If I ever do a concert.......

Being a worshiper, admirer and a blissful learner of carnatic music, I find utmost happiness and immense pleasure in singing. Needless to say that music is boundless and learning music is never-ending. Although there are 72 Melakarta ragas(Parent ragas) in Carnatic music, there are more than 2 million janya ragas(child ragas) that evolved from these. Each raga is unique in its own trait or lakshana.

There are a few ragas like mayamalavagowla, sankarabharanam, etc....which are fairly easy for beginners to sing. There are ragas in which the same note can be rendered differently according to the context. Hanumathodi ragam(commonly known as Thodi) belongs to this set of ragas.

There are several scientific researches on the frequency rendering of this raga. All the notes in this ragam have lower frequency range which makes it difficult to people who can not sing lower notes. Of late, I learnt a varnam (Era napai..) in Thodi. Although after learning Bhairavi, I should have been in a better position to learn Thodi , I found it very difficult to hold on to Ni (Kaisiki Nishadham) and it's neighboring notes. I started disliking it owing to its complexity in singing. After learning a few songs in Thodi, I started developing an involuntary liking towards it. There is a lot of scope to produce several intonations in just two notes Gandharam and Nishadham. Renditions by famous musicians like DKP (D K Pattamal), GNB (G N Balasubramaniam) on Thodi alapana last around 1 hour.
There is a lot more about Thodi than what I can write here. If I ever do a concert independently, I will start with Thodi.