Arohana

Arohana, arohanam, aroh or aroha, in the context of Indian classical music, is the ascending scale of notes in a raga. The pitch increases as we go up from Shadja (Sa) to the Taar Shadja (Sa), possibly in a crooked (vakra) manner.

It contrasts with an avarohana, avarohanam or avaroha the descending scale of any raga. The notes descend in pitch from the upper tonic (taar shadja or Sa) down to the lower tonic, possibly in a crooked (vakra) manner.

Scale

In Hindustani classical music, the ascending scale's notes are S R G M P D and N. Lower forms of notes are written in lower case, like r g m d n (S and P are fixed notes), while the first scale given above is that of higher form of the notes. The English notes C D E F G A and B correspond to S R G M P D and N, when C is taken as the tonal note (S is sung at C).

In Carnatic music, the ascending scale's notes for the variant notes R G M D and N have a subscript number indicating the specific variant (see examples below).

Examples

For arohana

In Multani, the aroha is 'N S g M P N S' (lowercase notes are the lower forms, while uppercase notes are the higher forms, and an apostrophe preceding or following a note denotes the lower or higher octave respectively – see swara).

In Sankarabharanam ragam (29th Melakarta in 72 parent ragam scheme of Carnatic music) the Arohana is S R2 G3 M1 P D2 N3 S. See swaras in Carnatic music for explanation of notation.

In Abhogi ragam, which is a janya ragam of 22nd melakarta Kharaharapriya, the Arohana is S R2 G2 M1 D2 S. In this ragam certain notes are excluded so the raga is totally changed.