raga sindhi-bhairavi

I transcribed this from the great Ravi Shankar album The Sounds Of India. What's great about the cd, beyond the playing, is that before each piece Ravi plays the raga used and also goes over the rhythm. Here is raga Sindhi-Bhairavi, and like the classical melodic minor it has 2 forms, an ascending and descending. Clicking on the images will make them ever so slightly larger:




The x's indicate that some microtonal bending was taking place in Ravi's playing.

I have no real conception of Indian music beyond what I've heard on cds, etc (i.e. I've never engaged in any formal study). But it seems that the idea behind the different forms of this mode (if I may) has to do with what tones are being tonicized or made the the focal point. Half steps do that well (and in Western music from the Medieval period on a similar practice has been in place: in fact melodic formulas born of said practice eventually gave rise to the melodic minor scale). I'll put up some actual passages of Ravi's playing soon, but play around with this raga keeping that half step idea in mind. Play it over a C#mi7 chord: it sounds cool, and gives a lot more color than a regular dorian or minor will (w/o chromatic passing tones, that is).

BTW I arrived at a C# by pitch shifting the original track up 86 cents (could've shifted it down, of course, too). Why not simply retune the ol' guitar? One reason: Floyd Rose.