 Raga Chintamani is a simple book which contains all ragas of Karnatic music listed in alphabetical order. Arohana and Avarohana (Ascend and descend) of each raga is listed, along with any interesting/useful information related to the said raga. After this all tamil movie songs, composed using this particular raga are listed along with their movie name. The collection of tamil movie songs is pretty exhaustive, some 1800+. But I couldn’t make much sense out of it, as my knowledge/interest in tamil movies is near zero, except few whose Hindi versions have been popular. The book also has music related quiz in each page, some introduction to various types of ragas in the beginning and a comprehensive appendix of all tamil movie songs and their ragas at the end, as well as a quick biography of few doyens of Tamil film music.“If people can recognize the raga of a cine song, they can also appreciate the classical music in the same raga. If they are able to listen to 10 cine songs in Kalyani, they can easily identify many classical songs that are set in Kalyani…” Author writes, explaining the purpose of the book.
Would have been great if someone could bring out a similar book in other languages-Kannada, Telugu etc.Some key information/observations from my side (from this book and in general)
1 Gopala Gopala song of Humse Hain Muqabula (Errani Gorrani Gopala of Kadalan) Kuchi Kuchi Rakamma of Bombay. Roja Jaaneman (Kadhal Rojave) of Roja are all composed in kapi raga
2. Madhyamavathi raga is believed to have powers of washing away your sins attained by singing apaswaras (singing improperly)- If you sing a song of madhyamavati raga at the end of the concert, all your sins will be destroyed. So after irritating your audience for hours and forcing them to stuff cotton into their ears, be sure to sing a song in Madhyamavathi raga.
3. Amritha Varshini raga is believed to be the one that can cause rains. It is not clear which raga can be used to stop rains (and Bihar flood may be)5. Madhyamavathi raga consists of only black reeds of keyboard- Sa ri ma pa ni sa- Sa ni pa ma ri sa.
4. Tu hi re-Tu hi re song of Bombay is composed in Hari Kambhoji. The song- Telephone dun main hasne vaali of Hindustani (Telephone Manipol of Indian in Tamil) looks kind of modern, but sung in good old Anandha Bhairavi
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