Last week I started raga Bhairavi: stunningly beautiful, but the shifted fret at komal re drives me crazy: I always mistake komal re for Sa. I'm actually thing of putting an extra fret (at komal re) so I don't have to shift the fret. I know there are players who have done this (Manilal Nag, Balaram & Ashok Pathak). Is this herecy? I wondered why these frets were missing in the first place, but right now when playing it really gets on my nerves. Have any of you any suggesations?
There is nothing wrong with that at all, in fact I suggest why don't you just put frets where all the komal re and komal dha frets are, it is much nicer, and is actually considered more formal among Dhrupad afficionados as it is closer to the frets on a rudra veena.
Beenkar Ted Ceplina
I asked this question several years ago on this forum, so if you go waaaay back, you will find it. I don't remember what the responses were, but would imagine that the number one response would be that you would never need the fret at both komal and shuddha positions at the same time (unless you want to be creditied with adding the 11th thaat to the accepted list, perhaps someone familiar with Karnatic forms of music would give you a different answer). On the rare occasion that you want to modulate, perhaps you should see if you can do it through meend.
