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Personal musings. Views are my own.

Bilaskhani Todi

I’ve been listening to a recording of Bilaskhani Todi by Shujaat Khan that a sitar buddy hooked me up with, and it’s such a sad, sad raag. I think i’m slowly falling into a depression just listening to it… Lol, but its sooooo good. I tried looking up online what the notes and details of the raag are, and although online sources are hardly a source of learning compared to formally learning a raag from a teacher, here’s a general idea of what I found:

Ascending: S r g m g P d n S’

re, ga, da, and ni are komal (flat), and seems that playing ma to pa is not allowed. But again, I’d learn this raag formally before i tried playing it…

Descending: S’ n d P d m g r g r S

Same komal swars (notes) as in the ascending, but it also seems that pa to ma on the descending is also not allowed.

So if you wanted to try to play this raag on a western instrument, with C as your sa:

Ascending: C Db Eb F Eb G Ab Bb C

Descending: C Bb Ab G Ab F Eb Db Eb Db C

Cool.