Chapter 4

Statistical Analysis of some Allied ragas using

Non-parametric techniques

"... the null hypothesis is never proved or established, but is possibly disproved, in the

course of experimentation. Every experiment may be said to exist only to give the facts a

chance of disproving the null hypothesis."~ R. A. Fisher

4.1 Introduction:

In chapter 3 it has been shown how non-parametric statistical techniques can be

employed for verifying and testing various musical propositions related to ragas and

their characteristics. In North Indian classical music there exists ragas which closely

resemble one another in some way or the other. Such ragas are then called allied ragas.

Although most of these ragas use the same set of notes they differ in other subtler

aspects. The differences may occur due to several reasons. A raga dictates how each of

its notes are to be used. Some pitches will get more emphasis than others; some will be

used one way in an ascending melody and another way in a descending melody; some

will be used in certain types of ornaments. And these rules differ from raga to raga. The

result is that each raga is a collection of melodic scales, phrases, motifs, and ornaments,

that may be used together to construct music in that raga. However statistical

verification of such differences among allied ragas have not been considered so far. In

this chapter statistical tests have been performed to verify significant difference between

a pair of allied ragas corresponding to ascending and descending movement of notes,

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the occurrence pattern of notes in each of the three octaves, and in lower and upper

tetrachord respectively. Similar tests are also being performed to examine the

significant difference between a pair of allied ragas with respect to the occurrence of

vadi notes.

A list of some well known pairs of allied ragas along with their parent scales (thaats)

are shown below.

Table 4.1: List of allied ragas

Serial Raga Allied Raga Thaat Of Raga Thaat Of

No Allied Raga

1 Asawari Jaunpuri Asawari Asawari

2 Desh Brindabani Khamaj Kafi

Sarang

3 Bageshree Bhimpalasi Kafi Kafi

4 Hamir Kedar Kalyan Kalyan

5 Desh Tilakkamod Khamaj Khamaj

6 Shankara Bihag Bilawal Bilawal

7 Bhupali Deshkar Kalyan Bilawal

8 Bahar Miyamalhar Kafi Kafi

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4.2 Materials and Methods and Results:

The following non-parametric tests have been performed for distinguishing between

pairs of allied ragas.

1) Test of proportions for occurrence of ascending and descending movements of

notes.

2) Test of proportion for occurrence of notes in each of the three octaves.

3) Test of proportions for occurrence of notes in Lower and Upper Tetrachord.

4) Test of proportions for occurrence of vadi notes.

The above tests are conducted by using the Chi-square statistic for k proportions as

defined below:

Chi-square test for k Proportions: Suppose there are “k” populations from

“k “Bernoulli distributions with parameters θ1, θ2,..., θk. The k populations are all

equivalent if θ1= θ2,… = θk. Let X1, X2,..., Xk denote the number of successes in each of

the k samples respectively. For i=1, 2, 3,…, k ; Xi has the Binomial distribution with

parameter θi and number of trials ni. Then for testing the null hypothesis

H0:θ1=θ2,…, =.θk , the test statistic is given by

 ( X i − niθ 0 ) 2 
k N
 Xi 
χ = ∑
k
 , 0 ∑ ∑
2
θ =   , N = ni (Gibbons,1971)
i =1  niθ 0 (1 − θ 0 )  i =1  N  i =1

which follows approximately Chi-square distribution with (k-1) degrees of freedom.

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4.2.1 Test of Proportion for Occurrence of Notes in Lower, Middle and Higher

Octaves:

As mentioned in chapter 3 Indian classical ragas are developed within 3 octaves viz.

Lower (l), Middle (m) and Higher (h) octaves. Let us define a random variable Xn which

represents the octave corresponding to nth note of a musical episode. Hence

{Xn=i,n=1,2,3,...} is a sequence of musical notes occurring in ith octave for i=l,m,h.

Tests for equality of proportions corresponding to occurrence of notes in lower, middle

and higher octaves are then performed for the sample pairs of allied ragas presented in

Table 4.1. The results of the tests are tabulated below.

Table 4.1.1: Test of proportion for occurrence of notes in lower octave

χ 2 (statistic)
Sl. No. Pair of Allied Ragas

1 Asawari, Jaunpuri 2.45

2 Desh, Brindabani 1.91

Sarang

3 Bageshree, Bhimpalasi 0.38

4 Hamir, Kedar 2.65

5 Desh, Tilakkamod 6.44*

6 Shankara, Bihag 0.65

8 Bahar, Miyamalhar 0.51

Note: Since both Bhupali and Deshkar are performed in middle and higher octaves

hence the above test is not applicable for this pair.

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Tabulated value of χ 2 for 1 df at 5% level of significance = 3.841.

Conclusion: From the above Table it is observed that the proportion of notes occurring

in lower octave differs significantly for the pair of ragas viz.Desh and Tilakkamod at

5% level of significance and are found to be insignificant for the remaining pairs.

Table 4.1.2: Test of proportion for occurrence of notes in middle octave

χ 2 ( statistic)
Sl. No. Pair of Allied Ragas

1 Asawari, Jaunpuri 1.95

2 Desh, Brindabani 0.52

Sarang

3 Bageshree, Bhimpalasi 2.45

4 Hamir, Kedar 0.37

5 Desh, Tilakkamod 0.55

6 Shankara, Bihag 1.20

7 Bhupali, Deshkar 0.14

8 Bahar, Miyamalhar 0.20

Conclusion: From the above Table it is observed that the proportion of notes occurring

in middle octave for all the pairs of ragas are found to be insignificant at 5% level of

significance.

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 Table 4.1.3: Test of proportion for occurrence of notes in higher octave

SL No Pair of Allied Ragas

χ 2 ( statistic)

1 Asawari, Jaunpuri 3.31

2 Desh, Brindabani 0.00

Sarang

3 Bageshree, Bhimpalasi 4.72*

4 Hamir, Kedar 0.01

5 Desh, Tilakkamod 1.99

6 Shankara, Bihag 1.75

7 Bhupali, Deshkar 0.14

8 Bahar, Miyamalhar 0.00

Conclusion: From the above Table it is observed that the proportion of notes occurring

in higher octave differs significantly for the pair of ragas viz.Bageshree and Bhimpalasi

at 5% level of significance and are found to be insignificant for the remaining pairs.

4.2.2. Test of Proportions for Occurrence of Ascending and Descending Movements

of Notes:

A raga composition could be regarded as a random sequence of ascending and

descending movements of musical notes (AADM). As the musical event goes on the

performer transits from one note to the other in a random manner by either

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ascending or descending in pitch. This section includes the test of proportions for the

sample pairs of allied ragas corresponding to AADM of notes. The results obtained are

shown below:

Table 4.2.1: Test of proportion for occurrence of ascending movement of notes

χ 2 ( statistic)
Sl. No. Pair of Allied Ragas

1 Asawari, Jaunpuri 2.03

2 Desh, Brindabani Sarang 0.70

3 Bageshree, Bhimpalasi 0.30

4 Hamir, Kedar 0.01

5 Desh, Tilakkamod 0.08

6 Shankara, Bihag 0.27

7 Bhupali, Deshkar 0.91

8 Bahar, Miyamalhar 0.02

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Table 4.2.2: Test of proportion of occurrence of descending movement of notes

Sl. No. Pair of Allied Ragas χ 2 ( statistic )

1 Asawari, Jaunpuri 2.03

2 Desh, Brindabani Sarang 0.70

3 Bageshree, Bhimpalasi 0.30

4 Hamir, Kedar 0.01

5 Desh, Tilakkamod 0.08

6 Shankara, Bihag 0.27

7 Bhupali, Deshkar 0.00

8 Bahar, Miyamalhar 0.02

Conclusion: From Table 4.2.1 and 4.2.2 it has been observed that the proportion of

ascending and descending movement of notes for all the pair of ragas are found to be

insignificant at 5% level of significance.

4.2.3. Test of Proportion of Occurrence of Notes in Lower and Upper Tetrachord:

A raga composition may also be defined as a random sequence of notes occurring either

in the lower or upper tetrachord. In this section a test of hypothesis for equality of

proportions of notes occuring in lower and upper tetrachord is conducted for the sample

pairs of allied ragas presented in (Table 4.1).The results of the tests are tabulated below.

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 Table 4.3.1: Test of proportion for occurrence of notes in Lower Tetrachord

χ 2 ( statistic )
SL No Pair of Allied Ragas

1 Asawari, Jaunpuri 0.05

2 Desh, Brindabani Sarang 1.28

3 Bageshree, Bhimpalasi 4.27*

4 Hamir, Kedar 0.04

5 Desh, Tilakkamod 2.01

6 Shankara, Bihag 1.60

7 Bhupali, Deshkar 14.17*

8 Bahar, Miyamalhar 2.26

Conclusion:From the above Table it is observed that the proportion of notes occurring

in Lower Tetrachord differs significantly for the pairs of ragas viz. (Bageshree ,

Bhimpalasi )and (Bhupali , Deshkar) at 5% level of significance and are found to be

insignificant for the remaining pairs.

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Table 4.3.2: Test of proportion for occurrence of notes in Upper Tetrachord

χ 2 ( statistic)
Sl. No. Pair of Allied Ragas

1 Asawari, Jaunpuri 0.00

2 Desh, Brindabani Sarang 1.28

3 Bageshree, Bhimpalasi 4.27*

4 Hamir, Kedar 0.04

5 Desh, Tilakkamod 2.01

6 Shankara, Bihag 1.60

7 Bhupali, Deshkar 5.51*

8 Bahar, Miyamalhar 2.26

Conclusion: From the above Table it is observed that the proportion of notes occurring

in Upper Tetrachord differs significantly for the pair of ragas (Bageshree, Bhimpalasi)

and (Bhupali,Deshkar) at 5% level of significance and are found to be insignificant for

the remaining pairs.

4.2.4. Test of Proportions for Occurrence of Vadi Notes:

It has already been mentioned in chapter 3 that the vadi note is the most important or

dominating note in a raga and is played very prominently or repeatedly throughout a

performance of the raga.Hence a hypothesis of equality of proportions for occurence of

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vadi notes in a pair of allied ragas needs to be tested.In this section the hypothesis

mentioned above is tested for the sample pairs of allied ragas (Table 4.1).The results

obtained are shown below.

Table 4.4.1: Test of proportion for occurrence of Vadi notes

χ 2 ( statistic)
Sl. No. Pair of Allied Ragas

1 Asawari, Jaunpuri 1.93

2 Desh, Brindabani Sarang 1.33

3 Bageshree, Bhimpalasi 3.07

4 Hamir, Kedar 0.19

5 Desh, Tilakkamod 0.12

6 Shankara, Bihag 1.66

7 Bhupali, Deshkar 7.92*

8 Bahar, Miyamalhar 3.15

Conclusion: From the above Table it is observed that the proportion of occurrence of

vadi notes differs significantly for the pair of allied ragas (Bhupali, Deshkar) at 5%

level of significance and are found to be insignificant for the remaining pairs.

In the next chapter we drop the assumption of independence of the random variable Xn

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corresponding to

a) Ascending and descending movement of notes

b) Occurrence of notes in Lower, Middle and Higher octaves and

c) Occurrence of notes in Lower and Upper tetrachord.

This leads us to study the above raga characteristics under a dependent set up.

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