Composing Indian Raga using Pd:

A raga is a melodic recipe for a mood. In Hindustani (North Indian) classical music, each raga has certain moods associated with it, and usually has a specific time of day and/or season in which it is meant to be played. Raga could be described as a "super scale" using a set of notes in ascending (arohi) and descending (avarohi) order, sometimes including prescribed alternate or zig zag routes (vakra chal), a hierarchy of note importance including king notes (vadi) and prime minister notes (samvadi) a fourth or fifth apart, and a key phrase that shows the heart of the movement of the raga (pakar).

This ancient system is both an art and a science of how musical notes create certain moods. Western music also recognizes that note order and hierarchy create a mood, with some theory texts noting that songs in major keys tend to communicate happiness while songs in minor keys show a feeling of sadness. But the rags show precisely how to create a specific mood. The recipe for each raga holds the key to an unlimited number of potential melodies, each perpetuating the mood or rasa contained in the raga, but each a unique work of art.

Study of this system can be of great benefit to any composer or improvising musician.

Ravikiran has composed and presented several concerts with top caliber artistes from many parts of the world featuring melharmony. He has arranged several melharmonic pieces for performances by full sized, medium sized or chamber orchestras. Some of these are in collaboration with composers such as Prof Robert Morris and Charles Demuynck, Toronto, Canada.

Ravikiran's melharmonic compositions endeavours to enrich both melodic and harmonic systems. Flavoured with exciting and often highly original rhythmic patterns, his compositions have started blazing a new trail in world music. One of his creations, Ujjwal, a full-fledged, first of its kind 45-minute long Melharmonic Concerto was presented in the Swar Utsav Festival at India Gate, New Delhi to an audience close to 20,000 people.

Melharmonic concerts in cities such as Boston, London, New Delhi, Toronto, Mumbai, San Jose, Austin (TX), Chennai, Bangalore, Tulsa (OK) at times in collaboration with top calibre artistes and groups from diverse parts of the world have also won plaudits.