Learn Hindustani ragas by ear: pick your Sa, start the drone, and sing along with each raga’s phrases. Western scales are one tap away.
Today’s practice
A short guided session: the app sets everything up for each step. You just sing.
Session lengthSteady: one smooth, continuous sound made of low Sa, low Pa and Sa. Hum Sa and adjust until the wobble between your voice and the drone disappears. That smooth, “locked” feeling means you’re in tune.
Tanpura: the four plucks aren’t a tune to follow. Let them blur into one shimmering background, and treat the deepest pluck (low Sa) as home. Its buzzing overtones help you tune other notes later. This tanpura is a physical model of plucked strings with a buzzing bridge; a recorded one still sounds a little richer.
Both: the tanpura’s plucks over a quieter steady bed. The steady sound gives you an unbroken Sa to lock onto, and the plucks add the tanpura’s shimmer and overtones. A good everyday choice.
If the plucks are confusing, use Steady. Try Tanpura alone once you can hold Sa and Pa without drifting.
Pick a Sa that’s comfortable to sing, and use Octave to move it up or down. Many men start around C or C♯, many women around G♯ or A. Sing Sa with the drone until it feels steady.
Call and response
The piano plays a short phrase. Then it’s your turn: sing it back, and the phrase plays again so you can compare. With the mic on, your singing is checked automatically; tapping the keys still works too.
Tuner
Sing and hold a note to see how close you are. It uses your microphone; headphones give the cleanest reading, because the drone and piano can leak into the mic.
Holding one note steadily is the first singing skill. Pick a note, start the exercise, then sing it and keep it as even as you can. Turn the drone on to find the note.
Note to hold Hold for 5 secondsOn: the phone tries to remove the drone from the mic, but it can also turn the drone down or muffle your voice. Off: the most natural sound, best with headphones. Try both and keep whichever works better.
With AirPods, try the iPhone microphone: using the AirPods mic switches them to phone-call quality, which makes the drone sound thin.
Start the tuner to see mic details.
If the drone plays from the speaker, the tuner checks how much of it reaches the mic when the drone starts (stay quiet for 2 seconds), then ignores it. If you moved the phone or sang during the check, measure again.
◯ on a key = resting note. ♭ = komal, ♯ = tivra. A dot below a note means the lower octave, a dot above means the upper octave. These are common textbook forms; gharanas differ, and ornaments like andolan and meend aren’t played yet.
Stops your phone locking (which can cut the drone) while the drone, playback, call and response or the tuner is running.
Outside the raga: phrases skip the notes you turn off, so this is no longer the full raga.
Numbers available to pick
Tap a cell to turn a note on or off.
Sets every setting back to how the app first started and forgets the ones saved on this device.