, a simple style, easily received prosody, and the rhythms used in the language spoken by the common man.’

https://usharajagopalan.co.in/books/

[Bold typeface added above for emphasis]

Tip: to find a copy this publication, type the author’s name and title into the search field seen below

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Time theory in Vivekananda’s Concepts of Indian Classical Music

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The notion of a particular time prescribed for ragas (gāna kāla) plays a greater role in Hindustani music than for exponents of its southern counterpart where sārvakālika ragas prevail: ragas suited to any day or night time. A few ragas nevertheless continue to be associated with the moods indicated by song lyrics (notably in dance and drama, temple processions and rituals). Think of invoking the power to bring and stop (!) rain associated with a popular Carnatic raga (which is by no means limited by the underlying associations).

As listening habits have changed in ways as profound as the manner music is being taught and performed we may take a prominent voice into account; one that few have associated with music over the past century: Swami Vivekananda who felt that “the suitability of Raga with time or season is not totally unfounded” while asserting that it “has nothing to do with chronological changes [but] change in the atmosphere and natural environment with time and season [that] ushers a change in one’s mood which is suited to the melody of a particular Rag”.

Vivekananda came to inquire into other spheres of modern life – with an open mind yet always critical as far as popular beliefs and trends are concerned: “Most importantly, he demonstrated how South Asian ideas and traditions could be given universal appeal but still retain their identity, rather than simply being assimilated.” – Lalita Kaplish in “Vivekananda’s journey: How a young Indian monk’s travels around the world inspired modern yoga”

Learn more >>

In Carnatic music it is experience that stands central in an art closely linked to individual circumstances, tastes or regional conventions rather than dogma: in the words of renowned musicologist S. Seetha, “ragas assume different colours and shades of expression in their attempt to satisfy the musical needs and tastes of the people”. (Tanjore as a Seat of Music)

Noted musicologist V. Premalatha comes to the conclusion that as an “extra-musical factor”, association of time with rāga “survives very strongly in the North Indian system of music and has not affected the South Indian Music“.

Excerpt: “Association of Rasa and Kāla (time) with Rāga-s”

Outside drama, there were other situations when rāga was associated with kāla. These were the temple rituals and social functions. In a temple, the Āgamic texts prescribe rituals which had to be performed during different parts of the day. Invariably with every ritual, there was performance of music, in the form of singing or playing the Nāgasvara and for each part of the day, a particular rāga or some rāga-s were prescribed. In social functions like marriages too, specific rāga-s are prescribed to be played on the nāgasvara during early morning and other times of the day. […]

It is very important to note here that all these texts like Bṛhaddēśī and Saṅgītaratnākara specify that such and such a rāga should be used in such and such a rasa. The manner of specifying this has to be noted carefully. It is never mentioned that a rāga will evoke a particular rasa. It is always stated that in a particular rasa a particular rāga has to be employed. In other words the rasa is created primarily by sthāyibāva which is generated through vibhāva, anubhāva and sañcārībhāva-s. And with the rasa having been created, it is to be reinforced through the song or the rāga. Rāga, in this context, has to be understood more in the sense of a tune. Because today, rāga has the notion of a melodic basis or a melodic type, from which several tunes could be created. If a rāga is prescribed for a particular rasa today, then one could ask which tune based on it should be employed? As for instance, a rāga like kēdāragaula or mukhāri may have two or three tunes, and one may wonder, which one is to used. Hence it is presumed that in the context of drama rāga perhaps denoted a tune. And it has to be borne in mind that it is not the rāga or music that evoke the rasa, but other factors. […]

Thus the association of rāga with kāla had begun with drama, temple and social functions. When dissociated from such contexts, as for instance in art music, association of time with rāga, seems to be an extra-musical factor. […] This association still survives very strongly in the North Indian system of music and has not affected the South Indian Music.

Source: “Association of Rasa and Kāla (time) with Rāga-s” by Prof. V. Premalatha (Central University of Tamil Nadu, Thiruvarur)
URL: http://musicresearchlibrary.net/omeka/items/show/2287
Date Visited: 16 April 2024

Much to ponder on the basis of the present excerpt (see below)!

Tip: for today’s views on this subject among Carnatic scholars and performers search for “gana kala time theory” (go to the research page or in the text-cum-reference book compiled for this course).

*

Vivekananda (born January 12, 1863, Calcutta [now Kolkata]—died July 4, 1902, near Calcutta) Hindu spiritual leader and reformer >>

Note by Swami Prabhananda titled Original Publisher’s Submission dated 12 January 2000

Swami Vivekenanda’s illustrious life is like an open page, known to the world. One of the little known aspects of his life is his contribution in writing the musical Compilation “Sangeet Kalpataru“. He was just 24 years old when he had worked on this Compilation. He was not initiated to sainthood till then. He had collected 647 songs and written a long preface on the grammar of Indian music and on various musical instruments. He was known at that time as Narendranath Dutta. Many Vivekenanda research scholars had discussed this aspect of his life earlier.

Dr. Sarbananda Chowdhury, had collected valuable information and analysed the musical Compilation from different points of view in his article “Prashangeek Tathya O Alochona” (Relevant Information and Discussion). He had also emphasized the role of Narendra Nath Dutta and Baishnab Charan Basak in the Compilation and publication of the volume. He had also revealed the mystery behind how Swami Vivekananda’s name was eliminated as a compiler while the book was published edition after edition. He had made a logical evaluation of the historical importance of the book and its relevance in the world of music and thus earned the gratitude of one and all.

*

Narendranath Dutta (Swami Vivekananda) observes:

The Ragas where all seven notes are used are called Shampurna.

Those which use only six notes are called the Kharab. Those which use five notes are called the Orab.

Let us take the example of Bhairab. This Raga uses all the seven notes. We know from our knowledge of mathematics that the seven notes can be arranged in (7x6x5x4x3x2x1)=5040 combinations. There are different Tals as well. If 5040 combinations of notes are used in each combination of Tal then one person cannot possibly play all possible combinations of one Raga in his lifetime.

Ragas are considered the males and the Raginis the females. It is said that there are six Ragas and thirtysix Raginis. This concept is also not absolute, there are differences of opinion on this. Generally the following are considered the Ragas:

Bhairab, Sree, Malkosh, Basant, Megh and Nat Narayan. The scriptures had identified Ragas and Raginis to be suitably played at a particular time of the day or in a particular season. Ragas like Mallar sound very pleasing in the monsoon. In spring Bahar Basant sound very pleasant.

There are different opinions though. Some say one gets used to listening to a particular Raga in a particular season. That habit makes it suitable for that time. It has nothing to do with chronological changes. We think that the change in the atmosphere and natural environment with time and season ushers a change in one’s mood which is suited to the melody of a particular Raga. Hence the suitability of Raga with time or season is not totally unfounded.

Modern songs do not create such ambience because of a number of reasons. Firstly, the Ragas are not very correctly followed in the tune of modern songs. Secondly, the lyrics of some modern songs do not tally with the mood of the Ragas and Raginis in which the tune is made. For instance, Khambaj is a Ragini of erotic mood. If the lyrics of a song based on Khambaj is composed on pathos, it would result in a terrible mismatch. The song would evoke neither pathos nor eroticism.

The following are the names of different Ragas and Raginis which are sung or played at different hours of the day.

Morning – Bhairab, Lalita, Jogincha, Asha, Bibhas, Todi, Bhairabi, Alaiya, Bangali, Belabati etc.

Midday – Sarang, Gour-Sarang etc.

Afternoon – Multani, Bhimru, Palasree, Baroan, Pilu etc.

Sunset and Twilight – Sree, Purabi, Gouri, Purba etc.

Early night or Evening – Iman Kalyan, Kedar, Hambir, Bagesree, Kanara etc.

Late night – Bahar, Basant, Behag etc.

Source:

Swami Vivekananda’s Concepts Of Indian Classical Music translated by Paras Dutta (Kolkata: Naya Udyog 2008); Bengali title: Sangeet Kalpataru, pp. 14-15