Bilawal

Raag Bilawal is a Bilawal thaat raga of Hindustani music, performed in the early morning, that uses all seven shuddha notes. Shuddha means natural, and a thaat is a parent scale. It is also written Bilaval or Bilaawal. George Howlett notes that Bhatkhande chose it as the titular raga of the Bilawal thaat, and that it approximates the Western major scale.

In this notation, an apostrophe marks the upper octave and lowercase a komal note. Howlett gives the aroha, or ascent, as S R G P D N S', and adds that shuddha Ma is sometimes omitted going up. His avaroha, or descent, is S' N D P M G R S. The vadi, the most prominent note, is Dha, which Howlett says is generally held as the vadi but should not be held too long. The samvadi, its partner, is Ga in a teaching account of Alhaiya Bilawal.

Komal Ni is where accounts part. Howlett writes that adding it in descending phrases such as D n D P M G gives the otherwise identical Alhaiya Bilawal. Rajan Parrikar treats the two names as one raga and calls komal Ni a hallmark of classic Bilawal phrasing. He matches the Bilawal thaat to Shankarabharanam, the Carnatic melakarta with the same seven notes.

KalaSudha presents Hindustani musicians in concert and releases their recordings. Its academy teaches ragas online and in local workshops, and each course is built by its instructor with KalaSudha.