Question

Hindustani classical music is broken into groups of notes. What would one of these groups of notes be called?

Answer 1

Before going into the melodic structure of the Hindustani raga, it is important to understand the concept of That, which is the parent scale from which the raga is derived. The term That refers to the basic patterns in which the seven notes of the Saptak are arranged. The That can be considered a format for the raga, a classification scheme, that allows one to group several ragas under a That. In every That there is one raga that usually has the name of the That and others, which are derived from that That, by dropping one or more notes from the parent scales. Since the Thats are fixed arrangements of the given seven notes, one can calculate the total number of Thats by arranging the notes in different combinations according to the specified rules. One is that the That must necessarily have seven notes in a sequential order. Besides, a That does not have separate ascending and descending lines like a raga. The prevalent listing of the Thats and the classification of the ragas within them is the contribution of Pandit V N Bhatkhande.