Chapter 9: Introduction to the Region

2. Chapter 9: Introduction to the Region • Varanasi in northern India • Ancient city known as the traditional center for gharana, a particular school of vocal or instrumental performance in India’s classical music traditions • gharana extend back to the times of the great medieval courts

3. Chapter 9: Introduction to the Region • Drone - extended pitch • Mantras - repeated scriptures, prayers, or phonetic formulas that, through repetition, enhance one’s karma or predisposition to goodness • Vedasare unmetered songs of devotion and ritual that form the oldest books of the Hindu religion

4. Chapter 9: Introduction to the Region • Indian Geography • India is often divided into two large cultural regions that reflect different classical music traditions: • North India or Hindustani India, and • South India or Karnatic India

5. Chapter 9: Elements of Indian Classical Music • Hindustani in the North and Karnatic in the South have in common the following elements: • Melodic Improvisation by a Soloist • Accompaniment by a Drummer • Improvisation Based on Raga • Cyclic Conception of Meter • Drone

6. Chapter 9: Elements of Indian Classical Music • The Nature of Improvisation in Indian Music • During the performance, a performer makes decisions about the improvised elements. • These choices will be constrained by: • Harmony • Meter • Tonality • and other complex and strict guidelines about what is and is not appropriate

7. Chapter 9: Elements of Indian Classical Music • The Nature of Improvisation in Indian Music • An Indian musician makes decisions based on: • the form—the raga - the melodic basis of the piece • the tala - the metrical basis of the piece

8. Chapter 9: Elements of Indian Classical Music • The Nature of Improvisation in Indian Music • Students of Indian music begin not by learning rules for improvisation, but by learning • a raga’s precomposed songs or themes, called bandish in the North and gitam in the South

9. Chapter 9: Elements of Indian Classical Music • Training for Performance of Indian Music • Guru – an individual teacher • Gharana - a particular school of vocal or instrumental performance

10. Chapter 9: Indian Instruments and Their Functions • The Soloist • The most common of the many diverse melodic instruments are the: • Sitar - a plucked lute with frets • Sarod – a plucked lute without frets • Sarangi - a bowed lute • Bansuri - a transverse flute • Bin - an ancient and venerated plucked stick-zither • Violin • A singer is often paired with a harmonium (a portable reed organ) or a sarangi

11. Chapter 9: Indian Instruments and Their Functions • The Drummer • In North India, the drummer usually plays the tabla (a pair of small drums) with palms and fingers • South Indian drummers play the mrdangam, a single drum with two heads

12. Chapter 9: Indian Instruments and Their Functions • The Drone • Drone -a very long or unchanging note • In Indian music, a string instrument, the tambura (tanpura in North India), normally plays the drone • In South India a sruti box, a specialized reed organ, sometimes substitutes for the tambura

13. Chapter 9: Indian Instruments and Their Functions • Chordophones in Indian Music • Chordophones—string instruments—have an ancient history in India and play a central role in classical music • Many chordophones in India also retain a feature called taraf, meaning sympathetic strings • sympathetic vibration – Vibrations in the air corresponding to the pitch of the taraf string will cause it to vibrate very softly

14. Chapter 9: Raga – The Melodic Dimension of Indian Music • The most important guiding principle for melody in India is the concept known as raga • Raga or ragam is the Sanskrit form of the word, and rag is the Hindi form of the word

15. Chapter 9: Raga – The Melodic Dimension of Indian Music • the concept of raga includes at least the following components: • a tuning system, which may vary slightly among ragas that otherwise share the same scale • a scale system, which may be different in ascending and descending forms • a tonic, or starting point, within the scale as well as defined roles for some of the other pitches within the scale

16. Chapter 9: Raga – The Melodic Dimension of Indian Music Continued… • certain melodic motives that are associated with a particular raga or are especially appropriate • certain ornamentation practices, although these may also vary according to the instrument playing • extramusical associations, such as the appropriateness of a particular raga for a particular time of day or for its ability to express certain emotions • the core of the feeling of the raga is best encapsulated in the Alap - the non-pulsatile introduction

17. Chapter 9: Raga – The Melodic Dimension of Indian Music • The Tuning of Ragas • The history of ragas and their tuning has created a great deal of controversy among musicians and scholars • Natyasastra – ancient Indian text of music and drama theory • mentions a tuning system in which each octave is divided into twenty-two sruti • sruti means microtone, that is, a very small interval

18. Chapter 9: Raga – The Melodic Dimension of Indian Music • The Scales of Ragas • A raga most often uses seven out of the twelve possible pitches (svara) • Sa (do) - the tonic or home pitch • Melakarta – a scale system to enumerate all the possible seven-note scales that ragas could use • Semitone - the interval between any two adjacent notes in the complete twelve-tone per octave tuning system

19. Chapter 9: Raga – The Melodic Dimension of Indian Music • The Scales of Ragas • Komal - a lowered tone(the Western flat) • Tivra - a raised tone(the Western sharp) • Shuddh - an unaltered tone,neither komal nor tivra, (the Western natural) • That - heptatonic (seven-tone) scales

20. Chapter 9: Raga – The Melodic Dimension of Indian Music • Arohana/Avarohana (Ascending/Descending Scale) • Below is the graphic of the arohana/avarohana of raga Desh • The tonic pitch, sa, is in boldface

21. Chapter 9: Raga – The Melodic Dimension of Indian Music • Arohana/Avarohana (Ascending/Descending Scale) The ten that of Bhatkande

22. Chapter 9: Raga – The Melodic Dimension of Indian Music • Arohana/Avarohana (Ascending/Descending Scale) • In the graphic below the pitch re (second scale degree) is absent in the ascent, but the descending scales can be direct, without the momentary changes of direction of raga Khamaj

23. Chapter 9: Raga – The Melodic Dimension of Indian Music • Arohana/Avarohana (Ascending/Descending Scale) • Chalan – a yet more expanded representation of a raga’s characteristic rising and falling melody that includes its characteristic motives • Below is the chalanfor raga Khamaj

24. Chapter 9: Raga – The Melodic Dimension of Indian Music • The Hierarchy of Pitches • Vadi - a principal tone • Samvadi -a secondary principal tone • normally three or four svara (pitches) above the vadi

25. Chapter 9: Raga – The Melodic Dimension of Indian Music • Gamak (Ornamentation) • - characteristic ornamentation in Indian raga performance

26. Chapter 9: Raga – The Melodic Dimension of Indian Music • Pakar—Important Motives in Indian Music • Pakar – characteristic motive in Indian raga • the pakar is represented in the chalan, the concise summary of the melodic material of a raga • Gat – metered part of Indian instrumental performance • Cadences - the ends of phrases

27. Chapter 9: Raga – The Melodic Dimension of Indian Music • Extramusical Associations • Rasa - specific feelings that art can express • Ragamala – collection of paintings symbolically illustrating Indian raga

28. Chapter 9: Tala – The Rhythmic Dimension of Indian Music • Yoga - spiritual discipline • quantitative accents - that is, syllables are accented not through loudness (as in English) but by holding them twice as long as unaccented syllables

29. Chapter 9: Tala – The Rhythmic Dimension of Indian Music • In the same way that the concept of raga governs the melodic dimension of Indian music, so tala governs the rhythmic dimension • Tala has a hierarchy of pulses, that is, ways of grouping and subdividing beats • It has a system of subdivisions of beats • beats themselves • groupings of beats (called vibhag in the North or anga in the South) • groupings of groupings of beats (called avarta or avritti, or, more informally, the tala cycle)

30. Chapter 9: Tala – The Rhythmic Dimension of Indian Music • Patterns of Beats in the Tala • In a tala, stress is usually placed on the first beat (sam) of the cycle • the polar opposite to the sam beat is the de-emphasized beat of the cycle, called khali, meaning empty • The first beats of vibhag (groupings of beats) that are neither sam nor khali are called tali

31. Chapter 9: Tala – The Rhythmic Dimension of Indian Music • Patterns of Beats in the Tala • The tala tintal is the most frequently used tala today • It consists of a cycle containing sixteen beats divided 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 • The first beat of the third vibhag, beat nine, is khali • It would thus be notated like this:

32. Chapter 9: Tala – The Rhythmic Dimension of Indian Music • Patterns of Beats in the Tala • Bols – Indian drumming syllable • The bols assigned to the beats of tintal tala are as follows: • A pattern of bols is called a theka (North) or sokattu (South)

33. Chapter 9: Performance of Raga Khamaj • Alap - the non-pulsatile section that begins a classical Indian performance • the alap is the section in which we can hear the characteristics of the raga in their purest form

34. Chapter 9: Performance of Raga Khamaj • Raga khamaj: • is traditionally associated with sensuality and feminine beauty • uses an unaltered seventh scale step (ni-shuddh or simply ni) in ascent • uses a lowered seventh step (ni-komal) in descent • Jor – quasi-pulsatile section in North Indian performance • jhala – Indian technique of interpolating drone pitches between melody notes

35. Chapter 9: Vocal Music in India • North Indian Vocal Music • Qawwali – tradition of Islamic songs from Pakistan, emerged from the Qawal • Qawal - wandering Sufi mystics who sang devotional Islamic songs • A qawwali ensemble may include • one or more harmoniums • a dholak (small hand-held drum) • melody instruments such as the bansri, tabla, and tambura

36. Chapter 9: Vocal Music in India • North Indian Vocal Music • Dhrupad – long classical North Indian vocal form • A performance of dhrupad is a vocal tour de force that can last up to three hours and include accompaniment by the: • bin • tambura • pakhavaj, the ancient double-headed drum (instead of the modern tabla)

37. Chapter 9: Vocal Music in India • North Indian Vocal Music • Khyal - the most prominent vocal genrein Hindustani concerts • creates elegant and ornate lines suited to the lighter and often romantic texts • In khyal performances the tempo does not gradually increase, but the tala cycle may be suddenly halved at some point, in effect doubling the tempo • Adding to the excitement toward the end of the performance are • fast scalar runs, called tans • or sometimes fast scat sections derived from a related form known as tarana

38. Chapter 9: Vocal Music in India • North Indian Vocal Music • Thumri - the most important light classical Hindustani vocal genre • lyrical songs of love or lost romance • focus is not on the virtuosity of the singer, but on the poignancy of the text • thumri are especially popular as short closing pieces for concerts

39. Chapter 9: Vocal Music in India • South Indian Vocal Music • Kriti - the most popular of the major vocal forms of South Indian performances • The form of the song on which a kriti is based is similar to the verse/refrain form of many Western songs • the refrain is called the pallavi • the verse is called the caranam • A contrasting section known as the anupallavi is also common

40. Chapter 9: Vocal Music in India • South Indian Vocal Music • ragam-tanam-pallavi - a long and virtuosic form associated with court patronage, much like the northern dhrupad • nearly entirely free improvisation with very little text

41. Chapter 9: Vocal Music in India • South Indian Vocal Music • Bhajan - well-known popular devotional songs that frequently close a South Indian concert • Tillana - a form used to accompany dance, consists entirely of bols (drum syllables); the Hindustani equivalent is tarana • Kirtana - songs that include improvisation and form an intermediate step for the student singer between non-improvised forms and long virtuoso forms such as kriti

42. Chapter 9: Vocal Music in India • Performance of the Kriti, Ninnada Nela • Tyagaraja (1767–1847) is probably South India’s most famous composer • he is remembered as a holy person for whom music was a means of devotion and spiritual enlightenment

43. Chapter 9: Vocal Music in India • Performance of the Kriti, Ninnada nela • Tyagaraja composed Ninnada nela in raga Kannada • The arohana/avarohana below shows how in this raga pitch ri (the second scale degree) is avoided in ascent and ni (seventh scale degree) is avoided in descent • There is also a characteristic turn around pitch ma (fourth scale degree) in both ascent and descent

44. Chapter 9: Vocal Music in India • Folk Song in India • cinna melm – folk ensemble • accompany certain ritual dances with the powerful sound of massed barrel-shaped drums, double reeds or flutes, and drones

45. Chapter 9: Vocal Music in India • Baul Music • distinctive folk tradition • the songs are not usually explicitly religious • the texts usually consist of religious or moral allegories • the Baul singer is often a one-person band who plays, for example, a drone chordophone in one hand and a small drum in the other and jingles ankle bells to movements of a dance, all while singing • Khamak - string-drum • the singing style is full, expressive, and open-throated

46. Chapter 9: Filmi Music in India • Filmi Popular Music • One's everyday experience of music is most likely to originate not from raga improvisations nor even Western pop music, but from songs originating in popular films, music known as filmi. • The historical center of the film industry is the city of Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay, which has therefore earned the nickname "Bollywood."

47. Chapter 9: The Influence of Indian Music on Contemporary Western Music • Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar introduced Indian classical music to Western popular audiences • many Western writers had expressed respect for and interest in Indian classical music through the colonial period and saw in it correspondences to the European classical tradition • Indian music is largely improvised and was not deemed compatible with Western-harmonic progressions and modulations • Minimalism – a style in which composers experimented with a minimum of means