Raga: Music for the Hour

Raga

Ragas are matched to hours of the day and states of mind, in a tradition Hindustani musicians still keep. Five ragas, and when each is sung.

Dawn

Rāga Bhairav

A natural scale except for a flattened second and sixth, which give it a grave, devotional weight — the mood the tradition holds dawn calls for.

Late morning

Rāga Todi

Sung roughly nine to noon. Three flattened notes and a sharpened fourth make a searching, plaintive scale.

Afternoon

Rāga Multani

The last stretch before sunset. Three flattened notes against a sharpened fourth give it a restless, yearning character, unlike the stillness of the morning ragas.

Evening

Rāga Yaman

After sunset. All the notes are natural except a sharpened fourth — a broad, settled sound, and often the first raga a student learns.

Night

Rāga Malkauns

From around midnight. Only five notes, sung low and slow — musicians describe it as the most inward of the night ragas.

Whole

Musicians hold that each raga carries its own rasa, or mood, a theory that goes back to the Nāṭyaśāstra. Some describe particular ragas as calming or therapeutic; researchers treat that as an open question, not a treatment.

Each hour has its raga. Listen at that hour.

scroll to sound it

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