How many melakarta ragas are there in the Carnatic system?
- A.10
- B.22
- C.32
- D.72
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is D, 72. The melakarta ragas are the parent scales of Carnatic music, each of them using all seven notes in both ascent and descent. The scheme that fixes their number at seventy-two comes from Venkatamakhin's Chaturdandi Prakashika, and every other Carnatic raga is treated as a janya, or derived, raga of one of these parents.
Option A, 10, is the number of thaats into which Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande grouped the ragas of Hindustani music, so it belongs to the other system. Option B, 22, is the number of shrutis or microtones into which the older theory divided the octave. Option C, 32, matches nothing in this classification and is placed there only as a distractor. The examiner's favourite trick here is to swap the number of thaats with the number of melakartas, so remember the pair together: ten thaats in the north, seventy-two melakartas in the south.
Read the full article: Indian Classical Music: Hindustani, Carnatic, Ragas and Talas
Practice Questions
View allWhich Veda is regarded as the source of Indian classical music?
- A.Rigveda
- B.Yajurveda
- C.Samaveda
- D.Atharvaveda
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The Samaveda is the Veda of melody. Most of its verses are taken from the Rigveda, but they are arranged for singing rather than for recitation, and that singing is known as Samagana.
Read the full explanation →The Sangeeta Ratnakara, a treatise accepted by both the Hindustani and the Carnatic traditions, was written by whom?
- A.Matanga
- B.Sarangadeva
- C.Bharata Muni
- D.Venkatamakhin
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Sarangadeva wrote the Sangeeta Ratnakara in the thirteenth century while attached to the Yadava court at Devagiri in the Deccan.
Read the full explanation →Teentaal, the most common tala of Hindustani music, has how many matras?
- A.10
- B.12
- C.16
- D.14
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Teentaal runs over sixteen matras divided into four equal vibhags of four beats each. The first beat of the cycle is the sam and carries the stress, the third vibhag opens on a khali, and the cycle returns to the sam at the end.
Read the full explanation →Which is the oldest surviving form of Hindustani vocal music?
- A.Khayal
- B.Thumri
- C.Dhrupad
- D.Tappa
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Dhrupad is austere and devotional, sung in four sections called sthayi, antara, sanchari and abhog, and it opens with a long unmetred alap.
Read the full explanation →The pakhawaj is the percussion instrument traditionally used to accompany which form?
- A.Dhrupad
- B.Thumri
- C.Kriti
- D.Ghazal
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The pakhawaj is a long barrel drum played horizontally with both hands, deeper and graver in tone than the tabla, and its weight suits the slow and solemn movement of dhrupad.
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