Benefits of Moorchana - Part 1

- Pt. Vijay Bakshi

Let us talk about a couple of benefits of Moorchana.

1) Mastery over Swars:
Let us assume for a moment that one is used to practising in Kaali-1(C#). If the person is asked to try in Kaali-2(D#) it is going to be difficult. Since (s)he is so used to Kaali-1, hitting the right swars with base of Kaali-2 may not come naturally. It is a common difficulty as the swars in one's natural base are so fixed in the mind that when the base and hence Saptak(octave) is shifted the swars from the original sale may still influence the new ones. The result is the possibility of being out of tune.

Hence, during riyaaz(practice) make an effort to use Moorchana's to achieve more flexibility and vocal range. Continuing the above example and assuming that your base is at Kaali-1, set the Tanpura(drone) to it and sing your seven shuddha swars. Then set the tanpura to komal-Rishabh as per your saptak, and sing the seven shuddha swars. And so on, keep shifting the tanpura up by one swars, in your saptak, and singing the corresponding shuddha swars.

Now try the above experiment, but do not shift the tanpura and set it at your natural scale, in this example Kaali-1. Try singing the moorchana's of the seven shuddha swars. The table below lists these moorchana's.

Table 2.1 Moorchana of Shuddha Swars

2) Simplifying complexity:
Let us assume that during riyaaz you are practising Raag Lalat, also referred to as Raag Lalit. This raag has both Madhyam's (Ma-MA) in sequence. At times, some people find it difficult to sing both the swars in rapid succession. Especially, if you are going to use the "Ni-re-Ga" alankaar of this raag, it happens something like this:

Ni re Ga , re Ga Ma , Ga Ma MA , Ma MA dha , MA dha Ni , dha Ni Sa ,

Sa Ni Dha , Ni Dha MA , Dha MA Ma , MA Ma Ga , Ma Ga re , Ga re Sa

Likewise, consider the following swar group:

Ga Ma MA Ma , re Ga re Ga Ma  Ga Ma MA Ma , Ma MA dha MA Ma , 

re Ga Ma MA dha  MA dha MA Ma Ga ...

The moorchana of shuddha-madhyam (Ma), will make is easier to master the Ma-MA combine. The table below displays the moorchana.

Table.2.2 Moorchana of swar Shuddha Ma in Raag Lalat

Now let us examine the effect of this on the same swar group above:

Ni Sa re Sa , dha Ni dha Ni Sa Ni Sa re Sa , Sa re Ga re Sa , 

dha Ni Sa re Ga re Ga re Sa Ni ...

The positions of the swars can be fixed by replacing "Ga-Ma-MA-Ma" with "Ni-Sa-re-Sa". later try this at Drut-laya(Fast Tempo).   

Audio 2.1 Narration and Vocals: Pt. Vijay Bakshi

Similarly, a lot of complex swar groups or combinations can be simplified.