Mayamalavagaula and Mohanam as Beginner Ragams

Most students of Carnatic vocal music are taught the beginner lessons in the Ragam Mayamalavagaula:

Here is a picture of the scale.

The beginner lessons are commonly taught in Mayamalavagaula because:

a) It has all seven notes, i.e. Sa, Ri, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni, Sa (the higher Sa is not counted separately).

b) It does not have dual swarasthanas. The notes of Mayamalavagaula cannot be placed in other sthanas. If, for example, it had chatusruthi rishabham in it, the rishabham would be to equivalent to shuddha (komal) gandharam

c) It has a pair of symmetrical tetrachords. Traditionally, a tetrachord is a series of four tones filling in the interval of a perfect fourth, a 4:3 frequency proportion.

The tetrachords in Mayamalavagaula are S R1 G3 M1 and P D1 N3 S

d) Between pairs of notes it there is a difference of a semi-tone. So, for example, in the pair S R1, Ri is very close to Sa; in the pair G3 M1; Ga is very close to Ma; in the pair P D1; Dha is very close to Pa; and in the pair N S; Ni is very close to Sa.

e) It does not contain any vivadi swaras or “dissonant” notes. These notes are sometimes called “enemy” notes.

If you write the scale of Mayamalavagaula down it would look like this:
Arohana (ascending scale): S R1 G3 M1 P D1 N3 S
Avarohana (descending scale): S N3 D1 P M1 G3 R1 S

To give them their full names the notes of Mayamalavagaula are: Shuddha Rishabham, Antara Gandharam, Shuddha Madhyamam, Shuddha Dhaivatham, and Kākali Nishadham

I have just come across Seetha Rajan’s cd for beginners and she teaches beginners in Mohanam (Hindustani equivalent is Bhoop or Bhupali). The detailed beginner swara exercises in Mohanam can be heard here.
The sleeve notes to the CD on the Charsur website state:

In the case of vocal music, a student with an innate sense for svarasthAnAs may not have any difficulty singing these adjacent notes – sa & ri, pa & dha for instance, in their exact pitches. But an average student has difficulty in grasping these svarasthanas, as the intervals in between the pairs of svaras are very small. If correction of these is not effected at this stage, the defects get more and more pronounced as the student moves on to higher levels of music. But the catch in this situation is, that due to this particular combination of svara intervals, even repeated correction does not, in many cases prove effective. And if, for a considerable period of time, the student is not able to make much headway, he/she is likely to get demoralised, if the teacher persists, in all earnestness, to rectify the defect before proceeding further.

In this context Smt Seetha Rajan has decided to introduce the pentatonic scale mOhanam for beginners and found the results very satisfying. rAga mAyAmALavaguaLa is taught at a later stage when the student has developed a good sense of pitch. The choice of raga mOhanam, an auDava raga is primarily due to the presence of clear and wide intervals between the notes of the scale. This scale has ri, ga and dha of the sharp variety apart from ShaDja and pancama and hence there is a certain brightness about the rAga. The first requirement of musical training, i.e. opening-up of the voice is made easier by the practice of these sharp notes which facilitate “loud and bold” singing. The wide interval between the svarAs renders it easy for the children to comprehend the sthAnAs of the notes. The notes of the raga are more or less plain. Therefore rendition without gamakAs does not in any way affect the svarUpa of this raga. Moreover, if a student starts with graces or gamakAs right from his first lessons, his svarasthAnAs are seen to lack stability. Hence the selection of mOhanam with it’s pointed and sharp notes becomes logical.

Another point to be taken note of is that all the seven svaras need not be introduced right at the outset. In mOhanam the student has only to concentrate on ri, ga and dha apart from sa and pa. This is to be followed by many more auDava rAgAs,each with a different combination of sharp and flat notes, before the student is introduced to sampUrna ragas. In this method of teaching, the sequence of ragas has been planned in a logical manner, so as to introduce at each step, one or two new notes hitherto not dealt with. rAgAs with sharp svarAs are taken up initially. This is followed by those with kOmala svarAs. By the time a student covers six or seven ragas, he/she would be familiar with all the twelve svarasthAnAs of the octave.

link

Related Posts:

• Indian Classical Music for Children~5
• What is a Raga (5): Similar Aarohana and Avarohana-Different Ragas
• What is a Raga (3)- Aaroh/Avroh or Aarohana and Avarohana (Ascending and Descending Note Sequences)
• Introducing Yourself to Indian Classical Music 14: More on Sur/Shruti or Pitch
• Introducing Yourself to Indian Classical Music 13-What’s your frequency? The Tanpura/Tambura and finding your Sur, Shruti or Pitch