Lesson video

Hi again, everybody.

My name is Mr. Croughan, and I'm excited that we get to continue to work through our unit on improvising in Hindustani classical music.

Today's lesson is all about raags.

We're going to understand what a raag is, what the notes in different raags are, how we can sing a raag, and how we can play them.

And we're going to be doing that together.

By the end of this lesson, you will have sung and played notes from a raag.

Let's start by looking at our keywords.

We begin with the sitar.

The sitar is the stringed instrument from India that the raag is commonly played on.

So let's look at raag itself.

This comes from the Sanskrit language meaning "to colour", and a raag is a melodic framework.

It's the musical notes used to make a composition or an improvisation.

Thirdly, the saptak.

Saptak is the seven notes in Indian classical music.

Now, we know that before we start our lesson proper, we warm up.

We warm up our minds and our voices, so we're ready to play music together and sing together.

If we focus on rhythm and pulse, it's gonna help us develop our sense of timing.

This is going to be really important when we are playing music as part of a whole class, as an ensemble, and also when we sing together.

And if we're warming up using pitch, that's gonna help us think about our tuning, to sing in tune.

And this is really important.

Singing is a huge feature of Hindustani classical music.

So there are three activities on this slide.

There is clap, stomp, shh, which you might remember from doing previously.

So with this one, feel free to put the clap on whichever beat you want, put the stomp on a different beat, and you could even add a new thing in.

Maybe we tap our heads on beat three, or whatever.

Start with eight beats, and then see if you can do a different number, seven or nine.

It really is up to you.

There is an audio button there to help you keep a steady pulse.

Then have a revisit of "Hi Lo Chickalo".

Is it smoother this week? Are you in tune? Have you increased your tempo? Are you playing quicker? And then for our pitch, that ♪ One ♪ ♪ One two one ♪ ♪ One two three two one ♪ and so on.

Keep it steady and keep all together, and you should be able to start to hear if you are in tune.

So pause the video here, work through each of those in your classroom, and take up to 10 minutes in total, maybe allowing about three minutes for each one.

Off you go.

If you are ready to sing, you will be feeling that pulse.

You'll likely be singing in tune.

And you'll feel alert.

You'll feel focused and ready to progress with the lesson.

So, looking at our two learning cycles today, we look at how a sitar player, or a sitarist, plays a raag.

And then we'll be playing notes from a raag ourself.

So first of all, I'm going to introduce you to a sitar player.

This is Jasdeep Singh Degun.

He is a multi-award winning musician.

He's a sitar player.

He is a composer.

His albums are fantastic and I'm a huge fan.

And here is Jasdeep in this video clip coming up now introducing himself, and then introducing the concepts of Hindustani classical music.

<v ->Hello, I am Jasdeep Singh Degun,</v> and I'm a sitar player and composer from Leeds.

This instrument here is called the sitar, and it's used in North Indian classical music.

And that's what I'm gonna be speaking about today with you guys.

Have a little listen.

(plays sitar) So focusing on Hindustani classical music.

Now, what is Hindustani classical music? As with all musical traditions, you have many, many different concepts, like melody and rhythm and harmony.

And in Indian classical music, or Hindustani classical music, we also have the same concepts.

But we have different names for each of the concepts.

So we have a raag, which is the melody, the melodic side of things.

We have taal, which is rhythm.

And that's the rhythmical side of things where you have the beat cycle.

And then we have drone, or tanpura, which is the harmony of the music.

Now, today we will be focusing on the raag side of things, which is the melody.

Now, I play the sitar, which is a melodic instrument.

And as you can see, it looks a little bit like a guitar.

And I'll be getting into how I play this very soon.

<v ->Brilliant, okay.

</v> Very quick check-in.

Which of the following plays a raag? Is it the tanpura? Is it the tabla? Or is it the sitar? Which plays the raag? A, B, or C? Absolutely right, everyone.

It is the sitar, well done.

Now, this raag word we're using describes the melodic part of Hindustani classical music.

It's a combination of different notes.

It's selected notes that have been chosen to form a particular raag.

As Jacob says, "That raag is the main tune that we hear." Now, have a watch of how Jasdeep explains, once we've chosen a raag, we can only use the notes contained in that raag.

(Hindustani music drones) <v ->Now, you might have been wondering about the word raag</v> that I've been using all the time when I've been speaking.

Now what is a raag? That's a very, very tough question.

But to make it simple, a raag is basically like a scale.

And a scale is a combination of different notes.

So if I was to use all the pure notes, ♪ Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni Sa ♪ ♪ Sa Ni Dha Pa Ma Ga Re Sa ♪ This is a raag that we call, or a scale, called Bilawal.

So we have a different name for different raags.

So if I played another raag called Bhimpalasi, this would use the notes ♪ Ni Sa Ga Ma Pa Ni Sa ♪ ♪ Sa Ni Dha Pa Ma Ga Re Sa ♪ So can you see this sounds a little bit different.

And like this, we have hundreds and hundreds of different raags that all have different notes in them.

And within a raag, whenever I play a raag, I'm only allowed to use the notes in that raag.

Now, the interesting thing with raags is that, we are only supposed to play them at different times of the day.

So some raags we play in the evening, some raags we play in the afternoon, some raags that we play in the morning.

So morning raag could be a raag called Bhairav.

And we are only allowed to play that raag in the morning.

Some raags that we have are seasonal.

So we have raags that are associated with spring, with summer, with the monsoon.

We also have raags that are associated with some of the gods.

So raags can have a lot of meaning attached.

It's not just a scale.

<v ->And I'm sure you've all been paying very close attention</v> and can answer this swiftly.

You can play any notes when you are playing a raag.

Is that true or is that false? You could play any notes when you are playing a raag.

True or false? It is false.

You can only use the notes from the raag that you are playing.

And we're going to explore that a bit further now.

Now, depending on the sort of gig or music performance that you might go and see, you may or may not see music written down.

So in an orchestral performance, there might be lots of musicians with music stands with all of their music, or maybe down in an orchestra pit in a theatre, you'd see all of the music and all of those players following the music so they know what to play.

Very differently, you might go to a rock gig.

And the band has learned all of the songs.

And so, they don't need any music in front of them.

In Hindustani classical music, so much of the work is improvised once they've decided which raag they might be playing in, that they don't use any sheet music.

They simply know where all the notes are.

So how does a sitar player know what to play? We're going to watch Jasdeep to answer that question.

<v ->So in our tradition,</v> we have something called the Guru-Shishya Parampara, which means the teacher-student tradition.

So I have a teacher who has taught me everything.

And that's through an oral tradition where he says or sings what he wants me to play and I have to copy it.

So in Western music, you may have heard, Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, or C, D, E, F, G, A, B.

So in Indian classical music, we have a Sargam system that also we say Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni.

And we sing that.

So, ♪ Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni Sa ♪ I'm not a very good singer, so you have to excuse me for that.

So, ♪ Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni Sa ♪ ♪ Sa Ni Dha Pa Ma Ga Re Sa ♪ And so if I was to play that.

(plays scale on sitar) (Hindustani music drones) Now, the way that this is passed on is that we are supposed to know exactly where the note is.

So ♪ Sa is here ♪ ♪ Ga is there ♪ ♪ Pa is there ♪ ♪ Ni Re Ga Dha Pa ♪ ♪ Re Ga Ma Re Ga Sa ♪ So any melody, I should be able to sing in the sargam.

So let's take the melody of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star".

I can sing that in sargam, or the solfege.

So if we'd go ♪ Twinkle twinkle little star ♪ this would be ♪ Sa Sa Pa Pa Dha Dha Pa ♪ ♪ Ma Ma Ga Ga Re Re Sa ♪ Can you see? And I can play that on the sitar.

So my teacher would say, "Okay, play." ♪ Sa Sa Pa Pa Dha Dha Pa ♪ And I'd go.

(plays melody on sitar) ♪ Ma Ma Ga Ga Re Re Sa ♪ (plays melody on sitar) So I could do anything.

♪ Sa Re Ga Ma ♪ (plays melody on sitar) ♪ Ga Ma Dha Pa ♪ (plays melody on sitar) ♪ Ga Ma Re Ga ♪ (plays melody on sitar) ♪ Ga Re Sa Ni Re Sa ♪ (plays melody on sitar) ♪ Sa Ni Dha Ni Sa ♪ (plays melody on sitar) ♪ Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni ♪ (plays melody on sitar) ♪ Ni Dha Pa Ma Ga Re Sa Ni Sa ♪ (plays melody on sitar) <v ->Brilliant.

Thanks Jasdeep.

</v> Now you might have heard me use the word "Sanskrit" a couple of times.

Sanskrit is a classical language of India.

Many ancient texts are written in this language.

There's an ancient text called Natya Shastra, which is more than 2000 years old, and is all about the arts, about music and art and dance and writing.

So many ancient texts use the language of Sanskrit.

In Sanskrit, sapta means seven.

So this is where we get saptak from.

Saptak are the seven notes that we use in Indian music.

So we have Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni.

In class, I'd like you to chant each note of the saptak as a whole class.

So collectively, you'll all say, "Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni." Off you go.

And.

Really well done.

Good stuff.

Moving on.

We're going to listen to Jasdeep singing the saptak so that now we can pitch those note names in tune with his sitar.

So first of all, let's have a listen.

♪ Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni Sa ♪ ♪ Sa Ni Dha Pa Ma Ga Re Sa ♪ And now we are going to have a go at doing it ourselves.

So we're going to sing along to the sitar.

We will sing up, Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni, Sa.

And then we'll sing back down.

Sa, Ni, Dha, Pa, Ma, Ga, Re, Sa.

Okay, the words are there on the screen to help you.

Laura is singing them, and we've got the arrow with the pitch going up and the arrow with the pitch going down.

Here comes the sitar, be ready to join in.

Here we go.

(sitar plays scale) (sitar plays scale) Really well done.

We're now going to apply that learning to something we did in the warmup.

So with our song "Hi Lo Chickalo", we're going to use the notes of the saptak.

So, Andeep on the left side of the screen is singing.

♪ Hi lo chicka lo ♪ ♪ Chicka lo ♪ That you know.

And on the other side, Sofia is singing this using the saptak.

So she's singing ♪ Sa Pa Dha Dha Pa ♪ and so on.

So we are going to have a go.

You might want to remind yourself of singing collectively with the lyrics to "Hi Lo Chickalo" first.

And then change that to using the notes of the saptak.

Pause the video and practise this where you are.

Really great efforts, everybody! Super duper.

Now, let's just check.

Did we sing the correct notes of the saptak? And then, how do we know? Well, Sam knew that the first note of "Hi Lo Chickalo" is the higher Sa.

And so started on the right note.

And then could change the lyrics, the words to "Hi Lo Chickalo" using the notes in the saptak.

And that sort of starts to help us realise where Sa is, and Pa and Dah.

And so we're starting to sing in tune using the saptak.

Now, moving on to the second learning cycle of our lesson, we are going to be playing notes from a raag.

So now we're going to get the instruments out that we have available to us.

In Hindustani classical music, we know that raags are often played on a sitar, like the one we've seen Jasdeep playing.

And we know that the notes in the raag are Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni.

They are the seven notes in the saptak.

And it's similar to Western music.

In Western music they have the solfege system of Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti.

They're the seven notes there too.

And on a keyboard, on a piano keyboard, you can see that they say C-D-E-F-G-A-B.

The words we are using today are from the saptak.

Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni.

The instruments in your classroom may be glockenspiels, you might have a couple of xylophones, maybe a set of chime bars, possibly even a keyboard or two.

So the instruments you're going to use are what's available to you.

Hopefully maybe one between two, or one for each table in your classroom.

And we're going to play notes from a raag using these instruments.

We'll begin by finding Sa.

So looking at your instrument, towards the left, where the lower pitch range is, find C.

Find a C.

That's where we're placing Sa.

And just play that once.

Play it confidently, know where it is, don't play it lots of times.

Now you've found out where C is.

This is where Sa is.

We are going to play up the saptak from Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni, and then to complete the octave, Sa at the other end.

So we have ♪ Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni Sa ♪ Okay? And you're going to play it slowly and gently.

Here is a short video of me playing the saptak, so you can see it playing low to high, and then high to low.

Here it comes.

(plays scale on glockenspiel) Quickly pause the video here and practise that where you are.

Now that you've discovered where the notes are and what they sound like, and you've played them up and you've played them down, we're going to try singing them at the same time.

So have a watch of the video.

This is me having a go, having a try at playing the notes and singing them at the same time.

Here it comes.

♪ Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni Sa ♪ ♪ Sa Ni Dha Pa Ma Ga Re Sa ♪ Okay, now it's our turn.

We are going to have a go at playing and singing at the same time.

Now let's give ourselves a break here.

Our brains are going to be working quite hard.

We're playing the notes, and we're singing them at the same time.

So we're trying to remember almost a new language if we've not sung in the sargam before.

So we are singing Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni Sa, and then when we play back down from higher to lower, we are saying, Sa Ni Dha Pa Ma Ga Re Sa.

So really take your time, play slowly, and try and speak those notes from the saptak as best you can.

Pause the video here, give yourself a couple of attempts.

Off you go.

Well done! If you managed to do that at the same time, that is your brain working very hard.

Excellent.

Now, in each raag, we can play the notes ascending.

That's the aaroh.

And descending, the avroh.

We're going to listen now to Raag Bhupali.

This is Jasdeep playing, and it's a calm evening raag.

Have a listen.

<v ->Now every single raag has a specific</v> ascending and descending scale.

Now, ascending means going up, and descending means coming down.

And in Indian classical music, we call this aaroh and avroh.

So the aaroh, or the ascending, or the going up in this raag, has five notes, which is, ♪ Sa Re Ga Pa Dha Sa ♪ So that's the aaroh.

And then we have the avroh, which is the descending, or coming down.

♪ Sa Dha Pa Ga Re Sa ♪ So together, the aaroh and avroh of Raag Bhupali is ♪ Sa Re Ga Pa Dha Sa ♪ ♪ Sa Dha Pa Ga Re Sa ♪ <v ->So as Jasdeep explains to us,</v> we don't use every note available to us.

We use the notes in this raag.

So Raag Bhupali is what we call a pentatonic raag.

If you think of the shape, a pentagon has five sides.

A pentatonic raag has five notes.

And those notes are Sa, Re, Ga, Pa, Dha.

And then you can see at the top, there's the second Sa.

So Sa is the same note, one octave higher.

So the notes we use are Sa, Re, Ga, Pa, Dha, Sa, at the top.

Take a little moment now to look at the instrument that you have available to you, and find Sa, Re, Ga, Pa, Dha, Sa.

So you've got the low Sa and the high Sa, and Re, Ga, Pa, Dha, in between.

Find those on your instrument so that you know where they are.

Okay? Pause the video for a second and find those.

Hopefully you've been able to discover where they are on the keyboard or glockenspiel in front of you.

There's two notes that we don't use.

So we know in our saptak we have Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni, Sa.

Two of those don't feature at all in Raag Bhupali.

So if you found those notes on your keyboard, hopefully you might know which two we don't use.

So are they, Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni, Sa? Two of those we don't use.

Can you identify them? I'll give you a moment.

Maybe have a look at your instrument in front of you, work out which ones you didn't play.

They're all written in order to help you.

And if you've got this right, really well done.

We don't have Ma, that's the fourth note.

♪ Sa Re Ga Ma ♪ ♪ Ma is not in Raag Bhupali ♪ And Ni.

♪ Pa Dha Ni ♪ Isn't in Raag Bhupali ♪ Sa ♪ So we have ♪ Sa Re Ga Pa Dha Sa ♪ "We miss out Ma and Ni," says Lucas, "When playing Raag Bhupali." Yes, we do.

So we'll keep that in mind.

And you're gonna have a practise now.

You're going to find those notes from Raag Bhupali again on your instrument.

And if you don't have one each, make sure that we're taking it in turns, and you're going to play the aaroh.

That's the notes going up and ascending.

And then the avroh, the notes coming down.

There's a video coming up to help you.

After the video, press pause, have a chance to practise, and then we'll come back together.

(plays aaroh on glockenspiel) (plays avroh on glockenspiel) Really well done.

Hopefully you've all had a chance to play the aaroh of Raag Bhupali, and the avroh.

We're now gonna explore those notes in different ways.

In a moment, we'll stop the video to give you a chance to really explore Raag Bhupali on your instruments.

I'd like you to have a go at playing those notes in a different order.

You don't just have to play the aaroh and the avroh.

Have a try at playing them really slowly.

How does it feel? What if you went a bit quicker? And then explore the dynamics.

If you play really softly, does it sound differently to if you play a little louder? Try each of those things.

You could try them in turn.

You might just try playing the notes in a different order.

Then you might do that a little bit quicker, a little bit slower, and then you might see if you can make it a bit louder and then see how quiet you can make it.

I imagine you'll be able to create a different feeling when you play slowly and softly.

For example, pause the video and take a good 10 minutes to explore playing those notes from Raag Bhupali on your instruments.

And play them to each other.

Well done.

I hope you've had fun just playing those notes in Raag Bhupali.

Now let's check.

Have we been successful at our task? Aisha says she played slowly and gently, and that actually created an evening feel.

She remembered that Raag Bhupali is described as a late evening raag, and it evoked that feeling for Aisha.

When Jacob played, he said, oh, he played a note that wasn't from the raag, so maybe he played a Ma or a Ni, and then sort of noticed that that didn't sound quite right, and was able to correct himself.

Sofia played the aaroh and the avroh without making mistakes.

So she was able to stick to knowing that she could play those notes going up in that order, and then down.

And Andeep explored changing dynamics, was able to play a bit softer, maybe getting a bit louder.

So if you've explored each of those areas, then you've done really well.

Before we finish our lesson today, let's have a recap on our learning.

We know that in Hindustani classical music, a raag is the melodic framework, the melodic part of the music.

When we play Hindustani classical music, we only use the notes that belong to the raag that we've decided to use.

Like today was Raag Bhupali.

Raag Bhupali has five notes, and there are many different raags, and different raags have different numbers and different combinations of notes.

And lastly, in a raag, the aaroh is the name of the scale going up from low to high, and the avroh is the name of the descending scale.

I hope you've had lots of fun with those instruments today, and I will look forward to seeing you next time.