swara - note

shuddha - natural
komal - flat
tivra - sharp (only for ma)
no raag drops both ma and pa

alankar (ornamentation)
meend - slide
khatka - fast vibrato
zamzama - moving through notes with constant vibrato
murki - slur
andolan - slow vibrato
gamaka - emphasis
kampit gamak - emphasis with vibrato

taal - cycle of rhythmic syllables

laya - time between beats (tempo)
three layas - vilambit (slow), madhya (medium), drut (fast)
matra/bol - beat
avartan - one cycle of beats

teen taal (16 beats, 4/4) - dha dhin dhin dha dha dhin dhin dha dha dhin dhin ta ta
dhin dhin dha
ek taal (12 beats, 6/4) - dhin dhin dhage tirukita thin na ka thin dhage tirukita
dhin na
jhap taal (10 beats, 5/4) - dhin na dhin dhin na thin na dhin dhin na
keherwa (8 beats) - dha dhin na ke na ka dhi na
roopak (7 beats) - te te na dhi na dhi na
dadra (6 beats) - dha dhi na dha ti na

raag - melodic framework with a set of notes

aaroha - ascent
avaroha - descent
min of five notes is ascent and descent
jaati - no of notes in ascent/descent
audav - five
shaadav - six
sampoorna - seven
raag can have different jaatis for ascent and descent, a five note ascent and six
note descent raag is a audav shaadav jaati raag

chalan - rules of note combinations and phrases

chalan gives a raag its identity
for eg, sampoorna raag yaman uses all seven notes with tivra ma (sharp 4th)
the phrase ne re ga is in the chalan of yaman, so sing ne re ga ma pa re sa instead
of sa re ga ma pa
the notes pa and re are combined in a certain way
while ascending, skip pa if going beyond pa, so ne re ga me dha ni sa, but descend
normally, sa ni dha pa ma ga re sa
so in the above example, ne re ga ma pa re sa, descend to lower re and sa after pa

two ragas with same notes can have different chalans and sound different
take sa rek gek mat dha ni sa (k is komal,t is tivra)
marwa - rest more on re and dha
saaa dha ni reee ga ma dhaaa nii reee saaaa (transcribe fully)

ornamentation matters in a raag

slides and slurs
types of swaras
vadi - most emphasised note in a raag (usually sa)
samvadi - 2nd most emphasised note
poorvang - first half of raag till ma
uttarang - 2nd half till upper sa
usually when vaadi is in first half, samvadi is in 2nd half
some raags have sa and ma as the vadi and samvadi, in this case, pooorvang can be
till pa, while uttarang is from ma to upper sa
in this case, ma and pa are considered part of both
anuvadi swara means all notes of the raag besides vadi and samvadi
varjit swara means the notes of the octave not included in the raag
vivadi swara is a note not in the raag but occasionally played for beauty
vakra swara means bent note
for eg, in raag alhaiya bilawal, don't sing ma ga re sa, go ma ge ma re sa, so
slide out of ga back to ma, then skip ga 2nd time

elaborating on a raag - aalap, bandish, laykari, taan

aalap
slow elaboration, performed using aakar (aa sound), or sargam

bandish
composition in a raag, performed using nonsense syllables or words or sargam
(solfege), thw words have no meaning but are just sung to provide variety in
syllables for singing

kayajari
singing note phrases in rhythm, performed using sargam or words of the bandish
(bol)

taan
fast singing of note phrases

thaat - raag classification

bilawal thaat - all raags with shuddh swaras
kalyan thaat - includes tivra ma
khamaj thaat - include komal ni