THAT (THAAT) - THE INDIAN MODES

by David Courtney working tools


The that (thaat) is the specification as to which of the alternate forms of swar will be chosen.  It has been pointed out elsewhere that seve­ral of the swar have alternate forms.  The permutations of the var­ious forms give rise to nu­mer­ous scales with vastly differing intervals.  There­fore the con­cept of that is essen­tially the same as the Western con­cept of a mode.

 

 

The Ten Thats (Thaats)

Bilawal

Khammaj

Kafi

Asawari

Bhairavi

Bhairav

Kalyan

Marwa

Purvi

Todi

Table of Thats (from "Elementary North In­dian Vocal")

(note - The above notation has been normalised to the tonic of C.  No abso­lute pitch is implied)

There are problems whenever one is talking about the num­ber of thats.  Ge­ne­rally only ten are acknowledged; twenty are in com­mon usage; while 32 are pos­sible given pres­ent con­cepts of scale construction.  This has crea­ted a lot of con­fusion in north In­dian pedagogy.  Three com­mon scales which are not part of the ten thats are Ahir Bhairav, Charukesi, or Kiruvani.

 

Other Aspects of Rag

 


 

© 1998 - 2020 David and Chandrakantha Courtney

For comments, cor­rections, and sug­gestions, kindly contact David Courtney at [email protected]