Re: Morning versus Evening Ragas

[Bernard Mont-Reynaud <bernard.montreynaud@xxxxxxxxx>]

I have no data that would be the basis for an informed answer. I should
ask my musician friends from India what they know about this. Also, do
we have Parag Chordia on this list? He might contribute here.

This said, I got curious, so -- using a familiar search engine -- I found
the simple advice given by eHow.com on this topic; see details below.

Now I am wondering if the difference has to do simply with the overall
'energy' contour of the piece, based on all indicators of arousal. This
might be where I'd look first.

Regarding musical genre discussions, a la ISMIR, what's a good place
to have them? Chances are, the Auditory list is not ideal for this topic.
-b

(1) Compare this first piece of advice:

  Notice the tone of the morning raga. It should be slower, like you
are just rousing
  and having a hard time getting out of bed. It then turns more
vibrant, as if you are
  just seeing the sunlight coming through the window and you get out of bed.
  Then with a bit more zest, as if you are starting through your
leisurely morning.
  Read more: How to Play a Morning Raga for Sitar | eHow.com
http://www.ehow.com/how_2294112_play-morning-raga-sitar.html#ixzz0yOofsLln

with this second one:

  Notice the tone and timing of the evening raga. A raga is based on a scale,
  but is less specific than a scale; likewise it is more specific than a song.
  Ragas can be used in a variety of ways. Khamaj is a romantic evening raga
  with a melodic and soft sound to it.
  Read more: How to Play an Evening Raga for Sitar | eHow.com
http://www.ehow.com/how_2315239_play-evening-raga-sitar.html#ixzz0yOs0Kc5N

So, we go from "slow to zest" for the morning raga, to "romantic" for
the evening
raga -- whatever that means for the arousal contour.

(2) Another devious thought: The raga form lets you play what inspires you, and
there may be no formal distinction between 'morning' and 'evening' raga, no rule
that would tell one from the other. But to say just "a raga" does not
roll as well
off the tongue as "a morning raga" or "an evening raga" -- hence one would
use the more specific-sounding terms, even if there is no actual genre
distinction,
and it is usually easy to find a way to tell which was which, in context ;-)
[True scholars of raga, come out of the woods and tell us why this is wrong!]


On Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 11:00 AM, Douglas Eck <eckdoug@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Maybe this isn't the perfect list for this question, but I suspect
> I'll get an answer or two.
>
> I'm curious about morning versus evening ragas.  Can musical experts
> tell them apart?  What are the qualities that define a morning versus
> evening raga?
> Is it something that would show up via an acoustical analysis of the
> audio drawn from lots of morning and evening ragas?
>
> Citations would be great. Or just some observations.
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Doug Eck
> ------------------------------------------
> Dr. Douglas Eck
> Research Scientist, Google
> Areas: Music and Machine Learning
> http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~eckdoug
>