I have sampled the Sarangi and have programmed it to play in a PC based sampler called Gigastudio. It is tuned to a chromatic western scale. Does anyone have a chart explaining the differences between Western and Indian scales. How many cents must I change each note to create an Indian scale? For example, A +10, A# -49, B -4 ?
Re:authentic north indian tuning???? help please!!
Apr 13, 2001 05:13 p.m.
Hello friend,
Let me try to answer what i think you are asking. There is both a simple and a complex answer. For the simple answer. .many Indian songs use the raga (scale) Bilaval, which is exactly the same as a western major scale. For the complex answer, (as the book "an introduction to Indian classical music", by Chaitanya Devi says) there are 72 basic ragas (scales). Most artists master only a few specific ragas. If you look at the song listings on any of you Indian CD's you'll probably find a listing of the songs name and the raga it is played in. Each raga has it's own particular scale (set of specific notes to be played).
The really complicated part to my western mind is that on some ragas there is a specifc set of notes fro accending melodies and a slightly different set for descending melodies!
Just for a reference point indian classical music uses for C the pitch westerners use for C#. so every note is a semi-tone higher.
In the previously mentioned book I have a listing of some of the most popular ragas with their western eqivelants, and I have checked them against another western book to find that some are exactly the same as ex. a Dorian mode, a mixolydian mode, a natural minor scale, etc. etc.
If this is the type of further information you want let me know. I trust what little I have offered will be of some assisitance.
Happy learning
Marc
