gamaka
Ornamental pitch movements in Indian classical music, including slides, oscillations, and grace notes.
In Depth
Gamakas are the ornaments that bring ragas to life. They include slides between notes (meend), oscillations around a pitch (andolan), quick grace notes, and various other embellishments specific to each raga. A raga's identity depends not just on its scale but on the characteristic gamakas applied to each note. Two ragas using identical notes can sound completely different based on their gamakas. Mastering gamakas takes years of study with a guru.
Some gamakas are so subtle that they cannot be notated in any existing system; they can only be learned by direct oral transmission from teacher to student, as has been done for millennia.