Bansuri player, producor for Hindustani music, Asian music and Shomyo performance

7. Ragas on instrumental music and vocal music

 Table-8 and 9 are the list of ragas that appear on instrumental music and vocal music according to frequency on each DHKM and IDisc. And Table-10 have both discographies. Number of ragas that appear on instrumental and vocal on both discographies is shown in Table-11.
 The lists show an interesting trend. There are certain ragas which instrumentalists and vocalists do not play. The reason why I divided them into instrumental music and vocal music is based on my experience of listening to Hindustani music over many years. However the lists indicate that my impression was a little removed from reality.   

Table-11
 What is more interesting is that it shows that almost the same number of ragas appeared as instrumental music, or only as vocal music or as both. Though it might be mere coincidence it seems very interesting.
 It is said that Hindustani music is basically vocal-oriented. The special ornamentation sound like mind (sliding transposition from note to note) and gamaka (a melody moves accompanied by the sound next to each other and at top and bottom) is an imitation of the technique of vocal music. Most gurus of instrumentalists indicate melodies or correct note with the saregama singing and emphasize the importance of vocal music. Also, many gurus had vocal training from their various gurus.
 However the instrumental way of rendering is different from vocal music and each instrument has its own way of expression. For instance it is not difficult in vocal music to jump from a note to an octave higher note, but it is difficult for a sitar to move in the same way. On the other hand vocalists cannot move from note to note as quickly as instrumentalists. There are certain ways of expression that are each unique to instruments and vocalists. When musicians determine the raga, they need to be conscious of these differences.  
 Sometimes musicians create new raga. Some ragas are said to have been created by Ali Akbar Khan (raga Chandranandan), Allauddin Khan (raga Hemant), Ravi Shankar (raga Nath Bhairav) and so on. If instrumentalists create new ragas, melodies must be more important than the song text which is usually attached to traditional raga. So vocalists might not play them because of the absence of song text. If certain ragas are song-oriented, instrumentalists might not play them so often. Vocalists sing with certain text at the part of "Chiz" or "Bandish" after alap. Some of them might create text on the spot though they usually sing with traditional text which they must have learned from their gurus. Learning basic technique as well as "songs" from gurus is common among vocalists. So vocalists may not create new ragas as much as instrumentalists who do not need to be conscious of creating new songs with text. In that case, ragas which only vocalists play may be more traditional than that of instrumentalists.
 A musician might have a different approach to choosing a raga if it’s for recording. They might try to avoid a raga which has already been recorded before by another musician. Regarding raga selection, we also need to consider the production aspect. Production must have “variety” in mind as much as possible.

In any case we can guess many reasons why ragas are selected differently by instrumentalists and vocalists though it is not definitive.