The following sections describe the supported operations. Each operation provides contextual help (viewed by hovering over or clicking the '?' next to the operation's name). Clicking an operation's name reveals any additional options or inputs required for the operation.
Shifting (also known as grahabhEdam or shrutibhEdam) allows the scale of a rAgam to be shifted by one or more note positions, possibly resulting in a new rAgam's scale. Artistes use this technique to smoothly slide from one rAgam to another (or through a series of rAgams).
Typically, the shift operation shows only those rAgams whose note sequence matches the source rAgam in both the ascending and descending scales. However, if the "Unidirection ok" option is enabled, rAgams that match only in one direction are also shown.
Similarly, the "Partial" option allows one to view even those rAgams whose notes match only partially. (For example, only the first five out of the seven notes are reachable through shifting).
Information about the resulting rAgams includes an annotation indicating the "match reason" (whether the rAgam matched in both directions or not, how many notes matched, etc.).
There are two schools of thought when thinking about rAgam scales. The conventional way is to view a rAgam scale as a set of svarasthAnams (S, R2, G3, M1, etc.) with gamakams layered on top, resulting in the rAgam with unique undulations that are characteristic of that rAgam. Shifting, in this context, is straight forward: while shifting we ignore the gamakams and focus only on the svarathAnams. In effect, what we mentally do is:
Another school of thought considers gamakam to be an integral part of a svaram. Here's how it works.
Suppose there are ten kinds of gamakams in Carnatic music. Let's name them from 'a', 'b', ... 'j'. Then, if we take the svarasthAnam, say, R1, we'll get 11 variations. (Let's call them R1, R1a, ... R1j; R1 being the note without any gamakam.) Ditto for every other svarasthAnam.
In this notation, every svaram (R1a, etc.) indicates its gamakam also. Instead of just 12 svarasthAnams in an octave, we'll have 132 "gamakam-induced" svarams (12 x 11, assuming ten types of gamakam).
Thus, if some ragam X has the following notes:
S R1d G3 M1c P ... etc.
If we shifted this rAgam at R1 we'll get something like:
Sd R3 G3c M2j ... etc. (R1d -> Sd; G3 -> R3, and so on)
We run into at least two issues: first, the chances of finding a rAgam with this particular set of gamakam'ed notes is rarer than if we had ignored the gamakams and shifted the "plain" svarasthAnams. Secondly, in this example, R1d yields Sd (since R1's gamakam variation 'd' should carry over to the new S). By convention, S and P do not have gamakams in a rAgam, and thus the new rAgam we arrived at is probably not a valid rAgam. (A similar problem will result if shifting a note yields Pa...Pj.) Therefore, any shifted rAgam that contains a S or P with a gamakam will be invalid.
Swapping (sometimes referred to as svarabhEdam), is another technique to transition between rAgams. Here, one note of a rAgam is replaced by another equivalent note, possibly resulting in a new rAgam. The new note will be in the same "note group" as the note being replaced. (A Ri will be swapped only with another Ri, a Ga with another Ga, and so on.)
Sometimes, dropping one or more notes from a rAgam results in a new rAgam's scale or a scale that doesn't correspond to any known rAgam. This can be further shifted or swapped to arrive at a new rAgam.
This operation shows rAgams whose notes are a subset of the current rAgam's set of notes. Subset rAgams are called upAnga rAgams.
The 'Lengths(?)' parameter may be used to narrow down the subset.
This operation shows rAgams whose notes are a superset of the current rAgam's set of notes.
The 'Lengths(?)' parameter may be used to narrow down the superset.
Note: In the case of both subset and superset, the length values are considered as hints only. This is because vakra-rAgams may repeat one or more notes, and also some rAgams have different notes and/or different number of notes in their ascending and descending scales.The compare option is to simply view the notes of another rAgam, to learn the similarities and differences between two rAgams.
Conventionally, all rAgams required either Ma or Pa. Note that saying/singing Ma or Pa requires the lips to touch each other. Harikeshanallur Muthiah Bhagavathar invented a rAgam without Ma or Pa. He called it niroSThA (sanskrit: niH + oSTha → without lips). In addition, he also composed a song (rAja-rAja-rAditE) in this rAgam, whose lyrics also have no sounds that cause the lips to touch each other. (See here for more information on this rAgam.)
