BSEB Matric Music flashcards

34 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Naad

Sound in the musical sense. Ahata naad is struck and audible, anahata is unstruck and inaudible. Musical naad carries pitch, loudness and timbre.

Shruti

The smallest perceptible interval of pitch. The Natyashastra tradition counts 22 shrutis in an octave; modern practice places 12 swaras on them.

Saptak

The seven-note series Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni. It appears as mandra, madhya and tar saptak, the same note names repeating at double frequency.

Alankar

A systematic swara pattern used as practice, also called palta. Examples are straight order, reverse order and skip patterns such as Sa Ga Re Ma.

Vikrit swara

A modified note. Komal Re, Ga, Dha and Ni are one shruti lower; tivra Ma is one shruti higher than shuddha Ma. Sa and Pa are immovable.

Thaat

Bhatkhande's ten parent scales used to classify ragas, including Bilawal, Kalyan and Bhairav. A thaat is only a scale, not a raga with vadi and pakad.

Vadi and samvadi

Vadi is the principal note of a raga, samvadi the second in importance, usually a fourth or fifth away. Anuvadi are the remaining notes; vivadi are dissonant.

Pakad

A short characteristic phrase that identifies a raga. Singing the pakad correctly is the standard oral-viva test for recognising the raga.

Yaman

Raga of Kalyan thaat with tivra Ma and all other notes shuddha. Vadi Ga, samvadi Ni, sampurna jati, sung in the first prahar of night.

Bhairav

Morning raga of Bhairav thaat with komal Re and komal Dha, both oscillated. Vadi Dha, samvadi Re, sung in the second prahar of the day.

Bhairavi

Raga using all four komal notes, Re Ga Dha Ni, with vadi Ma and samvadi Sa. Traditionally performed at the close of a concert and used for thumri.

Bihag

Night raga of Bilawal thaat using both shuddha and tivra Ma. Vadi Ga, samvadi Ni, sung in the third prahar of night with characteristic Ga Ma(tivra) Ga phrases.

Matra and vibhag

Matra is a single beat-count of a tala; vibhag is a bar grouping several matras. Talis and khalis mark the start of vibhags.

Tali and khali

Tali is a clap marking a stressed vibhag; khali is a wave marking an unstressed one. Their pattern, with sam, defines the tala's identity.

Teentaal

Sixteen-matra tala in four vibhags of four. Tali falls on 1, 5 and 13; khali on 9. Theka begins Dha Dhin Dhin Dha.

Jhaptaal

Ten-matra tala in four vibhags of 2+3+2+3. Tali falls on 1, 3 and 8; khali on 6. Common in khayal and tarana.

Rupak tala

Seven-matra tala in three vibhags of 3+2+2. Its sam is khali, with tali on matras 4 and 6, making it unusual among common talas.

Layakari

Tempo variation within a tala. Barabar is one matra per beat, dugun two, tigun three and chaugun four, keeping the sam fixed.

Bhatkhande notation

Notation using Devanagari swaras, dots above and below for tar and mandra saptak, underlining for komal notes, and x, 0 and numbers for sam, khali and tali.

Paluskar notation

Vishnu Digambar Paluskar's notation system, taught through the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya, with its own marks for komal and tivra notes and for tali and khali.

Meend and kan

Meend is a glide between two swaras, shown by a curved line in notation. Kan swara is a grace note written small beside the main note.

Natyashastra

Bharata's ancient treatise on drama and music, the earliest surviving source for naad, shruti, grama, murchhana and jati, the ancestors of raga.

Brihaddeshi

Matanga's treatise, the first surviving text to use the term raga and to distinguish marga, classical music, from desi, regional music.

Bhatkhande

Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande, 1860 to 1936, devised the ten-thaat scheme and wrote Hindustani Sangeet Paddhati and Kramik Pustak Malika.

Vishnu Digambar Paluskar

Founder of the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya in 1901 and creator of a widely used notation system and structured music syllabus in India.

Tansen

Court musician of Akbar, traditionally linked with Miyan ki Malhar, Miyan ki Todi and Darbari Kanada. The Senia gharana traces its descent from him.

Khayal

Classical vocal form built on sthayi and antara, performed in vilambit and drut laya with alap, taan and bol-taan, accompanied by tabla.

Dhrupad

Ancient classical vocal form with sthayi, antara, sanchari and abhog, four vanis, nom-tom alap and pakhawaj accompaniment; austere in style.

Tarana

Fast composition using syllable bols such as dir da ni ta na instead of meaningful text, set in a raga and tala and often sung after khayal.

Chaiti

Bihar folk song sung in the month of Chait, with devotional and seasonal themes in regional dialects such as Bhojpuri.

Sohar

Folk song of Bihar sung at childbirth, especially in the Bhojpuri region. It belongs to the ceremonial rather than the seasonal folk repertoire.

Instrument classification

Four classes: tata for strings, sushir for wind, avanaddha for membrane drums and ghan for solid struck instruments such as jaltarang and manjira.

Pakhawaj

Barrel-shaped drum of the dhrupad tradition, with two tuned heads and strokes such as Dha, Dhin, Ta and Ge. It accompanies dhrupad and dhamar.

Avanaddha vadya

Membrane-covered percussion instruments. Examples are tabla, dagga, pakhawaj, dholak, nagara and mridangam; sound comes from a stretched skin.