Ataana

Ataana is a raga used mainly in concerts. It is considered to be a very catchy raga that gives a stage flavor for a musician when everything is going dull in a concert. It stimulates the audience by its qualities of "Veeram", "Bakthi rasam".

Ataana is a kind of raga where the "arohana" and "avarohana" are not strictly followed. First this was thought to be under 29th "Melakartha Sankarabharanam" with ga1 and ni1 as two "annyaswara"s (alien "swara"). But now it has been broadly agreed to be under 22nd Melakartha Karaharapriya with "ni2" as the single annyaswara. When it was under Sankarabharanam the prayoga "ga2 ma1 ri2 sa" was used predominantely. But this has died as the time went off. As I said earlier the arohana-avarohana is not very strict here but one perception is: arohana: "sa ri2 ma2 pa ni1 sa", and avarohana: "sa da2 pa ma1 ri2 ma1(ga1) ri2 sa".

The ni2 (kakali nishatham) comes as annyaswara in certain prayogams but it does not exist in the arohana-avarohana. Some of the prayogams in which ni2 comes are "sa ni2 da2", "ri2 sa da2". In "ri2 sa da2" in between singing sa and da2 we touch ni2 and come to da2. This gives a nice flavour to ataana. This also gives the Bhasanga status to the raga. Ri2 and da2 are most dheera swaras for this raga. "ga1" is the weak swara we can not stand in "ga1" for too long. And we can not have prayogas like "ga1 ga1 ri2 sa" as the same occurs for the raga Durbar. It should be sung as "ri2 ma1 ri2 ma1 ri2 sa". Similarly the prayoga "ga1 ma1 ri2 sa" also occurs in Kaanada. But in the midst of other prayogas it does not give any flavor of Kaanada even when it is sung in the same fashion. This is the main beauty of our music it looks theoretically ambiguous but nothing looks ambiguous when sung.

The "prayoga" "da da da" gives a nice touch for Ataana. In the charanam of "Balaganaga maya/Ela nee dhayaraathu" composed by Saint Thyagaraja (perhaps his first song) i.e., "ra ra dhevathi deva" it gives a real touch of softness. It is a quite interesting prayoga because mostly all the other prayogas give a bold stature to the raga but this one gives a very soft touch. I think many will agree with me. "ma1 pa ri2 sa", "pa ri2 sa da2 ... ri2 sa da2... sa da2" all very good prayogas for Ataana.