Raga

A Western scale can be written as a note list and a pattern of intervals. A raga may also have a note inventory, but it gives musicians characteristic routes, emphasized notes, ornaments and recognizable phrases. In Hindustani descriptions, aroha names an ascending route and avaroha a descending one. A characteristic phrase is often called a pakad.

Raga Hemant is a useful example: Darbar's description gives five notes in its ascent and seven in its descent. Simply writing the union of those notes as a seven-note scale would hide the directional difference. The performer also shapes phrases rather than running the two lists mechanically.

No. Hindustani and Carnatic classical traditions have related ideas and distinct practices. Individual ragas have their own rules and characteristic movements; performances also reflect training and artistic choices. One short set of Western note names cannot be treated as a complete transcription of the tradition.

Some Hindustani ragas have associations with particular times or seasons. Those associations can guide listening and performance, but they are not a substitute for hearing the musical grammar of a particular raga.

A piano can sound many written pitches of some ragas. Its fixed keys cannot reproduce continuous slides, bends and other pitch shaping in the same way as a singer or an instrument that can move between pitches. Even when the pitches happen to match, playing them once from low to high does not teach the defining phrases.

Start with a recording from a knowledgeable performer. In your first listen, find the note that repeatedly feels like a resting point. In the second, listen for one short figure that comes back. Only then read the ascent and descent on the source page and see where your ear recognizes them. Darbar's beginner guide gives more context; Tone Systems Beyond Twelve-Tone Equal Temperament explains the wider limitation of piano-key comparisons.