I've been studying Raag Bihag for almost ten years as a vocal student of the Gundecha Brothers and Pelva Naik. I've performed it many times and also recorded it as a vocalist. The harmonic possibilities inherent in the raga make a natural choice for marimba.

One thing about this recording (as well as the other recordings) is that I'm not using a tanpura for the drone. I tried it, but no matter how I approached the mixing, the blend just wasn't there with marimba. I suspect it has something to do with the way the overtones speak on the instrument. So I created drones using the instrument itself, and I found that works much better. Although the tanpura is an iconic part of Hindustani music, there's no law that it has to be there. Indeed, some artists (e.g., Sahid Parvez on sitar) don't even use one at all.

Marimba may not seem like a natural instrument for Indian classical music because the pitches are fixed. Two of the pillars of Raga music are swara and shruti. The swara are the stable notes, and the shruti are the moving notes, the “notes between the notes.” The shruti in particular are one of the most essential elements of Indian classical music. There is a whole universe in the realm of shruti, and as a dedicated Dhrupad vocalist, I have quite literally spent tens of thousands of hours diving deep into that universe, exploring extremely fine gradations of pitch, and smooth, connective motions between pitches (meend).

Without shruti, how could someone play Raga on a fixed pitch instrument like the marimba?

Fortunately, some brave souls have gone before me and blazed a path, including Pandit Shivkumar Sharma, who has shown for 40 years that Raga can work quite well on a fixed pitch instrument like the Santoor. On piano we have Utsav Lal and Michael Harrison, both of whom are concertizing and recording regularly, playing ragas on piano. I also remember attending several recitals of ragas on piano by Robert Morris, composer and professor at the Eastman School of Music, and along with Chitraveena Ravikiran, one of the architects of the Melharmony system.

To make it work, we have to find alternate methods of expression to account for the loss of shruti. This includes extensive ornamentation, and a shift of emphasis from a purely melodic exposition of the Raga to one that includes a deeper exploration of texture, timbre, rhythm, and harmony. It’s the last parameter—harmony—that I want to focus on for this essay.

Typically, harmony is thought to be anathema to the raga system, but that is only true if we conceive of harmony in a traditional, Eurocentric-notion of functional harmony, that is, music in which harmony is one of the primary mechanisms for moving the music forward, for conveying a sense of teleology. But harmony can also be employed in a supportive, non-directional, role to create more color with the melodic phrases, to add more depth and richness to the melodies, much like the use of shruti.

The harmonizations I’ve used on this recording are all created with notes that are in the raga itself. I’ve used a variety of open fifth/fourth dyads, triadic harmonies, and clusters of notes, but all of them are in the raga itself, and if used sensitively they enhance the melodic development of the raga.

But what about the issue of tuning? The marimba is an equal-tempered instrument, which runs counter to the justly-tuned intervals that singers and other melodic instrumentalists typically employ in most performances of classical raga music.

Indeed, this was the primary reason I waited for so many years to explore playing this music on marimba. I had a block in my mind against equal temperament, such that I thought it couldn't work with raga. But now I feel equal temperament is equally acceptable, and in some ways—at least for marimba—better suited to harmonic explorations within the raga system. Let's go into some detail with this particular raag to understand why.

On this recording I've chosen A as the pitch center. Thus, the swara of Bihag are A, C#, D, D#, E, F#, G#.

The arohana/avarohana I've used for this version of Bihag are as follows:

Arohana: N. S G m P N S’
Avarohana: S’ N D P M P G m G S

Typically the dhaivad (Dha) is used very less, and only as a passing tone between nishad and pancham. I've maintained that shape, though in the decending passages I've often used it a bit more explicitly. Some artists also use the rishab (Re) on occasion, but I prefer not to, so I've left it out entirely for this recording.

One of my strategies to provide more color in a way that can rival the use of shruti is to explore the open fifths and triadic harmonies inherent in this raga. For example, when I reach the 7th tone, G#, in my melodic development, I like to support that with the use of A C# below it for an C#/G# dyad, or even a full C# minor triad since E is the pancham (fifth) of the raga.

If I retuned the notes of the marimba to more accurately reflect how I sing this raga, I would quickly run into problems. My Gurus taught me that the third of Bihag is sung as the third that we hear ringing out clearly from the tanpura, which is a justly-tuned interval of a 5:4 ratio. This interval is approximately 14 cents lower than an equal-tempered third. The 7th of Bihag is typically sung quite low. It’s still a shudh nishad, but a low one.

So if I were to retune the notes of the marimba such that the third was justly tuned, then the fifth between the 3rd and the 7th would not be a perfect fifth and would be an unusable wolf tone. I would no longer have access to an C#/G# dyad or a good-sounding C# Minor triad. The wolf tone would draw too much attention to itself and would destroy the melodic motion.

This is but one example of how equal temperament actually helps one explore raga on a fixed pitch instrument. Of course, none of the equal tempered intervals resonate in our bodies quite as beautifully as justly tuned intervals, but we have the advantage of being able to utilize any combination of notes without the appearance of strident wolf tones. Not only do we have access to all the sonorous fifth and fourth dyads as well as triatic harmonies, but we can also begin to explore post-tonal music by utilizing creative combinations of trichords, tetrachords, etc. All of this gives us a rich palette of sonic colors we can use to deepen the melodic experience, and I believe if an artist takes full advantage of these colors, then the richness and depth of a given raag may be maintained, in equal temperament and without true shruti. Paradoxically, it is through the modal music of India that I have found a new appreciation for equal temperament!

This isn't an argument against just intonation. Just intonation can be an effective modality for exploring raga, but so can equal temperament. And besides, retuning marimba (or vibraphone) bars is a major undertaking as it requires using machines to sand off parts of each bar, certainly not something that can be done just before a concert, or with any regularity!

Finally, it’s important to remember that every instrument has its strengths and weaknesses. The marimba may not have the pitch flexibility of the voice, but the ability to play multiple notes at the same time, the figuration possibilities, the extensive range, and the dark, earthy, organic sound of the marimba are all beautiful properties that are unique to it and should be celebrated. No instrument is complete or perfect, even the voice. My Gurujis always told me to maintain the ethics of Dhrupad, but to find my own voice. They didn’t just mean that literally in terms of my vocal instrument, but as a broader metaphor for building a life as a creative musician. The marimba is my home base as a Western percussionist, and I’m honored to expand its reach into raga music. I’m uniquely qualified to do it, and excited to be on the forefront of a new development in Indian classical music.