Moonflower Dance - Raag Yaman Kalyan

[Crowyote]

Happy Bandcamp Friday! I hope you enjoy my new release inspired by Raag Yaman Kalyan: Moonflower Dance

There's a slightly different master on SC, not sure if the LQ Mp3 player reveals this: SC link

This work is an exploration of the Raga Yaman Kalyan in open G minor tuning. Elements of American ragtime, blues, classical guitar and rumba flamenco are woven into the tapestry of this work. It belongs to the body of work known as "Raag & Bone."

Raag Yaman Kalyan belongs to the Kalyan thaat. It is said that all the ragas of this thaat are generated by the ancient Lydian mode of the Greeks. One of the most unique qualities of this raag is that the phrases generate from the 7th degree of the scale and rise up through the swaras before making a cadence resolving from the 2nd of the scale to the root. If one listens carefully to melody the listener will noticed the "Ni" - "Re" "Sa" statement.

Another exciting thing about this raga is that the drone notes Ni and Ga create a minor chord when combined with the rest of the swaras, thus there is a constant ambiguity whether the minor key (G - Ga) or the major key (Eb -Sa) is the tonic center. Yaman Kalyan has the special characterist of altering the #4 (Ma Teevra) to natural 4 (Ma) in special phrases like Gmg, R m G P M P m G, etc

Yaman Kalyan:

Ascent: Ni R Ga Ma Dha Ni Sa
M7 M2 M3 A4 M6 M7 Root

Descent: Sa' Ni Dha Pa Ma Ga Re 'Ni Sa
Root M7 M6 P5 A4 M3 M2 M7(below) Root

This was recorded with my extremely bright Larrivee PV3QM.