Blogs >> Fun & Entertaiment >>
Indian classical music
The Raga Sangeet system of Indian music has a history of some 2000 years. The roots of Indian classical music are religious and lay in the Vedic hymns of the Hindu temples. According to the traditional teaching, sound is God - Nada Brahma. Through music, human consciousness can be elevated to a degree which allows one to understand the eternal essence of the universe. Indian classical music has "an unbroken history of development, and above all it is a living tradition that still is in the process of evolution", specifies Ravi Shankar.
The Hindustani or North Indian style of music developed after the subcontinent was invaded by the Moguls from the 13th century onwards. In the Mogul empire, cultures derived from Persia and elsewhere merged with local traditions. The indigenous music of India, with its intricate systems of ragas and talas, continued uninterrupted and has become the Carnatic or South Indian style, dominant in the areas never conquered by the Moguls. Whereas in the North, musicians from Persia and India influenced each other and experimented with each others instruments.
Singers led the way in this musical fusion. Over the centuries, hybrid instruments such as the sitar - attributed to Amir Kushroo in the 13th century and modified over the following centuries - have emerged that can match the subtleties and emotional force of the human voice. Initially a courtly music, the Northern style has lost the concise, mathematical perfection and social openness of the South Indian style, but it gained new dimensions.
Originally, all Indian music was sung in Sanskrit. But after the two systems divided, Hindustani music was centered around Hindi and its dialect Brajabhasha, whereas the Carnatic system was mainly influenced by Telegu as well as by Kannadese and Tamil.
Historically, the musical tradition was passed on in gharanas or regional schools or styles of performance in the cities of Northern India, especially through family dynasties of famous teachers and musicians, frequently named after the place where it originated. Today, teaching has often transferred to colleges and conservatoires, but the traditional system through guru-shishya instruction persists, and so do the dynasties. Family members of outstanding musicians such as sarod maestro Amjad Ali Khan, flautist Hariprasad Chaurasia, sarangi pioneer Ram Narayan, santoor player Shivkumar Sharma, tabla genius Alla Rakha, sitar player Ravi Shankar and others continue the tradition of classical Indian music, some of them creating a special style of playing an instrument (baaj).
The basics of Indian classical music
India's performing arts - music, dance, drama, and poetry - are based on the concept of Nava Rasa (the nine sentiments). The acknowledged order of these sentiments is as follows: Shringara (romantic and erotic), Hasya (humorous), Karuna (pathetic), Raudra (anger), Veera (heroic), Bhayanaka (fearful), Vibhatsa (disgustful), Adbhuta (amazement), and Shanta (peaceful).
Indian classical music is based on ragas (melody) and talas (rhythm), but not on harmony, counterpoint, modulation, chords, dynamics and other structural elements of Western (classical) music. Furthermore, the tradition of Indian classical music is an oral one. The guru teaches it directly to his disciples. There is no sheet music, no written tradition as in Western music.
The background drone tone accompaniment for the soloists for almost all performances of classical Indian music is provided by the tanpura, a string instrument with no virtuoso function.
The heart of Indian classical music - of both the Hindustani and the Carnatic system - is the raga: the melodic form upon which the musician improvises and which may take hours to develop. The raga framework is established by tradition and nurtured by the leading musicians of the past and present, composer and sitar player Ravi Shankar being one of them.
Ravi Shankar defines ragas as follows: "Ragas are extremely difficult to explain in a few words. Though Indian music is modal in character, ragas should not be mistaken as modes that one hears in the music of the Middle and Far Eastern countries, nor be understood to be a scale, melody per se, a composition, or a key. A raga is a scientific, precise, subtle and aesthetic melodic form with its own peculiar ascending and descending movement consisting of either a full seven note octave, or a series of six or five notes (or a combination of any of these) in a rising or falling structure called the Arohana and Avarohana. It is the subtle difference in the order of notes, an omission of a dissonant note, an emphasis on a particular note, the slide from one note to another, and the use of microtones together with other subtleties, that demarcate one raga from the other."
Each raga is principally dominated by one of the nine rasas (sentiments) mentioned above, although the performer can express additional emotions in a less prominent way. The closer the notes of a raga translate one idea or emotion, the more resounding the effect of the raga. Ravi Shankar adds that "90 percent of Indian music may be improvised", that "a raga is the projection of the artist's inner spirit, a manifestation of his most profound sentiments and sensibilities brought forth through tones and melodies", and that "The spiritual quality and manner of expression [of a Raga] cannot be learned from any book."
Ravi Shankar refers to the Sanskrit saying Ranjayathi iti Ragah, which establishes, that a raga, in order to color the mind of the listener, should be created "not only through the notes and the embellishments, but also by the presentation of the specific emotion or mood characteristic of each raga." In this way, melodies of Indian classical music allow accomplished musicians to express and experience "every human emotion, every subtle feeling in man and nature".
In addition to expressing a particular mood, each raga is also associated with a particular time of day or a season of the year. Each time of the day - before dawn, noon, late afternoon, early evening, late night - is associated with a definite emotion. The cycle of day and night as well as the cycle of the seasons are supposed to be analogous to the cycle of life.
Ragas are based on 72 melas or parent scales. With all their permutations and combinations, one estimates that there are over 6,000 ragas. In addition to the ascending - descending structure (Arohana - Avarohana), a raga has a specific chalan - or characteristic note pattern. This pattern is defined by its principle important note (vadi), its second most important note (samavadi), its main feature known as jan (life) or mukhda (face), and the cluster of a few notes by which a raga is immediately recognizable.
It takes a student many years of sadhana or dedicated practice and discipline under the guidance of a guru to be able to put the breath of life (prana) into a raga. Among the secrets of a vibrant and incandescent performance a teacher imparts to his pupil is the use of shrutis (microtones; Indian music uses smaller intervals than Western music: 22 microtones within an octave), gamakas (sort of glissandi) and andolan (a sway, but not a vibrato).
The talas or rhythmic cycles of a raga are another essential element of Indian classical music. Talas range from cycles of 3 beats to cycles of up to 108 beats. The most popular talas use cycles of 5 to 16 beats. The most important rhythmic factors are the stress on the first beat (sum) and the division in a tala. Talas with the same number of beats my differ from each other in that they use other divisions and accents. For instance, the tala Dhamar has 14 beats, divided into 5+5+4 beats, whereas the tala Chanchar is divided into 3+4+3+4 beats. The most common North Indian cycle, teental, consists of 16 beats in four groups of four beats.
Robert Maycock explains that cycles may "begin and end on the first beat - in Western terms, they run over into the first downbeat of the next, so that the rhythm flows seamlessly. They are the springboard for fantastical games of cross-rhythms, playing against the regular pattern, overlapping and ear-tricking. The intricacy, far beyond anything encountered in European music, becomes second nature to trained performers." He adds: "Once the peak of excitement has been reached, there is usually a formal ending or tihai, a threefold repetition of a short series of phrases within which the final phrase is itself repeated three times."
Ravi Shankar explains: "In vocal music, a drummer will accompany a singer either in slow, medium, or fast tempo at the start of a song in whatever tala the singer chooses. He will do the same when he accompanies an instrumentalist in the gat section of a composition" He adds, that the two-faced drum known as pakhawaj accompanies the traditional Dhrupad-Dhamar form of singing and instrumental performances on the veena, rabab, surbahar, etc. However, today, most vocal and instrumental music is based on the contemporary form called khyal, which is accompanied by the tabla, a two-piece drum. It consists of the right-hand, wooden-bodied tabla and the left-hand, metal-bodied bass-drum bayan or dugga.
Khyal is a further development of dhurap and dhamar and dates from the 13th century. Its origin is attributed to Amir Kushroo. It was further developed by Sultan Hussain Shirki and brought to its ultimate respectability by Sadarang. It has gained in popularity since the late 19th century.
The traditional recital of Indian classical music begins with the alap section, the stately and serene exploration, the gradual and meditative unfolding of the structure, theme and rasa of a chosen raga. It is considered the highest form in Indian music. This slow, introspective and heartfelt beginning is followed by the jor, which adds rhythm to the music and develops the raga's basic theme in innumerable variations. Neither the alap nor the jor are accompanied by the drums. They evolve into the gat, the fixed composition of the raga. The drums enter the rhythmic structure of the gat and its time cycle, the tala. This section is based on the Khyal form. The gat can be anything between 4 and 16 bars of fixed composition. It becomes the vehicle for the musician to return to after his improvisation. The gat accelerates step-by-step and culminates in the jhala portion, which is playful and exciting. The interplay, the dialogue between between sitar and tabla is called Sawal jabab. At the conclusion of a recital, the musicians often choose to play a thumri or dhun, an air or melody in a semi-classical or folk style. It is much freer than the classical one and completely romantic, sensual and erotic.
regards:
| http://www.isongs.pk |
|
|
