Happy Lunar New year everyone! I’m glad to share a full Carnatic saxophone lesson/tutorial on Youtube on how to structure a raga alapana in short, medium and long lengths. Hopefully this should demystify the process a little bit. If you haven’t reached improvisation yet, it might be a good introduction. For intermediate/advanced practitioners or those who might be interested in the raga approach of my Guru, Dr. Kadri Gopalnath, this should be very useful. There is plenty of music to illustrate in ragas Bilahari, Hamsadhwani, Kalyanavasantham and Bhairavi.

Enjoy the video and feel free to share if you like and subscribe if you haven’t yet. Thanks!

In this video, Carnatic saxophonist Prasant Radhakrishnan shares a clear explanation on how to structure a raga alapana (raga improvisation played before a composition). It is broken into 3 different types: the short sketch raga of about a minute, a medium length raga for up to 5 or 6 minutes and a longer one of 5 to about 15 minutes. Prasant explains and demonstrates on the saxophone the approach for each of these and how to navigate these raga alapana structures while still enjoying the spontaneous aspect of improvising.

The style of Prasant’s Guru, saxophone pioneer, Dr. Kadri Gopalnath is emphasized, which is special in that he would explore the lower octave early in the raga alapana. This method can be applied to any instrument or voice and is not limited to the saxophone. While all music practitioners can benefit from the material shared here, some level of comfort with improvisation, especially in the raga form will be useful in getting the most value out of this video.

Along the way, there is quite a bit of music played, including ragas like Bilahari, Hamsadhwani, Kalanavasantham and Bhairavi. So please enjoy the music as well!

0:00 Overview of the 3 lengths of raga alapana covered here
2:22 How to do the sketch raga alapana (Bilahari and Hamsadhwani ragas demonstrated on the saxophone)
6:27 How to do the medium length raga alapana (Kalyanavasantha raga demonstrated on the saxophone)
14:49 How to do the long length raga alapana (Bhairavi raga demonstrated on the saxophone). Opening and lower octave
21:42 Moving up from the lower octave and using the first 2 anchor notes
24:50 Upper Sa and onwards in the longer length raga
27:00 Concluding the raga alapana in Bhairavi
28:41 Final melkalam (high speed phrases) in the raga conclusion
31:22 Summary of what we covered and concluding remarks

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Connect with Prasant:
Website: https://prasantmusic.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/prasantmusic/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/prasantmusic/
Satsang (held online via zoom): https://prasantmusic.com/satsang/

Prasant Radhakrishnan is a versatile saxophonist steeped in both South Indian Classical (Carnatic) and jazz music. A disciple of Carnatic saxophone pioneer, “Padmashri” Dr. Kadri Gopalnath, Prasant had the privilege of apprenticing with him for several years since 1996. He had further training with Dr. T.R. Subramaniam as well as mentorships with other senior artists in India. His parallel exploration of jazz led him to express original music arising from both Carnatic and jazz as well as traditional Carnatic music on the saxophone. Prasant has shared music around the world through albums, performances, artist residencies, lecture demonstrations and teaching. In addition, Prasant shares insightful and easy approaches to meditation and Self Realization through music and sound, which leads naturally Silence and Peace.