My friend has promoted this site "www.ragasurabhi.com" which offers very good guidance and audio files including weekly quiz on raaga identification. I found this very interesting and easy to learn. Watch for the Raaga "signatures" which are an unique and innovative way of raaga rendering for identification purposes of learners. please visit this site and post your comments there/ here for encouraging the group that does this tireless service to the rasikas.

You guys just don't want me to get any sleep, do you?

At least not during the quiet hours of the night when one can listen to stuff like this!

This is an excellent site. The way the ragas are presented is something like what I have been looking for for a long time.

There must have been a huge amount of work to prepare all the clips and to design and code the site. All I can say is, congratulations to that team, and please... urge them to keep good backups!

Well, I have already spent an hour on this site testing my knowledge!

Thank you!

Excellent site. One can spend quite a bit of time there. The singer and her team had put in a lot of work to make this happen

Thanks Vasanthakokilam. Feedback from an experienced and informed person like you should be very encouraging to the team that runs the site.

Thanks for the encouraging words from all of you. .

We have posted the updates for Week 34. Looking forward to your feedback.

Vijay - thank you very much for referring Raga Surabhi to this august audience.

Raga Surabhi Team

I suggest having a different index available to access the ragas, perhaps alphabetic, to aid those seeking a particular raga. Of course, we could just use our browser search on the page.

Nice to see that you have joined us here. Congratulations, again, on your excellent site

Thank you very much for your comments and feedback!
The team would surely look into the aspects you have mentioned and introduce enhancements that would make the site more user friendly. Do stay connected.

Raga Surabhi Team

Well done Raga Surabhi team ! It is very useful and as others have commented it must have taken a lot of time to get this done.
One small suggestion, IMHO: For the cine version of the ragams, instead of the singing part (where mostly gamakams are diluted) please have the interludes. They show the ragam much more easily than the singing parts.

Thanks!

For that film songs, are the raga mappings based on swaras only or most of you actually hear the ragas? binmux, do you hear ragas in the musical interludes?

Hi Vasanthakokilam,

Definitely you can hear the ragas. In fact movie songs (even the present day ones ) give you a different perspective to look at Carnatic music - or music in general. In fact for eg. there are lots of sequences that are commonly used any particular composer, the moment you hear that sequence you can say that this is the ragam.

In pure carnatic music for e.g there is heavy focus on the associated gamakams and pidis etc which really end up defining the ragam. Whereas in the cine music there will be more focus on the various swara patterns causing a different feel, I think.

For the present day ones we can safely ignore the lyrics and focus on the music alone to get to learn more. Of course there are exceptions.

Thanks
Binmux

One small correction - For a lot of songs you can hear the ragams. For the rest since there isn't much of associated identifying markers you have to figure out the swaras and then get a faint feel of the ragam. I am talking primarily from my experience with IR music though.

Thanks

Thanks binmux. In CM, we go to great lengths to inculcate that ragas are not defined by swaras alone but the associated gamakams and pidis need to be present. As a corollary, we say that the same Aro/Ava can provide for more than one raga. So in film music, if swaras alone are used without the gamakas and raga specific pidis, they can definitely invoke a different feel but by the above definition does it map to the same CM raga? I am not trying to be too pedantic, but I was curious. But you said 'faint feel of the ragam' and that probably describes it correctly. Since I go by the feel of the raga and not by swaras, even if I try hard, I do not hear the ragams. Exceptions are the overtly raga based songs like 'thalaiyai kuniyum thamaraye', 'chinna kannan azhaikkiran' or 'en vIttu thottathil' etc. I have a bit more luck with some malayalam songs even if they do not strictly follow the CM idiom.

Just as a sidebar, I have some friends who claim that film music directors have used ragas like subhapantuvarali in happy and brisk songs. To me, that does not make any sense, since subhapantuvarali is defined by the rasas it invokes and not the swaras alone. So if a music director employed the same swaras used by subhapantuvarali and managed to make a vibrant and peppy tune, all the the power to him and his creativity. But, to me, it ceases to be subhapantuvarali and it is something else. This is not a CM elitist point of view but just keeping with the definitions and understanding of terminology.

Back to the topic at hand, in the raga surabhi film music bits, so far I have struck out on almost all of them. Some are marked as 'sivaranjani' and even there I failed to identify sivaranjani. I will have to get back there sometime and listen to them again.

@Vasanthakokilam - Great to see the discussions going on here. With due respects to connoisseurs, our idea of including cine music in Raga Surabhi is to help the uninitiated to relate to carnatic music better, using a format which they are so familiar with. We fully agree that cine music does not do complete justice to the various dimensions of carnatic music that a purist would expect. Many of our rasikas have come back and said that this format has helped them immensely to identify more than 50 odd ragas.

@binmux - primary reason for not using any original tracks is to avoid getting into any intellectual property wrangles. Raga Surabhi only wants to provide a flavor of the raga, listeners can always listen to the original track to appreciate better.

Thanks for the support.

Please visit the our site for Week 36 update - www.ragasurabhi.com

New Raga - Hamir Kalyani
Compare Ragas - Saranga and Hamir Kalyani
Weekly Quiz - 36
Full song - Utsava Sampradaya Kriti

Dear Rasikas,


Yet another week and we are back with our update. As you are aware, we have covered more than sixty plus ragas in our Identifying Ragas segment. The ragas covered so far are most prominent and commonly handled in any concert platform. We could find suitable cine songs for most of these ragas. Going forward, as we continue to cover more ragas, we are not sure if we would be able to come up with a suitable cine song for all of them.. we will try our best to feature cine songs though. If you know of any cine song in these ragas, do let us know!


This week's update features two new ragas - Andolika and Saramati. While we have provided cine audio clip for Saramati, we have not come across any film song in Andolika. The full song for the week is "Govardhana Girisham" in raga Hindolam, set to Rupaka talam, a masterpiece by Dikshithar.


Hope you like them. As always please do mail us your feedback and suggestions!!!


Week 40 Update
New Ragas - Andolika and Saramati
Full song
Surabhi Post 9
Week 40 Quiz

Have a great week ahead!

Raga Surabhi Team
Raga Surabhi - Raga Identification made EASY!
http://www.ragasurabhi.com/
a carnatic music website

Hi all

Week 41 update:
New Ragas - Ranjani, Mandhari and Deva Manohari
Full song - Gananathane Gunabhodane
Weekly Quiz - 41

Please visit www.ragasurabhi.com

Thanks for your support

Visited your site again after a while, during which I'd done a reinstall, and spent a while wondering why it would not work. The player appeared, but pressing the green arrow did nothing.

Not your fault: mine entirely, and thought I'd mention it here just in case it happens to anyone else.

I use the Flashblock add-in in Firefix, and your site needs flash. The play flash symbol is right at the bottom of the page. A right-click and "allow flash from this site" --- and no further problem!

Nick - thanks for the info. BTW, please find below a snippet about this weeks update @ http://www.ragasurabhi.com

Week 42 Update:
New Ragas - Begada, Bahudhari, Mohanakalyani
Twin Raga - Bhairavi-Mukhari Comparison
Surabhi Post - 7 - Swara Sthanas
Full song - Arulavendum Thaye
Weekly quiz - 42

Hi all,

Please vist www.ragasurabhi.com for this weeks update

Week 43 update:
New Raga - Kuntalavarali & Saraswathi
DIY - 1
Full song - Sri Rama Padama
Weekly quiz - 43

Dear Rasikas,

About this week's update, as usual, we have our regular sections plus the DIY series launched last week. Atana and Thilang are our new ragas for the week. We wish to make a special mention about Atana, considered a scholarly raga with complicated swara sequences more than one acceptable arohanam - avarohanam. In Raga Surabhi we have published one of the commonly adopted arohanam - avarohanam.


The full song for the week, Sangeeta Samrajya Sancharini, was requested by couple of our rasikas. This is a beautiful composition on Goddess Sharada Devi of Sringeri by Ramamurthi Rao. Hope you like it.


Week 44 Update:
New Ragas added: Atana & Thilang
Full Song: Sangeeta Samrajya
DIY - II
Week 44 Quiz

Please visit http://www.ragasurabhi.com and provide your feedback

Dear Rasikas,

This week's update has two new ragas - Janaranjani and Jaganmohini. The carnatic and cine songs for both these ragas happen to be one and the same as they have also been featured in films.

The full song for the week is a tamil composition by Ambujam Krishna in the raga Thilang, 'Kannan Kuzhalosai Ketkuthadi', set to Adi tala. Hope you find it enjoyable!

Please visit http://www.ragasurabhi.com

Week 45 Update:

New Ragas added: Janaranjani and Jaganmohini
Weekly Quiz 45 and DIY - 3 (Swara Sthana exercise)
Full Song added: Kannan Kuzhalosai Ketkuthadi

As always, do stay in touch with your feedback mails and quiz answers...


Have a great week!

Dear Rasikas,

We are happy to be back with this week's update.

Week 46 Update:

New Ragas added: Darbar

Compare Ragas: Abhogi and Sriranjani

Surabhi Post - 10

Week 46 Quiz and DIY

Full Song added: Nannu Brova - Abhogi - Thyagaraja - Adi

Hope you like this week's update. Let us know your feedback.

Have a great week ahead!

Raga Surabhi

Dear Rasikas,

Please note the recent updates in the site.

Week 47 Update:
New ragas added: Navarasa Kanada & Varali
Week 47 Quiz and Do It Yourself exercises
Full Song added: Pirava Varam Thaarum, in Lathangi raga, a composition by Papanasam Sivan

Week 48 Update:
New ragas added: Yadukula Kambhodi & Nagasvarali
Week 48 Quiz and DIY exercises
Full Songs added: Aadikondar - a composition by Muthu Thaandavar in Mayamalava gowlai raga and Adi talam

Hope you find them interesting and useful.

Raga Surabhi Team

Dear Rasikas,

Please visit http://www.ragasurabhi.com for the latest updates-

Week 49 Update:
New ragas added: Behag & Kadanakuthoohalam
Week 49 Quiz and DIY exercises
Full song added: Papanasam Sivan composition, Maal Maruga Shanmuga, set to raga Vasantha and Adi talam

Hope you like this week's update.

Do stay connected with your comments and quiz answers!


Raga Surabhi Team

A very interesting site.
Thanks a lot.