Indian music is classically rich it is nourished because by the singers, music directors who classify the ragas by applying microtones between the two notes. The science of music has been very old and from ages; singers like Tansen, Surdas regarded each raga as a living being. It is said that Tansen had mastery over the ragas; so much so that bring rains, he lighted fire with his singing. Likewise, if he sang an evening raga during daytime, the sunlight would diminish and it would look like its dusk. He had a command on raga Megha Malhar and raga Deepak.
Music awakens with the mood as professed by the singer and formed by the touch notes. Each raga demands different treatment in different forms. Each raga prefers a particular set of microtones, sated with categorical some times and sometimes with weak presence and pause in a particular way.
Each raga has a character. A good composition gives the salient features of the raga. Raga Bhoopali which is also known as Bhoop, Bhoopali, Bhopali or Bhupali, (भूपाली / भोपाली) is a Hindustani Classical Raga. It is a pentatonic scale (uses 5 notes in ascending and descending scale). ‘Penta’ means five and ‘tonic’ means note, so ‘Minor Pentatonic Scale’ really just means ‘Minor Five-Note Scale’. The reason we learn scales is that they are groups of notes that sound really good together that we can use to make up solos. Most of the songs in this raga are used in tranquil surrounding. The songs have environmental elements strongly used in them. The same raga in Carnatic Music is known as Mohanam. It is a relaxing soft melody that fills up a new life force in the atmosphere. Bhupali is one of the five oldest ragas, along with Megh, Shree, Malkauns and Hindol. It is thought to be 4,000 years old.
There are many devotional songs set in Raga Bhupali because it is a devotional arag. It has simple notes compared to many other ragas. This raaga is considered as the “Evening Raagas”.
There is a bit of mystery concerning to this raga; its notations are same as raga Deshkar, Jait Kalyan and Audav Devgiri. It’s a difficult task for music directors to maintain the purity of each raga by not running into each other’s microtones.
I list here below some famous songs in Raga Bhupali, they are the evergreen romantic hits of Hindi cinema:
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Panchi Banoo Udati Phiroo; singer Lata Mangeshkar, film Chori Chori – 1956, Music Director Shankar-Jaikishan.
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Pankh Hote To Ud Ati re: singer Lata Mangeshkar, Film Sehra – 1963, Music Director Ramlal Heerapanna
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