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RagaMatrix Web Explorer

A guide to navigating the corpus and reading its analysis — what each page shows, and what the numbers mean.

Contents

On this page

1Site Navigation
2The Home Page
3The Raga Page
4The Recordings List
5The Recording Page
5.1Performance Tab
5.2Units Tab
5.3Phrases Tab
5.4Motifs Tab
6Status Badges
7Glossary

RagaMatrix is a computational corpus of 72 Melakarta (parent-scale) raga performances — the first complete, reproducible dataset of Carnatic instrumental expression with full MIDI, controller, and audio provenance.

Getting Around

The site is organised into a few top-level sections, reachable from the navigation bar at the top of every page.

Menu item What it shows
Ragas The home page — a card grid of all 72 Melakarta ragas.
Recordings A searchable list of all performance recordings.
Analyses Cross-cutting analyses (currently “Coming in Phase 6”).
About Project background and methodology (currently “Coming soon”).

A breadcrumb trail appears at the top of most pages (e.g. Ragas › Kalyani › Recording #12), letting you step back up the hierarchy at any time. The footer repeats the main links and shows the corpus license (CC BY-NC 4.0), version, and status.

Raga Explorer

2. The Home Page

The home page presents all 72 Melakarta ragas as a grid of cards, with a toolbar for filtering above the grid.

Toolbar controls

  • Search — filter by raga name or Melakarta number.
  • Chakra filter — filter by one of the 12 chakras (groups of 6 ragas).
  • Madhyamam filter — filter by Shuddha Madhyamam (ragas 1–36) or Prati Madhyamam (ragas 37–72).
  • Preview Notes — toggles an audible “pluck” when you click a scale note on a card.
  • Reset Filters — clears all filters.

Reading a raga card

  • Number (top-left, e.g. 29) — the raga’s Melakarta number (1–72). Clicking it opens the raga page.
  • Name — the raga’s name (e.g. Dheera Shankaraabharanam).
  • Note string — the raga’s swara set in shorthand.
  • Write-up — a one-line editorial description.
  • Scale dots — a 12-position strip representing the chromatic scale. Highlighted dots are the notes in this raga; click one to hear it and see its full name. Positions S (tonic) and P (fifth) are always marked.
  • Play button — plays a 30-second audio excerpt (starting 3 minutes into the recording).
  • “Listen to recording →” — jumps to the full recording page (shown when a recording exists).

Side panels

  • Browse by Chakra — an expandable list of the 12 chakras; each expands to its 6 member ragas, with a count of how many have recordings.
  • Recently Updated — the three ragas with the most recent analysis version.

Raga Detail

3. The Raga Page

Clicking any raga opens its detail page, which contains several panels.

Hero (top banner)

  • # number — Melakarta number (1–72).
  • Status badge — analysis state (see Status Badges).
  • Chakra and Madhyamam tags.
  • Name and IAST transliteration (italic).
  • Stats row — recordings (count), total (combined duration, e.g. 12m), phrases (total L2 phrases), and v… (analysis version).
  • Chakra badge (right) — chakra number, name, and description.

Swara Scale panel

Shows the raga’s scale as coloured circles: Ārōhaṇam (Ascending) and Avarōhaṇam (Descending). Each circle is colour-coded by swara (Sa = red, Ri = orange, Ga = yellow, Ma = green, Pa = cyan, Dha = blue, Ni = violet). Subscript numbers (e.g. Ri₁, Ri₂, Ri₃) indicate the exact pitch variant. Vadi (amber) and Samvadi (grey) mark the raga’s most- and second-most-emphasised notes, when recorded.

v2 Analysis panel

Label Meaning
Canonical Notes Total number of “words” (stable analysis notes) across the raga.
Units Total number of “letters” (note-units) — the smallest analysed gestures.
L2 Phrases Number of evidence-based phrase chains.
L2 Boundaries Number of phrase-boundary decisions recorded.
Motif Clusters Number of recurring gesture patterns discovered (L3).
Marginal Percentage of units that sit at the edge of a taxonomy class (uncertain assignments).

Below these, a Museme families bar chart shows how the raga’s units are distributed across ornament families (directed, oscillation, undulating, composite, plain, rare). The number to the right of each bar is the raw unit count.

Related Ragas panel

  • Previous / Next — the neighbouring ragas in the same chakra.
  • Same chakra — quick links to the other five ragas in this chakra.

Browse

4. The Recordings List Page

Lists every recording in the corpus, with search and filters.

Stats bar

Total Recordings, Published, Analyzed, and Total Duration.

Search and filters

  • Search — by raga name, recording title, or recording ID.
  • Status — Published / Draft.
  • Analysis — Published / Pending.
  • Sections — Alaap / Rhythm.
  • Clear — resets all filters.

Reading a recording card

  • # ID, status and analysis status badges.
  • Title and raga name (clicking the raga name opens the raga page).
  • Duration and session date.
  • Section pills — alaap or rhythm, each with duration and phrase count.
  • Review progress — reviewed/total plus a progress bar (percentage of phrases that have been human-reviewed).

Click anywhere on a card to open the recording page.

Deep Dive

5. The Recording Page

Each recording has a header and four tabs.

Header

  • # recording ID, title, status and analysis status badges, and version tag.
  • Duration, BPM, time signature, Sa (tonic pitch, e.g. C#), and session date.
  • A link back to the raga page.
Tab What it shows
Performance A scrollable, multi-lane timeline with audio playback.
Units The note-unit substrate — “words” and “letters”.
Phrases L2 phrase chains with boundary evidence.
Motifs L3 recurring gesture clusters.

Performance Tab

5.1 Performance Tab

The main analytical view: a horizontal timeline with a shared playhead (red line) and a toolbar at the top.

Toolbar controls

  • Play/Pause — plays the audio.
  • Speed — playback rate (0.5×, 1×, 1.5×, 2×).
  • Volume — slider.
  • Display — toggles individual lanes on/off.
  • Chips — toggles taxonomy/museme chips on the Words/Units lane.
  • Zoom — − / + buttons with a px/s readout (pixels per second). Higher = more zoomed in.
  • Time range — the visible time window (e.g. 0:00 – 1:20 of 12:00).

The lanes (top to bottom)

Each lane has a label on the left and is drawn against a shared time ruler at the top. Click the time ruler or the waveform to jump (seek) to that point.

Lane Colour What it shows
Waveform purple The audio waveform.
Playing — The swara name of the note currently sounding (live indicator).
Melody swara colours The melody notes as blocks, positioned by pitch. Hover for a tooltip (pitch, time, velocity, onset pitch-bend).
Keys swara colours The accompaniment “Keys” notes (if present).
Words/Units phase colours Canonical notes (“words”) as boxes, subdivided into note-units (“letters”) with phase-coloured segments.
Pitchbend purple Pitch-bend controller curve, in semitones (st), with a zero line.
Aftertouch green Aftertouch (key pressure) curve, normalised 0–1.
CC#74 amber MIDI CC#74 controller curve, normalised 0–1.
L2 Phrases indigo Phrase spans (boxes) and tier-coloured boundary marks (▲ bind, ▼ cut).

Hovering the Words/Units lane shows a tooltip with the unit’s ID, signature, time span, and taxonomy class. Hovering the L2 Phrases lane shows a “why is this a phrase?” explainer for the nearest boundary.

Units Tab

5.2 Units Tab

This tab shows the note-unit substrate — the smallest analysed building blocks of the performance.

Header ribbon

  • substrate run — the pipeline run ID that produced this data.
  • taxonomy version — the labelling version.
  • N words — number of canonical notes.
  • N units — number of note-units.
  • N links — number of cross-note continuity links.
  • N labelled · M marginal — how many units have taxonomy labels, and how many of those are “marginal” (uncertain).

Reading the list

Each word (canonical note) is a collapsible row showing its # index, swara name (or MIDI pitch), MIDI pitch, time span, N units, and link kinds (blue chips, e.g. bend_continuation or legato_retrigger).

Expanding a word reveals its units (letters). Each unit shows:

Field Meaning
unit Unique unit identifier.
AT split i/n If the unit was split by aftertouch, its position i of n fragments.
normalized signature The unit’s discrete “identity” — its perturbation-stable shape signature.
duration Length of the unit (e.g. 0.4s).
activity Fraction of the unit’s duration that is “active” motion (0–1).
drift Net pitch drift in cents (¢) over the unit.
AT Δ (green) Aftertouch co-movement delta (how much aftertouch moved with pitch).
CC74 Δ (amber) CC#74 co-movement delta.
museme family The ornament family this unit belongs to (directed, oscillation, undulating, composite, plain, rare).
level:signature The taxonomy class code (level A or B).
marginal (amber) Marks an uncertain class assignment.

Phase symbols

Below each unit, phase symbols (small coloured chips) show the unit’s internal shape, in order:

Phase symbol Colour Meaning
plain grey Flat, no motion.
monotonic_rise green Steady upward pitch.
monotonic_fall red Steady downward pitch.
centered_oscillation amber Oscillation around a centre.
pendular_wide orange Wide pendulum-like motion.
rebound_turn purple A turn that rebounds.
undulating_contour cyan Wavy contour.
composite_motion pink Combination of motions.
micro light grey Very small/short motion.

Hovering a phase chip shows its role (onset/interior/release), duration, drift, and residual depth.

Phrases Tab

5.3 Phrases Tab

This tab shows L2 phrases — maximal runs of consecutive notes bound by positive evidence (not arbitrary thresholds).

Boundary tier legend

Colour Tier Meaning
purple 0 Section hard cut (by design).
green 1 Link bind (continuous slide or legato retrigger).
red 2 Gap cut (a real rest).
amber 3 Adjudicated (decided by scoring).

Reading the phrase table

Column Meaning
φ Phrase index (0-based order within its track).
Track Plucked, or Wind & Bowed.
Section alaap (free rhythm) or rhythm (pulse-coupled).
Words Number of canonical notes in the phrase.
Start / End Time span (m:ss).
Duration Length of the phrase.
Review accepted (green), rejected (red), or unreviewed (grey).
Boundaries Number of boundary-evidence rows on file.

Click a phrase row to expand it and see its word span, phrase ID, and boundary evidence — one row per adjacent word-pair showing the tier, decision (bind/cut), link kind, note IDs, gap (seconds of rest), overlap, Δpitch (pitch change in cents), and whether the phrase settled on its swara. Each boundary includes a “Why?” explainer in plain language (e.g. “There is a real rest of 1.2 s here, and the phrase settled on its swara.”). Tier 3 boundaries also show binding and separation scores (0–1).

Motifs Tab

5.4 Motifs Tab

This tab shows L3 motif discovery — recurring gesture patterns (“swara-degree skeletons”) found across the recording’s phrases.

Each cluster card header shows the degree key (e.g. Sa > Ri > Ga), rank (0 = most significant), n (cell length in note-units), section and track, N× occurrences, and confirmed / rejected badges when reviewed.

Click a card to expand it and see:

Metric Meaning
Recurrence Number of distinct phrases the motif appears in.
Share Percentage of phrases containing this motif.
Significance Statistical significance score.
Stability How consistent the motif’s duration is across occurrences.
Ornament profile Dominant museme (ornament) and its share, plus variant count.
Aftertouch profile Dominant aftertouch shape and its share.
Review gloss Human adjudication note (when present).

Below these, occurrences are listed as clickable rows — each shows the time window (m:ss – m:ss), a medoid tag for the most representative occurrence, and the museme sequence. Clicking an occurrence jumps the playhead to that moment in the Performance tab.

Reference

6. Status Badges and Version Tags

Recording status

Badge Colour Meaning
published green Publicly available.
draft grey Not yet published.
pending amber Awaiting processing.
approved green Human-approved.
rejected red Human-rejected.
superseded grey Replaced by a newer version.

Analysis status

Badge Colour Meaning
published indigo Analysis is public.
complete green Analysis finished.
partial amber Analysis partially done.
pending amber Analysis not yet run.

Version tags

  • v… — the analysis version (e.g. v2.3).
  • substrate run / L2 run / L3 run — pipeline run IDs that produced the data. These are internal provenance identifiers, useful for reproducibility but not needed for casual browsing.

Glossary

7. Glossary of Terms

Term Meaning
Melakarta One of the 72 parent scales of Carnatic music.
Chakra A group of 6 consecutive Melakarta ragas (12 chakras total).
Madhyamam The 4th note variant — Shuddha (natural) or Prati (sharpened).
Swara A scale note (Sa, Ri, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni).
Ārōhaṇam / Avarōhaṇam Ascending / descending scale.
Vadi / Samvadi Most-emphasised / second-most-emphasised notes.
Tonic (Sa) The reference pitch of the performance (e.g. C, C#).
Canonical note (“word”) A stable, analysis-level note event.
Note-unit (“letter”) The smallest analysed gesture; a word or an aftertouch-split fragment.
Phase A sub-segment of a unit describing its internal pitch shape.
Normalized signature A unit’s discrete, perturbation-stable identity.
Museme family A broad ornament category (directed, oscillation, undulating, composite, plain, rare).
L2 phrase A maximal run of notes bound by positive evidence.
Boundary A decision point between two notes (bind = continue, cut = break).
L3 motif A recurring gesture pattern discovered across phrases.
Cents (¢) A unit of pitch: 100 cents = 1 semitone.
BPM Beats per minute (tempo).
MIDI A numeric pitch standard (middle C = 60).
Pitch-bend (PB) A controller that bends pitch, measured in semitones.
Aftertouch (AT) Key pressure after a note is struck.
CC#74 A MIDI continuous controller (brightness/timbre).
Marginal A unit whose taxonomy assignment is uncertain (near a class boundary).
Medoid The most representative member of a cluster.

RagaMatrix Project — research preview. License: CC BY-NC 4.0.