About The Raag Project

Who we are

The Raag Project is an independent project run by music enthusiasts — individuals who are keen to understand raags and share what we learn. We are not a music school, a record label or a publisher, and nobody pays us to promote anything. What we share is a fascination with raags: why a handful of notes can feel like dawn, or longing, or rain, and why a film song you have hummed for years can turn out to be built on a raag that maestros have explored for centuries.

The Raag Project started as our own notebook — songs we loved, the raags behind them, and the stories we kept stumbling on. It grew into this site because we think that knowledge is more fun when it is shared.

Why raags matter to us

A raag is more than a scale. It has a characteristic way of moving — which notes it lingers on, which it only touches, which phrase makes it instantly recognisable. It has a time of day or a season, and a mood (rasa) that musicians try to bring alive. Two raags can use exactly the same notes and still sound nothing alike, because they travel through those notes differently.

Understanding even a little of this changes how you hear music, classical or not. That is the experience we want to pass on: not rules to memorise, but a way of listening.

How raags relate to each other

Much of what we enjoy is the web of connections between raags. Raags are grouped into thaats, the parent scales described by Pandit V. N. Bhatkhande; raags in the same thaat share notes but can differ in character. Some raags are close siblings separated by a single phrase or a single note. Others belong to families — the Kanadas, the Malhars, the Todis — that share a signature movement.

You can follow these links across the site: the Thaat Explorer shows the families, Compare puts two raags side by side, and the Raag Map shows how the raags connect. The Raag Library covers 187 of them so far.

Songs and their raags

Composers of Hindi film music, ghazals, bhajans and qawwalis have always drawn on raags — sometimes faithfully, sometimes taking only a phrase or a mood and going somewhere new. Tracing a familiar song back to its raag is one of the easiest doors into classical music, and one of our favourite things to do.

Browse songs and their raags, or open any raag in the Raag Library to see the songs connected to it. The same song can exist in several versions, and a singer's rendition is not always in the same raag as the original. Because film and semi-classical songs often borrow from a raag without following it strictly, a song's raag can be a matter of opinion — please treat it as a guide, not the final word.

Stories, legends and the people behind the music

Raags come with stories. Tales of Deepak lighting lamps and Megh Malhar bringing rain, of rivalries and friendships at royal courts, of teachers passing a raag down a family line. We collect these anecdotes because they make the music come alive — and we label legends as legends, not as history.

The traditions that kept raags alive are part of the story too: read about the gharanas, the maestros who shaped them, and how raags developed over the centuries in the timeline. Terms that puzzled us when we started are explained in the glossary.

Always a work in progress

We keep adding raags, songs, versions and stories, and correcting what we get wrong. If you know a song's raag, spot a mistake, or have an anecdote worth sharing, we would love to hear it — use the Contribute page or write to us. Every correction makes the site better for the next curious listener.

How the site is funded

The Raag Project is free to use. It is supported by advertising (Google AdSense) and by affiliate links to music services, which may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Advertisers have no say in what we write. See the Privacy Policy and the Terms of Service for details.

Contact

Questions, corrections, suggestions, stories or copyright requests: theraagaproject@gmail.com.