Dasanjali Lesson 4

Practice what you learn in class at home, preferably for 15 to 30 minutes every day.

First, review what you learnt in lessons 1 thru 3. Then, proceed with this lesson.

Get comfortable in your voice quickly, by either singing the foundational notes, S... P... S'... or simply humming "mmm..." in the lower S.

First, we start this lesson by singing the 2 songs we learnt earlier, Rama Kaho and Hare Murare.

Next, to keep the class lively, we will quiz ourselves as follows:

What are the notes we learnt called? The answer is "Shuddha" notes or "regular" notes. We will learn other notes (the ones not labelled in the complete Hindusthani keyboard) in a later lesson.
Ask someone to play a random regular note in the octave we sing in and guess the note. It is harder than you can imagine initially but with regular practice, your ears will get attuned to the tones and you will ace this in a few weeks.

Then, we will practice a few alankars (SRGMs... and corresponding aakaars) that we already learnt before learning a couple of new ones.

Practice the following Aaroha and Avaroha tunes, first by singing the notes and then using aakaar. Use the pictures of the Western and complete Hindusthani keyboards below for your reference. Until now, we only sang in one octave (8 notes). In Hindusthani, an octave is referred to as a Saptak (7 notes, considering that the 8th note, the S' is basically the beginning of the next higher octave. The 3 Saptaks in Hindusthani music are:

Madra Saptak (or) Low Octave, with dots under the notes - I use a comma (,) on the computer
Madhya Saptak (or) Normal Octave - what we have sung so far and what we sing mostly
Taar Saptak (or) High Octave, with dots on top of the notes - I use an apostrophe (') on the computer

You may either use your own keyboard or piano or an online keyboard during your practice.


(Aaroha)    SRSRG           RGRGM           GMGMP           MPMPD           PDPDN           DNDNS'
(Avaroha)       S’NS'ND NDNDP           DPDPM           PMPMG           MGMGR           GRGRS

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Now, we will stretch a little bit into Taar Saptak and the Madra Saptak
(Aaroha)        SRS     RGR     GMG     MPM     PDP     DND     NSN     S'R'S'
(Avaroha)       S'NS'   NDN     DPD     PMP     MGM     GRG     RSR     SN,S

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Finally, practise singing only the sloka, Shuklaam Bharadharam at the beginning of the song "Gaja Vadana Beduve" in Raag Bhoopaali. Note that Bhoopaali has only 5 notes (not counting the upper S' as a separate note) in its Aaroha (SRGPDS') and Avaroha (S'DPGRS). If you listen and try to play the following sloka on your keyboard, you will find that it is played only with these 5 notes + the upper S'. By the way, Raag Bhoopaali is also known as Raag Mohanam in Carnatic music.



Shuklaam Baradaram Vishnum
Sashivarnam Chathur Bhujam
Prasanna Vadanam Dyaaye
Sarva Vignopa Shanthaye

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Remember to sit straight and sing from your navel up, not just from your throat. Take deep breaths whenever you get the opportunity. Last but not the least, remember that attending the class regularly is very important. A lot more techniques may be taught in the "live" class that may not be all mentioned here on the web. Enjoy singing!