UNCOVERING THE MICROTONES IN A RAAG FROM NOTE TRANSCRIPTIONS
Neeraja Abhyankar (Unaffiliated)*
This paper will be presented in person
The presentation of Indian Classical Music admits the use of microtones ("shruti"s or frequency ratios) that are characteristic of each Raag which can be described as a set of notes (a scale) plus a "chalan" (melody patterns and rules regarding permissible/emphasized combinations of notes) meant to create a certain mood. Often, the Raag's definition as appearing in pedagogy does not include microtonal information. Hindustani Classical Music is transcribed and spoken of with a 12-note system. Despite this, most advanced vocalists or musicians with a continuous-frequency-domain instrument will tend to use appropriate microtones during rendition. This suggests that the microtonal information may be consistently derived based on the given description of the Raag. In this study, we attempt to use empirical analysis and MIR techniques to discover rules, if any, that may guide this derivation algorithmically.