Melakarta Ragams

(i) All Melakarta Ragams from 1 to 36 use Ma 1. Those from 37 to 72 use Ma 2.
(ii) The ri ga assignment is as follows:
Ri 1 - Ga 1 Melakartas 1 through 6, 37 through 42
Ri 1 - Ga 2 Melakartas 7 through 12, 43 through 48
Ri 1 - Ga 3 Melakartas 13 through 18, 49 through 54
Ri 2 - Ga 2 Melakartas 19 through 24, 55 through 60
Ri 2 - Ga 3 Melakartas 25 through 30, 61 through 66
Ri 3 - Ga 3 Melakartas 31 through 36, 67 through 72
(iii) The dha ni assignment is as follows:
Take the Melakarta number and divide it by six and look at the remainder.
Dha 1 - Ni 1 if the remainder is 1
Dha 1 - Ni 2 if the remainder is 2
Dha 1 - Ni 3 if the remainder is 3
Dha 2 - Ni 2 if the remainder is 4
Dha 2 - Ni 3 if the remainder is 5
Dha 3 - Ni 3 if the remainder is zero
So all you have to do is take a melakarta ragam. From its name determine its number in the scheme. From the number, figure out the Arohanam and Avarohanam. Simple enough !
Again, among the 72 such major ragams, not all of them are equally popular. Some of them are quite obscure, especially the ones whose keys are not spread apart well throughout the octave. However, many musicians have composed in all 72 melakartas - Koteeswara Iyer for one. Musicians like M. S. Subbulakshmi and S. Balachandar have recorded all 72 melakartas. The Suddha Madhyamam (Suddha Madhyamam is just the official name for Ma 1) group of 36 ragams are by and large more popular than the Prati Madhyamam (Prati Madhyamam is the same as Ma 2) group. The Ma2 is supposed to be more 'negative' and 'sad' !! The more unpopular ragams are the ones like Kanakangi, which use closely spaced keys. The ragam Mayamalavagaulai on the other hand has a well spread out keys - Sa-ri1-space-ga2-ma1-space-pa-dha1-space-ni2-sa. This is the ragam all beginners are taught, essentially because such a dispersed set of notes is more easy for a beginner to learn.
>From these complete ragams, you can derive 'child ragams' omitting a key here and a key there in the arohanam or avarohanam. Some melakartas are parents of a large number of popular 'child' or 'Janya' or 'derived' ragams - melakartas like Natabhairavi, Kharaharapriya, Harikambhoji for example. We will see this in the next section.
You may wonder how just one key makes a difference. I just told you that the ragams Kalyani and Shankarabharanam have identical arohanam and avarohanam, except for the key used to produce the 'ma' syllable. You have to listen to your keyboard. Play Kalyani and Shankarabharanam on the keyboard (and even though you don't produce the 'microtones' and even though you are playing an 'eqully tempered instrument') you can tell the two apart. The ma key makes a big difference and one has to simply listen to music a lot to train one's ears.
Since melakartas have the maximum allowed seven notes in a ragam, they have an enormous scope for melody making, compared to a derived ragam which may have less than seven notes. Thus melakarta ragams are very popular in concerts. Musicians choose them for the 'heavy' part of the concert and try to exhibit their mastery.

This brings out...

This brings out another interesting aspect of the Melakarta Scheme. The names of the ragams are not arbitrary. The names contain mnemonics which spell out which keys are used in the ragam. From the name DhheeraShankarabharanam, we could figure out that it is all white keys ! (Venkatamakhin was lucky that most of the 72 ragams were not known then, so he could assign names to them or add a prefix to the existing ones. Imagine if all the ragams were to exist first and then you try to group them, you may not have such mnemonics possible) In fact, in Hindustani music, such schemes were not invented and now we have hundreds of ragams which are tough to classify using such simple mnemonics. Of course, the absence of such a comprehensive scheme is by no means a negative or a deficiency on the Hindustani musical system. In music, like in most things in life, we don't (and should not) want to make value judgements !
Let me now explain you the mnemonic or the Katayapadi System. (Thanks to R. Pichumani for the notes in this section) A look-up table is created, given in Table V that assigns syllables to numbers.

SOME MORE DISCUSSION...

(Skip this chapter if you want to during the first reading ! But, on other hand, the Melakarta scheme is a fascinating piece of classification. You might want to read it for the fun of it)
A scholar named Venkatamakhin invented the Melakarta scheme, way back in the seventeenth century. He was the first to comprehensively classify Ragams in a 'Periodic table' like arrangement. A complete list of the 72 Melakarta Ragams is given in Table IV with the corresponding scales. When Venkatamakhin devised his Table, only a few of the 72 Ragams were known. Using his schematization Venkatamakhin not only cataloged the existing Melakarta Ragams, but also filled in the 'gaps' by coming up with the key sequence for the rest of the Melakarta Ragams. Thus this scheme helped 'discover' new Melakarta Ragams, which in turn led to even newer derivative or child Ragams using those. Composers and performers lapped it up and made songs in the newer, hitherto unknown Ragams. In Table IV, the ragam number 29 is our friendly ragam, Shankarabharanam, although its less well-known official name DhheeraShankarabharanam is used in the table.
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Table IV
The 72 Melakarta Ragams and their scales

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# Name Ri ga Dha ni # Name Ri ga Dha ni

Suddha Madhyamam (M1) Prati Madhyamam (M2)

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1 Kanakanki R1 G1 D1 N1 37 Salagam R1 G1 D1 N1

2 Ratnangi R1 G1 D1 N2 38 Jalarnavam R1 G1 D1 N2

3 Ganamurti R1 G1 D1 N3 39 Jhalavarali R1 G1 D1 N3

4 Vanaspati R1 G1 D2 N2 40 Navaneetam R1 G1 D2 N2

5 Manavati R1 G1 D2 N3 41 Pavani R1 G1 D2 N3

6 Tanarupi R1 G1 D3 N3 42 Raghupriya R1 G1 D3 N3

7 Senavati R1 G2 D1 N1 43 Gavambodhi R1 G2 D1 N1

8 Hanumatodi R1 G2 D1 N2 44 Bhavapriya R1 G2 D1 N2

9 Dhenuka R1 G2 D1 N3 45 Subhapantuvarali R1 G2 D1 N3

10 Natakapriya R1 G2 D2 N2 46 Shadvigamargini R1 G2 D2 N2

11 Kokilapriya R1 G2 D2 N3 47 Suvarnangi R1 G2 D2 N3

12 Rupavati R1 G2 D3 N3 48 Divyamani R1 G2 D3 N3

13 Gayakapriya R1 G3 D1 N1 49 Dhavalambari R1 G3 D1 N1

14 Vakulabharanam R1 G3 D1 N2 50 Namanarayani R1 G3 D1 N2

15 Mayamalavagoulai R1 G3 D1 N3 51 Kamavardhini R1 G3 D1 N3

16 Chakravaham R1 G3 D2 N2 52 Ramapriya R1 G3 D2 N2

17 Suryakantam R1 G3 D2 N3 53 Gamanasrama R1 G3 D2 N3

18 Hatakambhari R1 G3 D3 N3 54 Viswambhari R1 G3 D3 N3

19 Jhankaradhwani R2 G2 D1 N1 55 Syamalangi R2 G2 D1 N1

20 Natabhairavi R2 G2 D1 N2 56 Shanmukhapriya R2 G2 D1 N2

21 Keeravani R2 G2 D1 N3 57 Simhendramadhyamam R2 G2 D1 N3

22 Kharaharapriya R2 G2 D2 N2 58 Hemavati R2 G2 D2 N2

23 Gourimanohari R2 G2 D2 N3 59 Dharamavai R2 G2 D2 N3

24 Varunapriya R2 G2 D3 N3 60 Nitimati R2 G2 D3 N3

25 Mararanjani R2 G3 D1 N1 61 Kantamani R2 G3 D1 N1

26 Charukesi R2 G3 D1 N2 62 Rishabhapriya R2 G3 D1 N2

27 Sarasangi R2 G3 D1 N3 63 Latangi R2 G3 D1 N3

28 Harikambhoji R2 G3 D2 N2 64 Vachaspati R2 G3 D2 N2

29 Dheerasankarabharanam R2 G3 D2 N3 65 Mechakalyani R2 G3 D2 N3

30 Naganandini R2 G3 D3 N3 66 Chitrambhari R2 G3 D3 N3

31 Yagapriya R3 G3 D1 N1 67 Sucharitra R3 G3 D1 N1

32 Ragavardhini R3 G3 D1 N2 68 Jyotiswarupini R3 G3 D1 N2

33 Gangeyabhusani R3 G3 D1 N3 69 Dhatuvardhini R3 G3 D1 N3

34 Vagadheeswari R3 G3 D2 N2 70 Nasikabhusani R3 G3 D2 N2

35 Sulini R3 G3 D2 N3 71 Kosalam R3 G3 D2 N3

36 Chalanattai R3 G3 D3 N3 72 Rasikapriya R3 G3 D3 N3