Kalyan is one of the ten thaats, the parent scales into which Pandit Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande sorted the raags of Hindustani music. Its seven swaras are Sa, Re, Ga, tivra Ma, Pa, Dha and Ni: the shuddh scale with one change, Ma raised a semitone towards Pa. That single swara gives Kalyan its light, and its raags their hour: most of them are sung and played as the day ends.
Its swaras
Play the scale, slowly, with the tanpura on:
Listen to tivra Ma. In the shuddh scale, Ma is a resting place, a step down from Pa that settles. Raised to tivra, it no longer settles: it leans towards Pa, and towards Ga beneath it, and the whole scale seems to lift. Raags of Kalyan rarely sit on tivra Ma. They pass through it, Ga to tivra Ma to Dha, or curve round it, and its glow colours everything near it.
Then play it in threes, the first of the paltas:
All ten alankars in Kalyan, to hear in your Sa →
How bright it is
Count a step up for a tivra swara and a step down for each komal one, and the ten thaats fall into a ladder from light to dark. Kalyan is alone at the top: the only thaat with a tivra swara and no komal one. Bilawal, with every swara shuddh, stands one step below it, and Bhairavi, with four komal swaras, at the foot.
This is no rule of theory, only a way of hearing: it is why Kalyan's raags feel open and luminous, and Bhairavi's tender and inward.
On the circle of thaats
Nine of the ten thaats can be set in a ring, each a single swara from the next, but for one break, between Bhairavi and Todi, where two swaras change; Bhairav stands outside it, a swara from Purvi. The musicologist N. A. Jairazbhoy drew them this way, and the ring shows how the thaats are kin. Kalyan sits between Bilawal and Marwa: bring its tivra Ma down to shuddh and you have Bilawal; bring its Re down to komal instead and you have Marwa, the thaat of sunset.
Its raags
Kalyan's best-loved raag is Yaman, often called Kalyan itself, the raag the thaat is named for: for generations the first raag a student learns, and one they never finish learning. Beside it is Bhoopali, five swaras with neither Ma nor Ni:
- 6–9 pm · Peace, romanceयमनYaman
- 6–9 pm · Peace, devotionभूपालीBhoopali
- 6–9 pm · Peace, romanceयमन कल्याणYaman Kalyan
- 6–9 pm · Peace, grandeurशुद्ध कल्याणShuddh Kalyan
Bhoopali's swaras would fit Bilawal just as well; Bhatkhande placed it in Kalyan, beside Shuddh Kalyan, its close cousin, sung at the same hour. A raag's thaat says which swaras it draws from, not every swara it must use.
Many other raags belong to Kalyan: Shuddh Kalyan, Yaman Kalyan (Yaman with a touch of shuddh Ma), Hameer, Kedar, Kamod, Chhayanat, Shyam Kalyan, Gaud Sarang and Hindol among them. Most are raags of the first hours of the night; Hindol, a raag of spring mornings, and Gaud Sarang, of the afternoon, are the exceptions.
In the West and the South
In Western music the same scale is the Lydian mode: a major scale with its fourth raised, C D E F♯ G A B. Its raised fourth gives Lydian melodies a floating, unresolved brightness, much as tivra Ma does here.
In Karnatic music it is the 65th melakarta, Mechakalyani, and its raga Kalyani. The shared name is no accident: Yaman Kalyan and Kalyani are two branches of one tree.
Practise it
Tivra Ma is the swara to tune with care. Hold Ga against the tanpura until it is still; hold Pa; then find tivra Ma between them, close under Pa, and hold it until it stops wavering.
Then the way Yaman climbs, from Ni below Sa, never touching Sa or Pa on the way up:
To make the ten thaats a daily riyaz, each up and down and in threes, Meend has them ready: Begin a riyaz of the thaats.
Questions
Which swara is tivra in Kalyan thaat?
Ma. Every other swara is shuddh: Sa Re Ga tivra-Ma Pa Dha Ni.
Which raags are in Kalyan thaat?
Yaman and Bhoopali above all; then Shuddh Kalyan, Yaman Kalyan, Hameer, Kedar, Kamod, Chhayanat, Shyam Kalyan, Hindol and Gaud Sarang, among others.
Is Kalyan thaat the same as the Lydian mode?
Its swaras are the same: a major scale with the fourth raised. In Karnatic music it is Mechakalyani, the 65th melakarta.
What is the difference between Kalyan and Bilawal thaat?
One swara: Kalyan's Ma is tivra, Bilawal's shuddh. Every other swara is shuddh in both.