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Essentials of Hindustani Music
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2024
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My purpose in this article is to bring out the basic features of Hindustani music—the music of North India. Karnatik music, or the music of the South, is different. Fortunately, however, some basic concepts are common to both the styles. More important of these are: alāpa, rāga, tāla. So, a treatment of Hindustani music is not to be regarded as throwing no light on the Karnatik style. The bases of my attempt are provided essentially by my own experiences as a listener. But I have also drawn upon established musicology; and, what is equally important, upon the aesthetic insight revealed by our master musicians in intimate conversation.
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- Copyright © 1964 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)
References
1 The technical Indian word for music is Sangita, which originally included dancing and drama as well.
2 Tala is rhythm. Alapa is a style of performing. Raga or melody-type is a basic concept pertaining to the euphonic aspect of Hindustani (and Karnatik) music. These terms are explained later in the essay.
3 Brahma stands for the Absolute. Nad means sound, heard and unheard or ahata and anahata. Sound becomes manifest in the human body. This perhaps explains why in Sangit Ratnakar, which is a classical work on music, the human body too is described. Vide Sangit Ratnakar, English Translation by Dr. C. Kunhan Raja, The Adyar Library, 1945. Vol. I, Chapter 1, p. 10.
4 Dhrupad is a distinct style of singing.
5 I owe this bit of knowledge to Ustad Rahimuddin Khan Dagur. The song referred to here is a dhrupad describing the way to success in Yoga, the concept of six psychic centres being central to this system of psycho-ethical discipline.
6 A sruti is an interval smaller than the semi-tone, not necessarily an equal division of the latter.
7 This explains the distinctive charm of two madhyams (F and F sharp) in ragas kedar and lalit and of two nishads (B and B flat) in raga mian ki malhar.
8 A svara is one of the seven notes of the gamut.
9 This one definition should be allowed to qualify the impression that Hindustani musicians are indifferent to the quality of tone. Most of them, admittedly, are in practice deficient in this respect. But they all accept the prin ciple of shuddha akara, which means "quality of tone production." And our most popular classical singer today, Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, is admired throughout the country for the "pulpy luminosity" and the delightfully even texture of his tone.
10 Or digambar; that is, having nothing between its being and the four sides. This, however, does not mean that the note is to be stripped of all charm. All beautification is not ornamentation from outside, and the Indian ideal is (also) to present the note as beautiful from within. But this is a point which can be understood only in the context of actual musical performing.
11 Some scholars insist that in ancient India we had a free use of harmony. But the characteristic feature of Indian music today is clearly melody or monody, rather than harmony or polyphony.
12 It is a musical instrument which is used in every performance of classical music to provide a kind of drone built upon some important notes of the raga or mode. Generally, three of its strings are attuned with the tonic, and the fourth one with "sol," so that when the singer articulates "mi," we hear do-mi-sol, the common major chord.
13 The orthodox Indian ideal is to perceive infinity within one note.
14 Grammatically, the E is atikomal, that is, a microtonal double flat, one sruti lower than komal or flat.
15 Alapiya means an exponent of the alapa style of singing.
16 An Ustad is a Muslim master musician of the orthodox variety.
17 It is certainly true that for the classical Hindustani musician "the passage from one note to the next becomes an adventure in subtle portamento, gliding and vacillating variants in microtonality." (H. A. Popley, The Music of India, The Heritage of India Press, 1950, p. 87.)
It is, however, not only such transitions, but the tuneful and suggestive renderings of individual notes that constitute the test of a Hindustani singer's skill.
18 The Hindustani scale, in its sol-fa initials, is as follows: Sa, re, ga, ma, pa, dha, ni, sa. In its standard (or pure) form, it is the European Major scale.
19 In the common European scale, we may note, we have whole steps between do-re and re-mi, but there is a half-step between mi and fa, all other steps being whole, except for si-do.
20 Moderato is called madhya laya.
21 Rarely less than five in number.
22 A top-class raga-rendering can fill up the very atmosphere, as it were, with the vadi note, which may continue to haunt the listener long after he has left the concert hall.
23 Svaras between which there is an interval of nine or thirteen srutis are samvadi with each other.
24 Ragas which are sad in effect use more flat notes than the relatively joyous ones.
25 To be precise, the reference here is to the vivadi svara, that is, a note which though not expressly forbidden, is yet not commonly used in the raga. Such a svara is at an interval of two srutis from the vadi.
26 Sangit Ratnakar cit., p. 9.
27 The first and the third are, in fact, the derivative meanings of the laya.
28 Grammatically, a matra is a syllabic instant-the shortest time in which a syllable could be properly pronounced. Its approximate equivalent in European music is a half a crotchet.
29 Layakari is rhythmic manipulation.
30 It is a beat which is marked not on the drum, but often by a wave of the hand.
31 In actual performing, the centrality of the "sum" is also heightened by the fact that it often coincides with the vadi svara of the raga in point of time.
32 Even literally, the word "sum" means "composure after agitation."
33 Here, of course, the music continues till the "sum" is arrived at.
34 "Formal" not in the sense of "having no content" but in that of being a perfect identity of form and content, or in the sense of being directly expressive, independently of language.
35 Drumming can work up many effects, though the musical note here involved is only one-the tonic.
36 It is thus incorrect to say that in "alapa the notes of the raga are sung in a loose kind of rhythm, regulated simply by convenience." Vide The Music of India cit., p. 88.
37 The three voice registers, treble, middle, and bass are in Hindustani called: tar, madhya and mandra.
38 As it certainly is, according to the Hindustani viewpoint.
39 Bhairava is a devotional raga meant for early morning.
40 This religious practice is fairly common among the Hindus. The hands which reverently pour water over the idol are at a higher level than the latter.
41 Cf. Tagore's remark: "… Indian music concerns itself more with human experience as interpreted by religion, than with experience in an everyday sense… Our music… takes us to that lonely region of renunciation…"
42 An alapiya is a musician who specialises in the alapa style of singing.
43 This is clearly so in the singing of the Dagur brothers, two of our best known vocalists.
44 Ustad Bade Ghulam does this excellently.
45 This is borne out admirable by Ustad Ameer Khan's slow singing in its early stages.
46 They are two of our best known (stringed) musical instruments.
47 Ravi Shankar, the sitarist, and Ali Akbar, the sarodist, are two of our best known instrumentalists.
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