North Indian music recognizes 10 such Thaats. They are Sampooran i.e. containing seven tones in the octave, whereas a Raga may contain five, six or all the seven notes or any combination thereof. A Thaat is only a group of abstract tonal forms, but a Raga is a combination of notes having the power of generating and creating emotional values.

Thaat literally means "to tie" standing for the process of tying down frets to signify musical note intervals. Carnatic music has a more comprehensive collection of parent modes called Melakartas. These are 72 in number. We will deal with these in the future issues of RagaNet.

Included in this artice are midi files of the ten thaats. We recommend you configure a player. We use the standard "mid" extension. In Netscape, use the "configure player" option to add the utility. Sing along with the Sargam.

In all this, keep in mind that the Thaats are not Ragas. We will list the the 1st derivative Ragas from these Thaats in the next article. The Ragas are named after their parent mode. For instance, For Bilaval Thaat, its first derivative Raga will also be Bilaval.

Finally, my father and I have made a very comprehensive collection of the most popular and written about ragas. We have titled this work as "Ragopedia - an encyclopedia of exotic scales of North India" It is written in Staff and Indian Sargam notations and features almost 680 ragas. Th further elaborate on this, my father has composed songs to teach each of these ragas. These are called Lakshan Geet. They are aquick and wonderful way of singing and learning - atechnique that is age old in the Indian tradition but not until now, it was only available to the Hindi speaking Indian music student. For the Western student this meant a door that was closed. Today, due to my father - Pandit Shiv Dayal Batish's amazing compositions, any student from the West can also learn these songs that are based on the raga and the lyrics teach the rules of that raga!

Here is the information on this: This encyclopedia is for all musicians interested in boosting their compositional creativity. Notated in Western staff and Indian sargam, it is a reference guide designed to put you in touch with the wealth of exotic raga scales of North India. Now you too will have access to the very same knowledge that is an integral part and foundation of practicing Indian musicians. Keep it handy and tap its wealth.

Thaat Asavari

Thaat Bhairava

Thaat Bhairavi

Thaat Bilaval

Thaat Kafi

Thaat Kalyan

Thaat Khammaj

Thaat Marava

Thaat Pooravi

Thaat Todi

First 10 Thaat Raga Chalan Set

10 Thaats of North India Chalans featuring raga expansions on Asavari, Bhairavi, Bhairava, Bilaval, Kafi, Kalyan, Marawa, Khammaj, Pooravi and Todi. by S. D. Batish and Ashwin Batish. To teach the raga expansion, we have made a great combination set that you might consider ordering. Here is more information on this.

MIDI music playback on 3 CDs or 10 cassettes with Lead Sheets written in Staff and Sargam Notations (total 56 pages) for the 1st 10 Thaat Ragas: Asavari, Bhairava, Bhairavi, Bilaval, Kafi, Kalyan, Khammaj, Marava, Pooravi, and Todi. Some introductory theory is also included. This set will give you a good idea of the larger 7 volume Chalan set.

Raga Chalan, Swar Vistar,
Raga Improvisation Chalan (Books)

Every raga Chalan has at its beginning, the information from the Ragopedia:

Raga Name, Thaat, Play time, Vadi, Samvadi followed by its Arohi/Avarohi in Staff and Sargam notations.

To this Ragopedia information are added new pointers that will help you understand the raga more fully. These additions are highlighted below:

1. Doha: A two line verse summarizing the most important raga elements.
2. Jati: Ascending and descending note classification.
3. Note Info: A list of modified (Vikrit) notes used in the raga
4. Pakar: The raga's cognitive or catch phrase.
5. Mood: The moods this raga evokes.
6. Playing Hints & Comments: Additional details about the raga.
7. Carnatic Affiliation: This compares the North Indian raga with any South Indian types. If a close match is found, it is so stated, giving its S. I. name, along with information on any composition Panditji has composed on it. This segment also links the Southern and the Northern works composed by Panditji.

Issues:

CATALOG ARCHIVES RAGANET RAGMALA MIDI PANDIT GURU SHISHYA S.D. BATISH ASHWIN BATISH CONCERTS INSTRUMENTS LINKS CD, DVD DUPS

email: info [at] batish.com