The Raga Guide: Survey of 74 Hindustani Ragas [BOX SET]

Various Artists - International - South Asia

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 2, 2004)
• Original Release Date: August 10, 1999
• Number of Discs: 4
• Format: Box set
• Note on Boxed Sets: During shipping, discs in boxed sets occasionally become dislodged without damage. Please examine and play these discs. If you are not completely satisfied, we'll refund or replace your purchase.
• Label: Nimbus Records
• ASIN: B00000JT5P
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #37,307 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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  #6 in	Music > Indie Music > World Music > Far East & Asia
  #95 in	Music > World Music > India & Pakistan > India

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
These four CDs tucked into a meaty, comprehensive book portray and explain the different histories, tonalities, and rhythms of 74 of Hindu's most common ragas. The raga, a musical form of ancient Hindustani prayer and poetry, has been the cornerstone of Indian music for centuries, evolving into a complex set of expressions inviting improvisation and varying according to purpose, mood, story, and ritual. Stately in their sounds, ragas are most often created with sitar, sarod, tabla, tamboura (or drone), and voice with each note functioning as an evocation of the world's sanctity. The Raga Guide offers five hours and 15 minutes of stunningly beautiful music, played by masters of the instrument and accompanied by informative description, music transcriptions, and (where applicable) texts with English translations. Lovingly recorded, carefully authored, simply laid out, this wonderful package is the essence of perfection, topped off by exquisite color plates of ragamalas, or paintings depicting the stories of the ragas. A sublime tribute to Indian classical music. --Karen Karleski

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ideal for beginners and casual listeners, August 9, 2001

By	"sumitro" (Chantilly, VA United States) - See all my reviews

This set of four cds is an extraordinary collection to get introduced to the richness of Indian classical music. One can get the basic 'chalan' (movement) of as many as 74 ragas. One can argue that the expositions are too short to bring out all the nuances of a raga, but that's not the purpose of these performances.

The best thing about the performers is that they kept things simple, yet enjoyable.

One suggestion though. Rather than arranging the ragas alphabetically, it could have been better arranged by the time of the day they are supposed to be played. That's just my humble opinion.

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great learning tool, January 19, 2000

By	AJIT JOSHI (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

Raga Guide comes with a ~200 page book with explanation of taal and brief background on hindustani music and scores for each raag. It is a great text for beginners esp. those with exposure to reading musical scores. If you can't read music, that's okay too, there is good explanation on how the scores are written. If you followed/aware of the raag kosh for hindustani ragas, this would be the logical multimedia extension to the raag kosh. Each raag lasts only about 3mins, so these CD's (which supplement the text) are strictly for learning and not for easy listening. All in all, I think this is a wonderful piece from Nimbus records and it is about time someone took the intiative to make learning hindustani music so lucid. I give it five stars as a learning tool.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Master Class, July 27, 2004

By	Jorge Barbarosa "the_bassist" (the back 9) - See all my reviews

Please read the other reviews for clarity of musicology. What I'm here to talk about is the quality of this production and the reference material which accompanies it.

You receive 4 CD's and a guide to raga. Not just a plastic cd jewel case with some foldout but a guidebook.

The information contained in the guidebook is a wonderful resource. The whole package is very similar to a college textbook with media.

The sound quality is top shelf. Again, this is a quality production.

Enjoy