raga

A terminal reference tool for Hindustani classical music — look up ragas and talas, browse by time, mood, or feel, and get suggestions suited to the moment.

What is this?

Ragas and talas are the melodic and rhythmic foundations of Hindustani classical music. This tool helps you explore them: look up detailed information about any raga or tala, discover which ones suit a particular time of day or mood, and listen to audio previews. Whether you're a student learning Indian classical music, a listener discovering new ragas, or a musician planning your practice, this reference tool gives you quick access to the essential details.

Demo

Try raga suggest to get ragas suited to the current time of day:

$ raga suggest
Suggesting 3 raga(s) for afternoon

╭─────────────────────── Madhuvanti ─────────────────────╮
│  Thaat           Todi                                  │
│  Time            Afternoon                             │
│  Mood            sweet, yearning, romantic             │
│  Arohana         Sa Re Ga Ma♯ Pa Ni SA                 │
│  Avarohana       SA Ni Dha Pa Ma♯ Ga Re Sa             │
│                                                        │
│  A relatively modern raga... [description continues]  │
╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

Or look up a specific raga with colored notation and detailed analysis:

$ raga lookup yaman

╭─────────────────── Yaman ─────────────────────────────╮
│  Thaat           Kalyan                                │
│  Time            Evening                               │
│  Vadi / Samvadi  Ga / Ni                               │
│  Mood            serene, romantic, devotional          │
│  Arohana         Sa Re Ga Ma♯ Pa Dha Ni SA             │
│  Avarohana       SA Ni Dha Pa Ma♯ Ga Re Sa             │
│                                                        │
│  One of the most foundational and widely taught       │
│  ragas... [description continues]                     │
╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

Installation

pip install ragamala

Requires Python 3.11 or later.

Quick Start

raga suggest                  # suggest ragas for the current time
raga lookup yaman             # detailed view of one raga
raga list --mood devotional   # filter by mood

tala lookup teentaal          # look up a tala by name
tala list --beats 16          # filter by beat count

Optional: Audio Playback

The raga play command requires FluidSynth and a SoundFont file. The lookup, list, and suggest commands work without audio.

Install FluidSynth

# macOS
brew install fluid-synth

# Debian/Ubuntu
apt install fluidsynth

# Windows
# Download from https://github.com/FluidSynth/fluidsynth/releases

Install the audio extra

pip install 'ragamala[audio]'

Get a SoundFont

Download a free SoundFont file (e.g., FluidR3_GM.sf2) from the FluidSynth project or MuseScore. Then pass it to raga play:

raga play yaman --soundfont /path/to/FluidR3_GM.sf2

Or set the RAGA_SOUNDFONT environment variable once:

export RAGA_SOUNDFONT=/path/to/FluidR3_GM.sf2
raga play yaman   # uses the env var

Commands

raga

raga lookup <name>              # look up a raga by name (fuzzy match)
raga list                       # list all ragas
raga list --thaat Kalyan        # filter by thaat
raga list --time evening        # filter by time of day
raga list --mood devotional
raga list --season spring
raga list --plain               # plain text output (no color, pipe-friendly)
raga list --output ragas.txt    # write plain text to a file

raga suggest                    # suggest ragas for the current time of day
raga suggest --time morning     # suggest for a specific time
raga suggest --mood romantic    # suggest by mood
raga suggest --time dusk --mood solemn --count 5

raga play <name>                # play arohana+avarohana via FluidSynth
raga play <name> --sa D4        # set Sa reference pitch (default: C4)
raga play <name> --tempo 60     # set tempo in BPM (default: 80)
raga play <name> --soundfont /path/to/FluidR3_GM.sf2

tala

tala lookup <name>              # look up a tala by name (fuzzy match)
tala list                       # list all talas
tala list --beats 16            # filter by beat count
tala list --feel stately        # filter by feel
tala list --tempo vilambit      # filter by tempo
tala list --plain               # plain text output (no color, pipe-friendly)
tala list --output talas.txt    # write plain text to a file

tala suggest                    # suggest talas from the full collection
tala suggest --beats 16         # suggest talas with a specific beat count
tala suggest --feel lively      # suggest by feel
tala suggest --tempo drut --count 2

Shell completions

Both raga and tala support tab completion for all options and their values (raga names, thaats, times, moods, seasons, feels, tempos, beat counts).

raga --install-completion       # install completion for your current shell
tala --install-completion

raga --show-completion          # print the completion script (for manual setup)
tala --show-completion

Supported shells: bash, zsh, fish, PowerShell.

Reference

Raga time values

dawn · morning · afternoon · evening · dusk · night · late night · midnight · any

raga suggest defaults to the current time of day when called with no arguments.

Swara notation

Swaras are displayed with color: komal (flat) notes in yellow, tivra (sharp) Ma in magenta. Upper-octave SA is bold.

Tala theka notation

Bols prefixed with ~ are khali (unaccented) beats, rendered dim and italic.

Data

Ragas and talas are stored as JSON in src/raga/data/. To add entries, edit ragas.json or talas.json directly — no code changes needed.

Development

To contribute, first install in development mode:

pip install -e ".[dev]"

Then run tests:

python -m pytest tests/ -v