Sore Fingers

Not mine, Ravi Shankar's
impressive grooves

Just a short post today. I've been practising a lot over the last couple of days and now my fingertips are feeling a tender. I had been neglecting my practice routine a little bit previously but the grooves in my fingertips are coming back nicely.

I'm still playing in Bhimpalasi, I just love the sound of it. It's funny how different your playing can be by switching ragas. For some reason this one feels a bit more natural to me than Yaman and I'm finding it a lot easier to explore. That komal Ga is just lovely.

I've been working on meends a lot and I'm making some progress with them. They're becoming more accurate and I'm starting to play with making them more expressive rather than just sliding from one note to another. This is going to take a lot more practice but the meends are already sounding better with a little vibrato here and there. I'm practising little runs up the neck and ending with a meend up to a higher note, and although it's proving difficult (more difficult than just doing a normal meend), I am getting there. It's very satisfying to see progress!

I'm also finding the meends easier in Bhimpalasi for some reason, I know they they shouldn't really. I still have the muscle memory of going Dha, Pa, tivra Ma from Yaman and it's a tough habit to break, I need to practice going down to the natural Ma, I'm sure I'll get it eventually.

I'm also love modulating the komal Dha, it just sounds so good, either in a meend or just a plain fretted note.

As I previously wrote, discovering Nikhil Banerjee's version of Bhimpalasi was the sole reason for me wanting to learn this raga but now I have discovered a recording of Sindhi Bhairavi that has simply blown me away. I was never a huge fan of NK until very recently but these two recordings are making him one of my favourite players.

I think I have a slightly different version but it's still amazing.


Raag Sindhi Bhairavi -by Pandit Nikhil Banerjee from Syed Wajid on Vimeo.

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Bhimpalasi Gat in Teental

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have been playing with raga Bhimpalasi recently. I have to say that it currently my favourite raga and is so much fun to play in. It has a darker mood than Yaman which makes a nice change after playing that for so long.

Here is a gat that I have been learning, it is simple but sounds lovely. It is in teental:

I don't have much else to post at the moment, I haven't had a lot of time to practice really. I've spent quite when seems ages this week just learning to tune by ear. It's actually a lot easier than I thought and I don't know why I didn't start doing it ages ago.

All you have to do is tune the Sa string to whatever note you want to use (C, C# or D usually) and tune everything to that, listening to the dissonance in each string and adjusting until it stops fluttering. So simple.

I also managed to fix a small problem I was having with fret placement. They were looking uneven so I spent a while making sure they were all in the right place according to the perfectly tuned taraf string and now they're looking much better, much more even and where they should be.

This is Usted Shahid Parvez Khan playing raga Bhimpalasi (starts at about 18 seconds):

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Tunings For Ragas

I've recently been taking a break from raga yaman and have been tinkering with raga bhimpalasi. I will post a video at the end of the post to give you an idea what this raga sounds like.

However, first I want to list some tunings for various ragas. Tunings for ragas can vary quite a lot depending on which school/style that you follow so the following tunings are just guidelines and changes can certainly be made. I will start with the main playing string (Ma) and work down towards the high pitched strings. You may need to adapt them for your sitar, I use a Gandhar Pancham so it may be different to yours.

(these ragamala paintings don't all correspond to the raga listed)

Raga Yaman

Main Strings
ma, Sa, Ga, Pa, Sa, Sa

Taraf Strings (low to high)
Ni, Sa, Sa, Re, Ga, Ga, Ma, Pa, Pa, Dha, Ni, Sa', Re'

Raga Bhimpalasi

Main Strings
ma, Sa, ma, Pa, Sa, Sa

Taraf Strings (low to high)
ni, Dha, Sa, Sa, Re, ga, ma, Pa, Pa, Dha, ni, Sa', Re'

Raga Bageshri

Main Strings
ma, Sa, ma, Dha, Sa Sa

Taraf Strings (low to high)
ni, Dha, Sa, Sa, Re, ga, ma, ma, Pa, Dha, ni, Sa', Re'

Raga Bhairavi

Main Strings
ma, Sa, ma, Pa, Sa, Sa

Taraf Strings (low to high)
ni, dha, Sa, Sa, re, ga, Ma, Pa, Pa, dha, ni, Sa', re'

Now, here is a wonderful version of raga bhimpalasi by Nikhil Banerjee. This alap is mesmerizing, truly magical. 

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