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MUSIC
RESOURCE GUIDE
An Introduction to
the Music of India
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INTRODUCTION....................................... 5
SECTION I:
INTRODUCTION TO MUSIC THEORY
AND THE MUSIC OF INDIA..................... 6
Basic Elements of Music Theory..........................6
Sound and Music............................................. 6
Music Is Sound Organized in Time................. 6
Sound Waves.............................................6
Instruments as Sound Sources.....................6
Pitch................................................................7
Properties of Musical Sound.......................7
Pitch on a Keyboard...................................7
G
enerating the Twelve Pitches by Dividing
the Octave................................................ 8
M
elody Defined with an Example Using
Scale Degrees.............................................8
Rhythm ..........................................................8
Beat and Tempo.........................................8
Grouping and Downbeat...........................9
Syncopation...............................................9
Harmony....................................................9
Chords and Harmony.................................9
Other Aspects of Musical Sound.................. 10
Texture, Timbre, and Instrumentation..... 10
Form, Genre, Style........................................ 10
Musical Form................................................ 11
Perceiving Musical Form......................... 11
Elements of Form.................................... 11
Composed and Non-Composed Music....... 11
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Repetition and Variation.........................12
Improvisation..........................................12
Verse-Chorus Form..................................12
Which Is the Real Music?............................. 13
The Region, Languages, Contexts.....................13
South Asia..................................................... 13
North and South India.................................. 13
The Indo-Aryan and Dravidian Language
Families......................................................... 16
Hinduism and Music..................................... 16
Islam and Music in India............................... 17
Other Religious Settings............................... 18
Formal Music of the Courts.......................... 18
The Modern City: Urban Audiences and the
Concert Hall................................................. 19
Media............................................................20
Recording................................................20
Radio......................................................20
Television................................................ 21
Internet................................................... 21
India’s Film Industry............................... 21
Section I Summary........................................... 21
SECTION II:
INDIA’S REGIONAL MUSIC TRADITIONS
AND DEVOTIONAL MUSIC...................... 23
Regional Music Traditions...............................23
Regional and Pan-regional ...........................23
Introduction to Instruments in
Rural India....................................................23
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Table of Contents
Listening Example 1:
H
ymns For The Chathi Fast,
“Chathi Mata”...................................... 24
Rural Professional Music: Three
Case Studies..................................................25
Hereditary Musicians of Rajasthan..........25
Listening Example 2:
Manganiars of Rajasthan,
“Kachi Ghuldalo”................................. 27
Drumming in Kerala..................................... 27
Chenda...................................................28
Listening Example 3:
Temple Musicians Of Kerala, “Maddalam
Chenda Keli”........................................ 28
Idakka.....................................................28
A Rural Music Becomes a Pop Genre—
Bhangra.......................................................... 29
Devotional Music............................................30
Hindu Songs of Love and Praise: Bhajan and
Kirtan............................................................30
Longing for Her Lord: Mira..................... 31
Listening Example 4:
Mira Bhajan, “Manade Ra Mohan”........32
In Search of What is Beyond Description:
Kabir.............................................................. 33
Bhajan Summary and a Note on Musical
Settings ........................................................34
Kirtan............................................................. 34
Music for Ecstasy: Baul and Sufi Music.............34
Bauls of Bengal..............................................34
Listening Example 5:
Baul Song, “Ekdin Matir Bhitar
Hobe Ghar”.......................................... 35
Sufi Poetry..................................................... 36
Qawwali......................................................... 37
Listening Example 6:
Qawwali, “Allah Hoo,” Warsi Brothers:
Sufi Qawwali........................................ 37
“Sufi Music”.................................................. 38
Section II Summary.........................................38
SECTION III:
INDIAN CLASSICAL MUSIC................... 40
What Is “Classical”?.........................................40
Theory and Practice..........................................40
Modern Theory.............................................40
What Is a Raga?............................................ 41
Svara (Pitch).................................................. 42
Shruti and Gamaka (Microtone and
Ornament)..................................................... 43
Shruti in Scale Theory................................... 43
Shruti as Nuance.....................................44
Shruti as Tonic and Drone.......................44
The Use of Notation...................................... 45
Tala (Rhythmic Cycles) . .............................. 45
Guru-Shishya / Ustad-Shagird: The Traditional
Learning Relationship . ................................46
Hindustani Music—Three Examples................. 47
Dhrupad......................................................... 47
Listening Example 7:
Raga Yaman, Chautal (Twelve Beats),
the Gundecha Brothers.........................47
Khyal ............................................................ 49
Listening Example 8:
K hyal, Vani: Raga Bhimpalasi Khayal,
Veena Sahasrabuddhe........................... 49
Hindustani Instrumental Music.......................50
Listening Example 9:
Sitar and Sarod, Raga Manj Khammaj,
Ali Akbar Khan and Nikhil Banerjee..... 50
Semi-Classical Genres—Thumri and
Ghazal............................................................ 52
Carnatic Music—Two Examples...................... 53
Listening Example 10:
Kriti, “Sadhinchane,” Saint Tyagaraj
Ghanaraga, Pancharatna Kritis, Sanjay
Subrahmanyan and P. Unni Krishnan... 53
Listening Example 11:
Ragam Tanam Pallavi on Chitravina
and Violin, Chitravina N. Ravikiran..... 56
Section III Summary........................................ 57
SECTION IV:
FILM AND POPULAR MUSIC..................59
Introduction..................................................... 59
Bollywood: Hindi Film Music—General
Characteristics.................................................. 59
Bollywood Style in 1936 and 1955 ...................60
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Songs of Village Life.....................................24
“Main Yahan Hoon”........................................64
Tamil Film and A.R. Rahman.........................65
Listening Example 13:
“ Enna Solla Pogirai,” Performed by
Shankar Mahadevan, Music by A.R.
Rahman, from Kandukondain
Kandukondain....................................... 65
Indian Popular Music Outside of
Film—Rock..................................................... 67
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Listening Example 14:
“Freedom,” Shaa’ir + Func,
From Re:cover...................................... 68
Sufi Rock ........................................................68
Section IV Summary........................................ 70
CONCLUSION............................................71
GLOSSARY.................................................72
Glossary of Names.............................76
MUSIC OF INDIA: TIMELINE.................78
NOTES....................................................... 80
BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................82
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Two Bollywood Romance Songs of
1976 and 2004 ...............................................62
Listening Example 12:
“ Kabhi Kabhi Mere Dil Mein Khayal Aata
Hai,” Lata Mangeshkar and Mukesh..... 62
This resource guide introduces students to the music
of contemporary India—music that involves the larger
region of South Asia with its diverse languages and complex social history. This guide is divided into sections
dedicated to contextual background and to regional, devotional, classical, and popular music. Listening examples will provide you with a window into the sounds and
structures of chosen genres. Recommended video links
provide ways to explore further.
Section I begins with an overview of analytic concepts;
musical sound, pitch, melody, rhythm, form, and composition are some of the topics introduced here. The section continues with an overview of the region of South
Asia and some of the basic linguistic, religious, and urban contexts in which music is heard.
Section II introduces regional and devotional music.
You will learn about group singing by rural women in
North India; the music of hereditary professionals in
Western India; and temple drum ensembles in South India, all of which contribute to building a sense of India’s
rural life. The section continues with an examination of
some important genres of Hindu and Islamic devotional
song and poetry, which we explore in a range of musical
settings.
India’s classical music is the subject of Section III. This
type of music is heard in the concert halls of London and
New York as well as in Mumbai and Chennai. We begin
with the Indian systems of scale and pitch and will define key concepts such as raga and tala, the melodic and
rhythmic structures of Indian classical music. Listening
examples of performances by North and South Indian
vocalists and instrumentalists are described here in some
detail to give you a fairly in-depth introduction to the
formats and instrumentation of classical music.
Section IV offers an overview of popular music. Film
song is the dominant popular music of India, and the
songs produced by Bollywood, the Hindi-language film
industry, receive the most coverage. Here we will trace
the diverse elements that come together to form a hit
film song. Film music from other language areas, Indian
rock, and Sufi popular music are touched upon in this
section as well.
As you use this guide, we hope that you will begin to
get a sense of the extraordinary beauty and complexity,
not just of Indian music, but of life in contemporary India. Enjoy the tour!
NOTE TO STUDENTS: You will notice as
you read through the Resource Guide that some key
terms and phrases are boldfaced. Terms that are underlined as well as boldfaced are included in the glossary of
terms at the end of the Resource Guide.
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Introduction
Introduction to Music Theory and the Music of India
Basic Elements of Music
Theory
Sound and Music
MUSIC IS SOUND ORGANIZED IN TIME
The broadest definition of music is “sound organized
in time.” Different cultures have markedly different
views of music; indeed, in some cultures music is so interconnected with ritual, language, dance, and other aspects of life that in some languages there is no separate
term for it. Western and non-Western traditions have
encountered and incorporated each other’s musics again
and again over time. In recent decades, globalization
has made the boundaries between cultures increasingly
permeable. This guide will introduce you to some basic
principles of music, and then to the music of contemporary India. Many of India’s music and song types are
known and loved across the world.
SOUND WAVES
In the abstract, sound is described as a wave of energy.
As a wave, it has both amplitude and frequency. The amplitude affects the decibel level, or how loud or soft the
tone is. The higher the amplitude of a sound wave, the
louder it is. The frequency affects the pitch, which is the
highness or lowness of the sound. The greater the frequency of a sound wave, the higher its pitch.
INSTRUMENTS AS SOUND SOURCES
How is a musical sound wave produced? In the late
nineteenth century, two ethnomusicologists (the modern
term for scholars who study the music of other cultures,
or who study multiple cultures comparatively), Curt
Sachs and Erich von Hornbostel, grouped instruments
into four categories. They found the inspiration for this
grouping, in fact, in the music theory of India, which
was known in Europe even at that time. Chordophones
(such as violins, harps, and guitars) have one or more
strings, which are plucked, bowed, or struck. These vibrating strings, which also induce vibrations in the in-
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strument’s body, transfer their energy to the surrounding
air to produce sound; this transfer of energy from instrument to air is how all musical instruments create sound.
Aerophones (wind instruments, such as the many varieties of horns and flutes) produce sound by directly vibrating a column of air. Membranophones have a skin
or other membrane stretched across some kind of frame.
The membrane vibrates when struck. With Idiophones,
the body of the instrument itself vibrates when struck.
Some examples of idiophones are bells, woodblocks, and
xylophones.
Before the Sachs-Hornbostel system came into use,
Western orchestral instruments were grouped into “families,” and these categories are still widely used today.
Strings or stringed instruments are usually bowed or
plucked. Brass instruments, aerophones made of metal,
are sounded by the performer’s buzzing lips, which make
the column of air vibrate. Woodwind instruments are
also aerophones in which the column of air is moved by
breath alone—as in the case of flutes and related instruments—or by one or two vibrating reeds (called single
or double reeds) usually made from wood. Percussion
instruments include membranophones as well as idiophones, plus some chordophones that are struck rather
than bowed or plucked, such as the piano. In some cases,
keyboard instruments constitute a fifth category.
In describing musical instruments across the world, it
is useful to add a few more terms. String instruments
may have a neck attached to a resonating body. They
may or may not have frets, metal bars or strings arrayed
across the instrument’s neck at pitch intervals. Whether
an instrument is plucked or bowed is fundamental to
its sound, as are the materials from which it is made.
All these characteristics help in describing an instrument. The sitar of India, for example, has a long neck
with metal frets. It has a resonator (sounding body) made
of a gourd and covered with wood. Its metal strings are
plucked with a metal plectrum. It also has metal strings,
called sympathetic strings, that resonate without being
separately plucked.
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SECTION I:
The most common members of each family of instruments.
Family
Sachs/Hornbostel
Classification
Name
Stringed
Instruments
Bowed: violin, sarangi, kamaicha
Plucked: guitar, sitar, sarod, vina, tambura, ektar
Chordophones
Woodwinds
Flutes
Double reed: shehnai
Aerophones
Brass
Trumpets, horns
Aerophones
Membranophones
Percussion
Drums, barrel: dholak, dhol, mridangam
Drums, two-piece: tabla
Drums, frame: kanjira
Cymbals, kartal, ghatam
Piano, harmonium
varies
Keyboards
Instruments tell us a rich and complex story about the
spread and flow of people and music, changing shapes
and names as they move through time and place.
Pitch
PROPERTIES OF MUSICAL SOUND
A single, isolated musical sound has four properties:
pitch, duration, volume, and timbre. Pitch is the highness or lowness of a sound. A tuba is pitched lower than
a trumpet. When musicians speak of “a pitch,” they are
referring to a single tone whose highness or lowness does
not change—that is, a sound that consists of a steadily
oscillating sound wave.
If you pluck the A string on a guitar, find the exact
midpoint and press it firmly to the fret board, and then
pluck the now-half-as-long string (either side), you will
hear the next-higher A. This is because when you halve
the length of the string, it naturally vibrates twice as fast,
producing a pitch twice as high. The musical term for the
distance between A and the next-higher or next-lower A
is called an octave.
PITCH ON A KEYBOARD
Keyboard instruments are used all over the world. In
India, the harmonium, a small hand-pumped organ,
Idiophones
is used for all kinds of music. While the names of the
western scale tones are not used everywhere, a keyboard
provides an excellent visual aid for understanding pitch.
High-sounding pitches are to the right; low-sounding
pitches are to the left. Moving from left to right is called
moving “up” the keyboard, while moving from right to
left is called moving “down.” Middle C is roughly equidistant from either end. The black keys are arranged in
alternating groups of two and three. Middle C is located
to the left of the group of two black keys closest to the
middle of the keyboard. figure 1 identifies the names of
the keys on the keyboard.
The distance between any two adjacent keys on the
keyboard is called a half step, or semitone. A whole step
is the distance between every other key (regardless of
color, black or white). Half steps and whole steps are the
basic intervals of any scale (a sequence of pitches in ascending or descending order). The white keys are usually
called the natural keys, named in the Western system by
seven alphabetical letters, A through G. Some musical
systems of the world use pitches smaller than half steps,
which may be called microtones or quartertones, pitches
not available on most Western keyboard instruments.
The alphabetical names of pitches are not used in tra-
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Table 1
half step
whole step
OCTAVE
half step
half step
whole step
Pitch on a keyboard.
ditional Indian music. Instead, musicians use a system
akin to the Western solfege “Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti.”
One sets the “Do” to any pitch and builds the scale from
there. In Indian classical music, the notes or pitches are
named “Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni.” You will read more
about this in the section on classical Indian music.
GENERATING THE TWELVE PITCHES BY DIVIDING
THE OCTAVE
In the world of pure sound waves, pitch intervals follow mathematical patterns. In musical cultures where
pitches are determined by ear, the system is called “pure”
or “just” intonation. In the tuning system created for
keyboard instruments called “equal temperament,” the
mathematical ratios are adjusted so that the octave is divided into twelve equal parts. The twelve different pitches in ascending order are called the chromatic scale.
The distance between any two consecutive pitches in the
chromatic scale is called a half step.
MELODY DEFINED WITH AN EXAMPLE USING
SCALE DEGREES
A melody is a series of successive pitches perceived
by the ear to form a coherent whole. One pitch at a time
makes up a melody; if two pitches occur together, you
have harmony, or a second simultaneous melody. Most
melodies are based on the seven notes of a single scale.
The natural scale is the scale in which you sing Do-ReMi. The “home” or “fundamental” pitch on which a scale
is based is called the tonic. When scales are notated by
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number degrees, the tonic pitch is notated as 1. “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” uses the scale degrees shown in
figure 2. We can substitute “Do Re Mi” solfege for the
numbers, or we can substitute the names of the Indian
pitches. figure 2 shows the Indian names along with the
pitch number.
Rhythm
Rhythm is the way music is organized in time.
BEAT AND TEMPO
Beat is the steady pulse that underlies most music.
Every beat may not be sounded by a drum or note, but
the pulse is present, like the seconds being tracked on a
watch. The speed or pace of the beat is called the tempo.
The tempo of a piece might remain steady for the duration of the piece, or it may slow down or increase as
the piece progresses. In Western classical music, a great
many terms are used to describe appropriate tempos in a
piece. In Indian music the terms slow, medium, and fast
are often used, and each has a range of possible tempos.
When the notes of a musical piece express the base
underlying tempo of its beats, this may be called single
speed; if they are doubled, that is, when two sounds occur
in the space of one beat, this may be called double speed
or double tempo. Three in the space of one may be called
triple speed, etc. When there is no steady tempo—or no
discernable beat—music is sometimes called unmetered.
Other less formal terms, such as “free rhythm,” are also
used.
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Figure 1
1
Sa
1
Sa
5
Pa
5
Pa
6
Dha
6
Dha
5
Pa
4
Ma
4
Ma
3
Ga
3
Ga
2
Re
2
Re
1
Sa
Twin
kle
Twin
kle
Lit
tle
Star
How
I
Won
der
What
You
Are
“Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” with pitch numbers and Indian pitch names.
strongest beat. “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” has this
typical four-beat grouping. Other groupings are those
that are uneven and made up of smaller groups. Fairly
common are five-beat and seven-beat groupings. A fivebeat grouping may be made up of groups of two and
three (STRONG-weak-STRONG-STRONG-weak).
You will read later how the traditional rhythmic system
of India organizes beats into groupings, and then into
longer cycles, which repeat throughout a song.
SYNCOPATION
Rhythm is syncopated when accented or emphasized
notes fall on weak beats, or in between beats.
Harmony
Tanjore-style Carnatic tambura. The tambura is a
common drone instrument that primarily
sounds the tonic pitch.
Photo by Martin Spaink.
GROUPING AND DOWNBEAT
All beats are of equal length, but not all beats are
of equal importance. Normally, beats are grouped into
regular clusters. The first beat of a grouping is often the
strongest, so it is customarily called the downbeat or
strong beat.
Music may have groupings of two beats, alternating as
STRONG-weak-STRONG-weak, etc., or three-beats,
with a STRONG-weak-weak-STRONG-weak-weak
pulsation. Most common of all is a grouping of four
beats, with 1 being the strongest, and 3 being the second
CHORDS AND HARMONY
A chord is made up of three or more pitches, which
are intentionally sounded simultaneously. A book, or
a forearm, pressed down on a piano keyboard creates
a chord, but the most common musical chords do not
employ immediately adjacent pitches. Harmony occurs
when chords are used systematically in a musical piece.
Chords are typically used in sequences called chord progressions.
The use of harmony may seem to be a “given” in music, but many traditional musics of the world do not use
chords or harmony. Classical and regional music genres
of India are based on lines of melody. (For a definition of
genre, see “Form, Genre, Style.”) In traditional formats,
the main melody may be accompanied by a drone instrument primarily sounding the tonic pitch. It may also be
accompanied by a second melody line, one that follows
behind and enhances the main melody. In Indian classical and regional music (and in other traditions across the
world), there are many sounds occurring simultaneously
that are not classified as chords or harmony. India’s traditional music, and that of many other world cultures, is
considered a melodic rather than a harmonic system.
Popular music genres in India, and indeed all over
the world, have adopted harmony and instrumentation
from Western sources for generations. The main sources
of inspiration have been popular music and rock. Com-
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Figure 2
Photo by Wendy Kaveney.
posers of film music, Indian rock and fusion bands, and
singer-songwriters in India create their own sounds as
they see fit, using chords in sometimes standard and
sometimes unconventional ways according to Western
classical standards. The sections on Indian classical music in this resource guide will return to the subjects of
scale and pitch, but not to harmony.
Other Aspects of Musical Sound
TEXTURE, TIMBRE, AND INSTRUMENTATION
Besides melody, rhythm, and harmony, a number of
other factors affect how a performance sounds. Texture
has a specific musical meaning. It describes the number
of things that are going on at once in a piece of music.
A song may consist of a single, unaccompanied melodic line. In Western theory this is called monophony.
Multiple instruments or voices may be playing a single
melodic line, and if they are all performing the same
pitch at the same time, it is called monophony. They are
also playing the line in unison.
If two or more performers are producing slightly different versions of the same melody at the same time, but
are not playing in precise unison, the texture is called
heterophony. This kind of texture is common in Indian
music. Western theory terms are not generally used in
India, but listeners are keenly aware of slight variations,
textures, and ornaments in a melody line.
Timbre is the quality, character, or “color” of a musical sound. Musical sound qualities are described in many
ways, and there are no limits on what terms can be used.
The timbre of a pitch is affected by the individual’s voice
or technique, and by the instrument’s material, shape,
and density. The timbre of an acoustic guitar is affected
by the size and shape of its hollow wooden body, where
the sound waves produced by the strings resonate and
are amplified. The skin-covered body of the north Indian
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Form, Genre, Style
Form describes how music is organized on a larger
time scale—how units, such as sections, subsections, and
lines, are combined to make larger structures. Form is
the architecture of music.
A genre of music is a category, usually named and recognized by a specific set of conventions. Form, instrumentation, context, poetic content, and techniques are
some of the ways a genre may be distinguished. A genre
may be a large category, such as “classical” or “popular,”
or a more specific category, such as “blues” or “country.”
In this guide, you will read about large categories such as
“classical, regional, devotional, and popular,” and more
specific ones with their own names.
Style is a term that is used quite broadly in music and
may overlap with genre. It usually refers to the particular
set of techniques or conventions used by an individual or
a group.
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The skin-covered body of the North Indian bowed
sarangi gives it a special type of hollow-sounding
resonance that is an instantly
recognizable timbre.
bowed sarangi gives it a special type of hollow-sounding
resonance that is instantly recognizable.
Instrumentation refers to the instrument or combination of instruments used, and it is among the most
noticeable and distinctive features of a given piece of
music. Describing the instrumentation is fundamental
to writing about a musical performance.
Dynamics, the loudness and softness of a sound (a
result of the sound’s amplitude wave), are useful to performers for expressive purposes. A very common pattern
in Indian music is for singers to increase the volume of a
section or an overall piece to mark its climax. A gradual
increasing of volume and speed, and a matching use of
higher and higher pitches, is a very common technique,
which can be called intensification. Gradual intensification draws the listener in and raises the excitement level
of a piece of music.
Ornamentation refers to localized embellishments on
a melody. In Indian music, it is often difficult to separate
ornamentation from the main melody. Still, ornamentation is considered to be at the heart of a melody’s expressiveness. In various ornamental techniques, pitches are
made to move suddenly and intricately, flourishes move
away from and return to a pitch, or a sustained note is
subtly flattened or sharpened. When a section of music
uses these techniques profusely, it may be called ornate.
A final pair of terms is useful in this context. Melisma
is used to describe a melody that moves across several
pitches smoothly, sweeping from note to note without a
change of syllable or added instrumental strokes. A piece
or section that uses these kinds of sounds is called melismatic. The contrasting term, used to describe music
phrases marked by syllables, changes in bow direction,
or instrumental strokes, may be called syllabic music. In
these sections or pieces, each pitch is marked by a separate syllable or stroke.
Musical Form
PERCEIVING MUSICAL FORM
Music takes place in time, so memory and anticipation
are the key components to the listening experience. As
the listener hears a piece, he/she experiences an ebb and
flow of tension and release. Tension and release lend
shape to a melody. One way tension is created is through
dissonance and resolution. In Indian music, the tonic
pitch, the first note of the scale, is the basis on which
consonance and dissonance are perceived. When a drone
instrument sounds the tonic pitch, each other pitch has
its own character as it sounds over the drone. In Indian
music theory, each pitch has its own emotional flavor and
subtle variations are at the heart of musical enjoyment.
Tension can be created in other ways, including increased dynamic level, increased tempo, or increased
rhythmic activity using shorter durations. Combinations of all of these features create tension and release
throughout a performance.
In the next section, we will describe the building blocks
of musical form. Then, we will examine how composers
and performers combine these to create larger forms using repetition, variation, development, and contrast.
ELEMENTS OF FORM
A phrase is a cohesive musical thought. In “Happy
Birthday,” the music for the first four words (“Happy
birthday to you”) can be thought of as a short phrase. It
has a beginning (the motive) and an end, followed by a
brief pause. The second time the words “Happy birthday
to you” are sung, they constitute a second short musical
phrase, also followed by a brief pause. It begins with the
same motive, but ends a little differently. A theme is a
set of phrases that make a complete melody, which plays
a prominent role in a longer piece of music.
Musical form controls larger spans of time. Just as
mystery novels, thirty-minute television sitcoms, and
movie scripts tend to follow certain patterns, so does
music. Balance, proportion, drama, climax, and denouement operate in musical form. Some music-specific vocabulary will help explain common forms.
COMPOSED AND NON-COMPOSED MUSIC
The idea of composition in Indian music is somewhat
different from that in Western music. For one thing,
Indian compositions are not written out in scores (notations from which a musician reads). Rather, most are
learned aurally from a teacher and memorized in all their
detail. Compositions, however, make up a central part
of a musician’s repertoire. Handed down over the generations, they are highly valued and make up the core
on which a longer performance is based. The core composition is most often a short line or two, which is followed by repetitions and variations. The variations may
be pre-composed, that is memorized ahead of time, or
they may be improvised, that is, created anew at each
performance.
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Indian compositions are not written out in scores; rather, most are learned aurally from a
teacher and memorized in all their detail.
REPETITION AND VARIATION
These are the most basic formal processes in music.
The listener must remember what he/she has already
heard in order to recognize repetitions and variations.
Often, musical memory happens on a subconscious level.
A phrase may simply sound “right”; a song heard for the
first time may seem oddly familiar when the composer
makes skillful use of repetition. Repetition means, literally, repeating musical material, using the identical
pitches and rhythms, or at least a close approximation.
Generally speaking, variation is repetition with enough
alterations that the listener senses both continuity and
contrast.
When describing musical form, sections of music may
be labeled with capital letters. The music to a song made
up of a single, multi-phrased melody, repeated four times
with different words each time might be diagrammed as:
A A A A. Another melody that alternates with a section
of different melody can be diagrammed as A B A B A.
IMPROVISATION
Improvisation uses the principle of variation. Individual performers create spontaneous variations, extensions, or free explorations, of a melody. Improvisations
may be based on memorized phrases, or on systematic
patterns, which are chosen and played on the spot (extemporized) in new combinations.
Repetition and variation occur throughout music on
different levels. Short phrases, longer phrases, or fully
realized sections of melody and rhythm may be repeated or varied. As a localized example, the second phrase
of “Happy Birthday” varies the material of the first.
Rhythmically, the song is quite repetitive: try speaking
the rhythms on a neutral, un-pitched syllable, and you’ll
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Painting of Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of all
knowledge, music, arts and science, with her
instrument, the veena,
by Raja Ravi Varma.
find it impossible to distinguish the first, second, and
fourth phrases. On a larger scale, you can think of every
new birthday performance as a repetition. Sometimes
a brave soul will vary the words or the tune. Everyone
present usually realizes this is a variation on the familiar
song, not a new composition. Whether taking place on
a small scale or in the form of a lengthy piece, repetition
and variation lend continuity to music. They prevent a
piece of music from sounding like a string of unrelated
events by providing musical coherence.
VERSE-CHORUS FORM
A very common form of musical architecture is the
verse-chorus (or verse-refrain) form. It consists of multiple verses, each with different words, and a repetitive
chorus, or refrain. Another common form is theme and
variations, where a melody line is recognizable but played
in different ways.
In the sections that come later in this guide, you will
read some more about form in Indian music, learning
how pieces are structured—that is, how each performance typically proceeds.
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The core composition often consists of just two or
three sections or lines. The first or main section is like
the theme in Western music: the melody to which the
singer or instrumentalist returns between variations and
other sections. The second section of the core composition usually reaches the higher pitches and may go into
the upper octave. A two-section scheme like this is often used in Indian classical music and for singing the
verses of songs in many regional, devotional, and popular genres. In a song, the melody of the first line will
be used for the refrain, and the higher second melody
line will be used for each new verse. The change in pitch
uses the principle of tension and release to attract the
listener’s ear to each new verse or section.
A piece of music that is composed from beginning to
end may be called through-composed. However, very
often in Indian music, a piece is flexible, allowing performers the chance to expound or improvise according
to their judgment of the audience or the needs of the
performance.
South Asia
The term South Asia generally includes Bangladesh,
Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan,
and Sri Lanka. Afghanistan is often
counted as well.
Which Is the Real Music?
Today, most of us experience music by listening to mp3
tracks or watching YouTube videos. We also occasionally
hear the great ensembles and musicians of our time in
concert halls and stadiums. Some of us study and practice music ourselves, reading notations of pieces that may
have been composed centuries ago, or reproducing songs
by ear. What kinds of experiences are left out when we
don’t see musicians performing? What experiences are
enhanced by the clarity of recorded music and the ability
to listen to a piece over and over again? How much (or
how little) does written notation tell us about the sound
and rhythmic details of the music as it was performed in
the composer’s time? Think of how a score allows us to
analyze a piece of music and share it.
All of these various manifestations of music are real,
and each has a quality of its own. Listening to familiar
music is one of the most comforting experiences we can
have. And being exposed to new sounds and unfamiliar music can send us on the most amazing adventures.
Using this resource guide, we invite you to explore and
enjoy the music of India. Some ideas will be familiar and
some new. We hope it will open you up to new experiences and new ways of listening to the wonderful music
available to us in our world today.
South Asia has been prominently featured in the news
recently, but the economic importance of the region, its
cultural history, and its diaspora have been significant
on a global scale for a long time. The term South Asia
generally includes Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the
Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Afghanistan is often counted as well.
Bounded by the Himalaya Mountains to the north
and the Indian Ocean to the south, South Asia was a
crossroads of movement between East and West for
more than a thousand years. Trade routes known as the
Silk Road (named after the major commodity traded by
China) allowed for the movement of people, goods, and
technologies from China through South and Central
Asia to Europe from 100 bce to the fifteenth century
ce. The Khyber Pass, the crossing from present-day Afghanistan into Pakistan, also brought armies and their
followers from West Asia into the Indian subcontinent.
The national boundaries we now know were drawn
in the twentieth century. The Republic of India and the
Islamic Republic of Pakistan were partitioned in 1947,
after achieving independence from British rule, which
lasted nearly two hundred years. The Peoples’ Republic of Bangladesh became independent from Pakistan in
1971. Linguistic, ethnic, and religious groupings cross
national boundaries. In 1947, for example, the Punjabi
language area was divided or “partitioned” between Pakistan and India. The Bengali language area spans India
and Bangladesh. Sri Lanka’s Tamil population shares
strong cultural links with Tamil-language speakers in
South India. Each nation’s policies, institutions, and
economics have differed substantially, but in many ways
cultural identity transcends the borders. This resource
guide focuses on present-day India, but many aspects
of cultural history and music are shared with the other
nation-states in the region.
North and South India
India is the largest nation in South Asia. With a
population of more than 1.2 billion, it has the second
largest population in the world, after China. India’s basic administrative divisions consist of twenty-nine states
and territories. The Central Government, in New Delhi,
is based on a parliamentary system, and members of its
two houses are chosen directly by popular vote every five
years. Due to its legacy of safe and successful elections,
India is known as the world’s largest democracy.
Mountain ranges, river plains, coastal plains, plateaus,
and deserts make up India’s varied topography. Although
these natural barriers no longer constrain trade, travel, or
political control as they once did, they mark a long legacy
of distinctive regional identities. They also hold deep sig-
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The Region, Languages,
Contexts
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A chain of hills and ridges called
the Vindhya Range crosses much of
central India, marking a traditional geographical division between
North and South. The Vindhyas
feature in many mythological stories, but in current practice, North
and South are defined as the regions in which the Indo-European
and Dravidian language families,
respectively, are spoken. You will
read more about these language
families shortly.
The city of Mumbai (formerly
Bombay), on the central west coast,
is the capital of Maharashtra state,
southernmost of the states in the
North Indian language area. With
a population of more than 12.5
million, not counting its suburbs,
Mumbai is India’s most populous
city and its booming center for industry, finance, and entertainment.
In Mumbai you will see the eyepopping contrasts that make up
modern India. Luxury high-rises
and glittering jewelry markets are
bordered by shantytowns, where
workers and families have flocked
from rural areas to find work. A
Topographical map of India. Mountain ranges, river plains, coastal
vast middle-class population complains, plateaus, and deserts make up India’s varied topography.
mutes by train, car, and motor
rickshaw to work and lives in the
various neighborhoods of greater
nificance in popular culture and are often mentioned in
Mumbai.
the mythological lore of the region. The broadest geoSouth of Mumbai are the states and territories of
graphic division in popular usage in India is North and
South
India. This triangular-shaped region bordered by
South. The division is not official, but is widely used.
the
Arabian
Sea and the Bay of Bengal consists of elevatSecondary in usage are the divisions of eastern, western,
ed
plateaus,
river
basins, and coastal plains, and the citand central India.
ies, villages, and temple towns of the five South Indian
The high peaks and foothills of the Himalayas form states. The Kaveri River flows from the west across the
India’s northern border. The Indus River, from which states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and empties into
the name “India” was derived, flows from the Himalayas the Bay of Bengal. At the lower reaches of the Kaveri
through Pakistan. The Ganga River (also known as the River is the city of Thanjavur. The Chola rulers who conGanges River) flows from the Himalayas and along with trolled this region for almost four hundred years prior
its tributaries (called the Indo-Gangetic system) creates to the fourteenth century were patrons of South Indian
the fertile plain that crosses the densely populated states musicians and dancers and left great examples of South
of North India. Its tributary, the Yamuna, flows through Indian temple architecture in this area.
Delhi (the older part of the city, conjoined with New
Also in Tamil Nadu is South India’s center of culture
Delhi). The Delhi area was the home of both Hindu and
and
education, Chennai, formerly Madras. In December
Muslim dynasties that controlled North India over many
and
January every year, Chennai hosts a city-wide festicenturies. Flowing to the east, the Ganga branches into
val,
where hundreds of classical musicians perform for
the Hooghly, which flows through Kolkata (formerly
thousands
of avid listeners. Not far to the northwest, in
Calcutta), the great metropolis of eastern India. The
the
state
of
Andhra Pradesh, is Tirupati, whose temple
Ganga empties into the Bay of Bengal in a large delta
is
one
of
the
most visited pilgrimage sites in the world.
spanning Bangladesh and India’s state of Bengal.
Millions of Hindus come each year to pay their devo-
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Map showing the languages of India. The Indian government lists twenty-two official languages and
recognizes some twenty-seven others.
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The Indo-Aryan and Dravidian
Language Families
Language is fundamental to one’s family identity.
One’s language, and often the dialect of one’s parents’
village, carries a sense of home and belonging. The Indian government lists twenty-two official languages and
recognizes some twenty-seven others. The largest language family in India is Indo-Aryan, a sub-branch of the
Indo-European family, to which most of the languages
of Europe and that of Iran also belong. In India, the languages of this family are spoken mainly in the North.
The other main language family in India is Dravidian,
whose languages are spoken in the South. English, the
legacy of long British rule in India, is used for government, business, media, and conversation in the big cities, but most people communicate primarily in regional
languages. Many people are bilingual or trilingual, that
is, they know two or three languages.
Hindi, belonging to the Indo-Aryan family, is spoken by a larger percentage of Indians than any other
single language, and the government has designated it
(and English) for official government use. Even in the
Hindi-speaking regions, people say, “walk for twenty
miles, and you’ll find another dialect.” A standard urban
Hindi is widely shared, however, and many more Indian
people speak it as a second or third language. But Hindi
remains a language of North India. Government initiatives to promote its use are opposed by many speakers of
other languages, especially in the south and east. Other
languages of the Indo-Aryan family spoken across North
India are Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kashmiri, Marathi, Punjabi, Nepali, Oriya, and Urdu. You might note
as you read further, that states’ names sometimes reflect
the majority language. Bengal, Gujarat, and Punjab are
examples of this. Often, however, one’s language group
is more significant than the border of the state in which
one lives.
Sanskrit, an early member of the Indo-Aryan family,
is the language of Hindu sacred texts, mythology, and
classical literature. Its place is like that of Latin or Greek
in Europe. In fact, Sanskrit is related to Latin and Greek.
Sanskrit is a language of ritual and scholarship and has
rarely been used for daily conversation. Its liturgical use
was traditionally the preserve of specialized males of the
priestly Brahmin caste. It gradually became more widely
accessible after the medieval period, however, and you
can hear Sanskrit recited regularly in Hindu homes and
temples today.
The Dravidian language family of South India has four
main languages recognized by the government: Kanna-
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A Lady Playing the Tanpura,
c. 1735 (Rajasthan).
da, Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu. There is no definitive evidence that links the Dravidian language family
to any other language family of the world. It is thought
to have been widespread in ancient India, however, and
likely predates the Indo-Aryan languages in the region.
As you read through this guide, you will find that
certain languages, along with their poetry and song, are
known across various regions of India, and across borders in other nations of South Asia as well. When any
language or practice is known and used beyond its local
area, it can be called pan-regional.
Hinduism and Music
Hindus make up the majority population of India, at
some 80 percent. The castes (hereditary social groups)
and economic classes of Hindu society, rural and urban,
make a complex picture indeed. It is misleading to make
many general statements about Hindu society. Hinduism is an umbrella term for many streams of practice. It
is the worship of deities who appear in many forms, as
described in local histories, or in widely shared epics such
as the Mahabharata and Ramayana. Hinduism is various
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tions to Venkateshwara, a manifestation of the Hindu
deity Vishnu. To the west of Chennai and capital of the
state of Karnataka is Bangalore, another of South India’s major cities, which is noted internationally for its
successful tech industry.
schools of philosophy that describe the universe and are
constructed with utmost intellectual rigor. Hinduism is
festivals, songs, and ritual dances reenacting the stories
of the deities. Hinduism is poems of praise and love sung
at home or at a temple. As you see, Hindu practices are
not easily generalized, nor are they easily separable from
daily life. Despite the mind-boggling variety though, it
is probably safe to say that most Hindu worship practices
involve song and music.
Some people trace the origins of formal music in India
to the chants of priests performing rituals prescribed in
the Vedas, the earliest texts of Hinduism, which date to
as early as 1500 bce. The Vedas were transmitted orally,
memorized, and recited in musical tones. Certain principles in later performance, such as the use of vocal syllables and hand gestures indeed may have such ancient
roots. Musicians also are inspired by the Hindu metaphysical idea that sound originates as a silent “point” before becoming audibly manifest and that it can be experienced in the quiet mind of a disciplined yogi, a spiritual
practitioner.
In popular Hinduism, worshippers cultivate a con-
nection to a marvelous world of divine figures. Shiva,
Vishnu, the Goddess, and countless local manifestations
of male and female divinity are evoked in ritual festivals or celebrated at home and in temples. Festivals and
temple rituals are major sites for specific genres of music.
A particular type of worship is bhakti, personal love and
longing for the divine. It is expressed in poetry and song.
You will read about various kinds of Hindu devotional
music in Section II of this guide.
Hindu patrons, landowners, and rulers of large or
small territories across South Asia also cultivated music
for entertainment in their courts and considered it a high
art along with poetry and theater. The various kinds of
music supported by such patrons became the basis for
India’s formal music, later called classical music, which
is performed in the modern concert hall.
Islam and Music in India
Islam came to India with Arab traders by sea, and
overland through the Khyber Pass from Iran, Turkey,
and Central Asia. Beginning in the twelfth century,
armies and their leaders established successful ruling
dynasties in North India. Their languages, technolo-
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Chishti Sufi gathering. The Chishti order is a prominent branch of Sufism in India that uses sama’,
music in ritual settings, to help attain a state of spiritual ecstasy.
Other Religious Settings
This painting depicts the Hindu god
Krishna dancing with maidens.
gies, textiles, architecture, and arts gradually mingled
with local ones to form North Indian culture. Islam
spread through much of India, integrating into regional
cultures. About 13 percent of India’s population identifies as Muslim, with most Muslims living in the North.
Hindus and Muslims share the culture of daily life, but
as a minority group, Muslims have at times faced social
and economic pressures.
North Indian music reflects the legacy of its Indic,
Persian, Turkic, and Central Asian sources. Formal
classical music developed differently in the North from
that in the South—instruments in North Indian music,
for example, developed from instruments brought from
Central Asia and Afghanistan.
In India, as elsewhere in the world, music is not sanctioned in certain orthodox Islamic environments. Recitation of the Quran is celebrated in mosques and Islamic
schools, but it is seen as separate from music. Song and
drumming, however, have been lavishly supported in
Muslim court environments, and music has also been
practiced among certain sects of Sufis. Sufism, Islamic
mysticism, thrives across the Muslim world and is practiced in many branches, called “silsila.” Its followers seek
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Christians make up the third largest religious group
in India and live all over India, with concentrated communities in South and Northeast India. Some Christians in Kerala on India’s Southwest coast trace their
community to the first centuries ce. Christian hymns
are sung in English or in regional languages. Melodies
may derive from long traditions, may be composed on
European models, or may be based on classical or Hindu
devotional style. The variety of Christian practices in India represents centuries of history.
Sikhism was founded in the Punjab region of North
India in the fifteenth century, where the largest Sikh
population is still concentrated. It shares some ideas and
practices with Hindu bhakti and Sufism and uses music
as a central means of worship. The core text of Sikhism is
the Guru Granth Sahib, “Honorable Book of the Teachers,” a collection of devotional poems, which are sung in
worship services.
From even this brief overview, it is clear that India
has a tremendous variety of religious practices. Religious
culture and secular culture are difficult to separate and
share many ideas and practices. Themes of love, longing,
and loss are used in all kinds of music—devotional, classical, and popular. Religious divides are often blurred
in music, which makes it an excellent representative of
South Asian culture overall.
Formal Music of the Courts
Many aspects of the music heard in the concert halls
of Mumbai, Delhi, and Chennai have roots in worship,
but the story of classical and other urban musics involves
the larger forces of Indian history. Various dynasties
controlled large and small swaths of present-day India
and Pakistan, and their courts were great centers of music, painting, poetry, and architecture. Rulers also often
controlled huge temple complexes to which musicians
were attached. Music historians look to court and temple
sculpture, poetry, and music theory texts to trace aspects
of the early history of formal music. Mainly, however,
music was carried orally by musicians who were employed in such centers of patronage and who transmitted
the art directly over the generations.
Formal music, or art music, is based on a system of
melodies called raga, and a system of rhythmic cycles
called tala. (You will read much more about raga and
tala in Section III when we will discuss classical music.)
Musicians employed in courts came from all over South
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nearness to God by contemplation and by cultivating
love for the divine, who is conceived as the Beloved. The
Chishti order is a prominent branch of Sufism in India
that uses sama’, music in ritual settings, to help attain a
state of spiritual ecstasy. Shrines honoring Chishti saints
are found throughout India and Pakistan, where Islamic
or Sufi devotional music is performed.
Asia and from West and Central Asia as well. By about
the fifteenth century, musicians in the courts of North
India and the courts and temples of South India had
developed systems that were significantly different from
each other. The two systems were related, but differed
in their instruments, melodies, and rhythms. The North
Indian system became known as Hindustani music and
the South Indian system as Carnatic (also spelled Karnatak) music.
Some people believe that South India’s music system is
older than that of the North since it was less touched by
the music of Iran and Central Asia. North India’s music,
indeed, was enriched by ideas and aesthetics from West
Asia. In fact, however, both systems are the products of
constant interactions among regions and peoples. The
entire Indian subcontinent has a long history of contact
with the Arab world and West Asia.
During the period of British rule, beginning especially in the eighteenth century, the court and temple centers throughout India began to break up, and musicians
moved to the emerging cities.
The Modern City: Urban Audiences and
the Concert Hall
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the British
created new alliances and territorial boundaries in India,
and many musicians were displaced. Some musicians
found employment with rural landowners who kept a
traditional patronage system alive. Others moved to the
growing cities. In the theaters, music circles, schools, and
public concert halls of Chennai, Mumbai, and Kolkata,
musicians found new kinds of audiences.
Urban audiences celebrated courtly music as India’s national legacy. Scholars researched its history and theory.
Favorable comparisons to European music were made,
and the English term “classical” came to be applied. Urban students sought out the professionals who had moved
to the cities from the courts, and schools were founded to
teach raga and tala to urban youth. New generations of
players and singers began to populate the concert stage.
While some traditional musicians found themselves unable to adjust to the new venues, those who were able to
present themselves to a large public and to be successful in radio, film, and TV became the twentieth-century
stars of classical music.
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Stage decorations for classical music concerts are often designed to represent the pillars and
arches of temple or court architecture.
The legacy of courtly and temple patronage is still
visible in the atmosphere of a classical music concert.
The formal attire, the ornate carpet, and the courtly or
spiritual reverence shown to the musicians are reminders
of past settings. In South India, audiences particularly
honor the history of temple contexts. Stage decorations
for Carnatic music concerts are designed to represent
pillars and arches of the great South Indian temples.
Media
RECORDING
When Fred Gaisberg of the British Gramophone
Company recorded professional singers in Kolkata in
1902, there were already local businesses producing
songs and promoting indigenous companies. Thousands
of recordings made by the early decades of the twentieth
century made music—classical, film, patriotic, and theater—available to an upper-class market. Vinyl records,
in their various formats, from 78rpm to the LP, reached
growing urban markets through the mid century. In the
1980s, the emergence of relatively low-priced cassette
technology allowed the industry to boom, expanding to
local markets. The contemporary Indian recording industry is as diversified as any in the world.
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RADIO
Beginning in the 1930s, radio became a force in making classical, popular, and regional musics available to a
mass population. India’s national broadcast organization
is All India Radio, or Akashvani “Voice from the sky,”
centered in New Delhi. Early on, the government tried
to influence the public taste, directing it toward traditional music. In the 1950s, the Minister for Broadcasting
banned film music for some time on All India Radio, but
popular demand eventually won out. Regional stations
and many local transmitters broadcast programs in more
than twenty regional languages, and radio remains the
farthest-reaching media in the country. Radio brought
much wider exposure to some musicians, and it became
a force, for better or worse, in standardizing styles and
tastes.
It was not until the 1990s that the Indian government began to lease airtime to private radio broadcasters. Since 2000, FM stations in India have proliferated,
and all kinds of radio programming can be found, except
news, which is still restricted to government broadcasts.
The city of Bangalore lists thirteen radio stations, broadcasting in Hindi, English, and Kannada, with one specializing in classical music and another in education pro-
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Photograph of Indian musicians taken during Fred Gaisberg’s recordings in Kolkata.
TELEVISION
The National television service, Doordarshan or
“View from afar,” has broadcast since the 1970s. Government channels were the only ones available until the
1990s. Since then, with deregulation and new technologies, private TV channels have proliferated, and hundreds of channels are available. Drama series, sitcoms,
talk shows, reality shows, and film stars feature on Indian TV channels in many languages, which are available
through satellite and cable all over the world.
Urban television ownership is reported overall at about
75 percent, but a high rate in Delhi is balanced by a 15
percent rate in Bihar, North India’s poorest state. In rural India the most recent census reports that only about
one-third of rural households own a TV.1
INTERNET
Like other media technologies, the internet is most
available in cities. Internet services were launched in India in the mid 1990s. The user base in 2013 was reported
to be around 200 million, some 15 percent of the total population. A Gallup poll reported that 3 percent of
those polled responded that they had internet access at
home. Mobile phone technology and usage in India is
high, however, and mobile internet subscriptions make
up one of the fastest growing segments of the tech economy.2
INDIA’S FILM INDUSTRY
The silent movie Raja Harishchandra, based on a story
from the Hindu epic Mahabharata, premiered in 1913
and is celebrated as the first Indian-made feature film.
The first Indian sound film, Alam Ara, was first shown
in Mumbai in March 1931. Today, the Indian film industry is the largest in the world, measured by the number of feature films it produces.
Bollywood is the term for the Hindi-language film
industry, which is largely based in Mumbai. Bollywood
films, with their catchy music and dance sequences,
glamorous stars, and lavish plots, have a huge fan base.
They are loved not only throughout India and South
Asia, but also have had fans in parts of the Middle East,
East Asia, and Eastern Europe for many decades. South
Asian diaspora populations all over the world watch the
latest films and revisit the classics on cable and satellite
TV and DVD. More recently, international collaborations and Bollywood-inspired techniques have made
Bollywood a familiar term in popular culture all over
the world.
Bollywood’s name is well known, and its style is influential, but the Indian film industry has many other centers as well, grouped by the language in which the films
are made. The Film Federation of India reported in 2012
that it certified 1602 feature films in thirty-five different
languages. The Tamil-language film industry, which is
as old as that of Mumbai, is sometimes called Kollywood, named after the neighborhood in Chennai where
it is centered. In 2012, it produced more films than Bollywood. Film industries of other language groups and
dialects respond to the interest of regional audiences and
their diasporas, offering characters, language, and music
styles that feel closer to home than Mumbai.
Indian mainstream films feature song and dance sequences, which are seen as essential to the film’s success. For the most part, film singers do not appear on
the screen; actors lip-sync their songs. But singers and
music composers are nonetheless stars. Film music recordings and music videos are the mainstay of popular
music in India. Film music and dance had their early
sources in traditional theater, but they quickly expanded
their vocabulary by drawing on all kinds of popular and
classical styles, both Indian and European. Film music
and dance in India are exuberant expressions of India’s
cosmopolitan culture. However, it should be noted that
films do not reach the entire population equally. As is
the case for television and other media, urban centers
and middle-class and upper-middle-class populations
remain the central markets for the film industry. International markets also make up a growing share.
Section I Summary
o Music is sound organized in time.
o Sachs and Hornbostel grouped musical instruments
into four categories: chordophones, aerophones,
membranonphones, and idiophones. The “family”
names of instruments are widely used.
o Pitch is the highness or lowness of a sound. It is the
basic building block for melody and harmony.
o The octave is created by doubling the vibrations of
a pitch.
o Western and Indian tradition divides an octave
into twelve intervals called half steps.
o With a Solfege system, the “Do” tonic pitch is
chosen, and a scale is built from there. The tradition of India uses a solfege-type system in which
the pitches are named “Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni.”
o Melody is a coherent succession of pitches perceived
as a whole, with a beginning, middle, and end.
o R hythm is the way music is organized in time.
o The beat is the steady, regular pulse underlying
most music. Tempo is the speed of the beat.
o A chord is made up of three or more pitches sounded simultaneously. Harmony is a systematic use of
chords. Traditional music in India is not based on
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gramming. The others broadcast a mix of dramas, talk,
and popular music.
o Texture describes the number of things that are
going on in a piece of music
oT
imbre, instrumentation, dynamics, and ornamentation are important features that can distinguish musical sounds.
oM
otives, phrases, cadences, and themes are the
smallest building blocks of form. Tension and release use consonance and dissonance to lend shape
to melody
oA
genre of music is a category that uses a specific
set of conventions.
oA
musical form may be pre-composed or improvised. Musical material may be repeated, varied,
developed, or contrasted with different material to
create longer forms
o Borders and nation-states of South Asia changed
significantly in the twentieth century. Cultural history is shared across national and state borders.
o I t is common to speak of North and South India as
distinctive regions.
22
oL
anguage is fundamental to one’s identity in India.
Most languages of the North belong to the IndoAryan family, and most languages of the South
belong to the Dravidian family.
o Hinduism covers a wide range of practices, formal, liturgical, and popular. Devotional Hinduism, bhakti, is a theme throughout the arts.
o Islam is the second largest religion in India. Cultural practices from West Asia mingled with earlier traditions to form North Indian music. Music
is important to some schools of Sufism, Islamic
mysticism.
o India’s formal music, with written and oral theory,
developed in court settings. Formal music is based
on a melodic system called raga and a rhythmic
system called tala.
o Concert music in India’s modern cities draws on a
legacy of court and temple patronage.
o The recording industry, radio, and television have
shaped popular tastes, especially in urban contexts.
o India’s film industry is the largest in the world.
Bollywood is the Hindi-language film industry,
and there are many other film industries in India
today, based on language.
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harmony and is considered a “melodic” system.
India’s Regional Music Traditions and Devotional Music
North India. Or, a music might be shared across South
Asia and the diaspora. These types of music can be called
pan-regional. Typically, music developed by professionals in the court centers, temples, and cities came to be
shared from center to center across wide regions. Later,
styles of popular music were disseminated across the nation by radio, TV, and films. Among the dominant panregional music genres today are classical, semi-classical,
Bollywood, and pop. Western genres such as jazz and
rock are also known across India’s urban centers. In this
section of the guide, we will explore some of India’s rural
and regional musics.
Introduction to Instruments in
Rural India
The dholak is the most common rural drum of
North India. It is held horizontally across n
the lap and played with both hands.
Regional Music Traditions
Regional and Pan-regional
If you were to travel from village to village across
even one part of India, you would find subtly different
practices that reflect the history and the dialects of each
area. This level of music might be considered local. If
you were to travel across Hindi-speaking parts of North
India, you would find that many song types are shared
across the larger region. Music shared by speakers of a
particular language can be called a regional music. Regional styles aren’t necessarily confined to geographic areas though. In the past as well as in contemporary India,
people have moved around, taking their language and
music with them. Regional musics, therefore, are those
linked to a particular language and are found wherever
the language speakers live.
Some music genres are shared across much wider
areas, by speakers of different languages, say all across
Barrel-shaped drums are ubiquitous across South
Asia. Large or small, held vertically or horizontally,
played by hand or stick, they have different names and
uses. The two skin-covered sides may have higher and
lower pitches, giving these drums a full, musical sound.
The dholak is the most common rural drum of North India, and it is used pan-regionally. It is held horizontally
across the lap and played with both hands. The metallic
highs of the right side and forceful lows of the left provide a sound distinctive to rural India.
Bells, clappers, cymbals, and other idiophones made
of metal or wood play important timekeeping roles and
have specific names and shapes. Wooden clappers with
cymbals attached or rod-shaped metal clappers called
kartal are common in both North and South India. They
provide the driving rhythms characteristic of group song
in regional and devotional genres.
The harmonium, a small hand pump organ, is played
throughout South Asia in rural as well as urban settings.
You will find references to the harmonium throughout
this guide.
String instruments, plucked or bowed, are generally
played by specialists. An important distinction to note
is whether a string instrument is being used for drone
or for melody—drone instruments sound one pitch
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SECTION II
Listening Example 1:
HYMNS FOR THE CHATHI FAST,
“CHATHI MATA”
Wooden clappers with cymbals attached or
rod-shaped metal clappers called kartal are
common in both North and
South India.
throughout.
Reed and brass wind instruments are also generally
played by specialists. They are often associated with outdoor playing, especially processions, at wedding or temple
events. Double-reed instruments, like oboes, and flutes
made of bamboo or wood, are found in various contexts,
and may be played by specialists and non-specialists.
Songs of Village Life
Some 72 percent of India’s population is classified as
rural. Men and women in Indian villages typically do
separate kinds of daily work and gather separately for
music. Thus, village music is usefully characterized as
women’s or men’s music. Musicians may be non-specialists or specialists, according to whether they have
special training, and non-professional or professional,
according to whether they perform for pay. The lyrics of
a song, its subject matter, or the occasion on which it is
sung are typical ways that songs are categorized.
Many types of women’s songs in village settings are
performed by groups of non-specialists, where everyone
participates equally. There may be no accompaniment
or someone might play a dholak and perhaps a kartal or
other idiophone. Women’s work songs; songs celebrating
the spring Holi or the fall Diwali festival, or the many
other festivals that mark the Hindu year; songs for the
monsoon and other seasons; songs in praise of the Goddess or a local deity; and prominently, songs celebrating life-cycle events are the subject of women’s group
songs. From the birth of a baby to the child’s first hair
cutting ceremony, to a marriage engagement, to events
surrounding a wedding, and the departure of a bride
from the home—on all these occasions, women’s songs
are essential to the event’s auspicious outcome. In such
contexts, songs are not thought of as performances. No
one in the village judges the song by the qualities of the
singers’ voices or by whether its melody is artistically
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The Chhathi “Sixth-day” is a four-day period of rituals
and fasting in North India that is dedicated to the Sun
and to the Mother Goddess. It begins yearly on the sixth
day of the Hindu month of Kartik, in October–November. Listen to this recording of a group of women singing in a North Indian village. You can feel the informal
atmosphere as people talk and move in the background.
A woman leads with words and melody, and the group
repeats the last phrase of the stanza. A few others join
in to lead as the song progresses. The song has a pleasing
rhythmic pulse that might be felt as a lilting seven-beats.
The short and long syllables of the text dictate its internal
rhythms.
Rural women specialists, who receive special training,
and women professionals, who perform for money, traditionally belong to hereditary musicians’ family lines.
They typically perform among women’s gatherings or
with male family members in public gatherings. Radio,
TV, and film have brought rural specialists to wider attention and have attracted non-hereditary singers to the
profession. Nowadays, it is an option for a young woman
from a small town to aspire to be a singer and record in
a studio or for TV. Studios specializing in recording for
rural and local markets have greatly increased
in number as recording technology has become less expensive.
Men’s non-specialist groups in village settings typically include drums and cymbals and a harmonium.
Men’s groups may sing festival songs or Hindu or Muslim devotional poetry. Men’s group songs are often characterized by their volume and high energy. As the song
progresses, it may increase in tempo, and the drumming,
cymbals, and the actions of the singers become more and
more animated. Group singing is the ideal format for
achieving the experience of fervor so basic to Hindu and
Islamic devotional song. [You can see a group of rural
men singing a devotional song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us8WzVRt6ug.]
Male professionals in rural settings traditionally come
from hereditary family lines. They may perform for lo-
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pleasing. Men and children may sit or pass by as though
nothing special is happening. However, one of the most
basic functions of song is represented in women’s village
music—to gather, mark, and celebrate an occasion for
the benefit of the community.
cal patrons or travel across the wider region seeking out
performance opportunities. Their music is tied to specific
contexts and has specific instrumentation.
Rural Professional Music: Three Case
Studies
HEREDITARY MUSICIANS OF RAJASTHAN
Hereditary professionals perform for hire and teach
their repertoire orally to their children. These families
have been the carriers of traditional music for centuries.
Options for members of such families are more fluid now
than they once were. A young man from a hereditary
musician’s family might go to the city in search of another kind of job. And, a talented young person from
outside a hereditary family nowadays might learn to become a studio singer. Amidst these changes, however,
traditional music in India’s villages and small towns
thrives with amazing variety. Let’s take a tour of some of
the professional music and musicians in rural Rajasthan,
in northwestern India.
Rajasthan is well known for its desert landscape, for
the vivid colors of men’s turbans and women’s flowing
skirts, for the ornate stone architecture of its forts and
palaces, and for its musicians, both traveling and settled.
When you visit, you might encounter many of the following traveling professionals who seek out performance opportunities around the region.
Members of the Bhat caste are genealogists, who fulfill a special niche of recording and retelling the histories
of family lines. They also perform with puppets, reen-
With strong melodious voices and the resonating
sound of the bowed Sindhi sarangi, Langa musicians sing love ballads of regional
heroes and other kinds of songs.
acting stories of local and national heroes. They may be
accompanied by a female singer from their family and
a dholak player. Bhands are traveling actors who specialize in humor, slapstick, and musical parodies. You
might see a pair of bhands at the center of a group of
laughing people on a street corner. One bhand slaps the
other with a soft leather paddle as they trade insults and
illustrate jokes with songs. Nat is a traveling community of acrobats and musicians who play the dhol, a large
barrel-drum, and brass trumpets as they act out local or
romantic stories. We find references to bhands and nats
in poetry, painting, and song dating back centuries ago.
You might see saperas, who are snake charmers, so well
documented by foreign travelers. Snake charmers have a
well-recognized place in rural India. They play specific
reed wind instruments and are thought to have special
powers. Bhopas are men or women who are spiritually
attached to a local deity and act as local priests. Bhopas
sing and accompany themselves on a bowed instrument,
the ravanhattha, telling the stories of the deity and entering a trance as they perform.
Some musicians travel as singers of devotional music
on the streets or are employed at Sufi shrines or Hindu
temples. A category of singers called jogi renounce their
normal life to move from village to village. They often
accompany themselves on the ektar (or ektara) “single
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Rajasthan, in northwestern India, is well known for
its desert landscape, the vivid colors of men’s
turbans and women’s flowing skirts, the ornate
stone architecture of its forts and palaces,
and its musicians, both traveling
and settled.
string,” a string drone and rhythm instrument. Qawwals
are the highly specialized hereditary performers of the
stirring poetry of Sufi mystics at shrines. We will read
more about qawwali music in the section on Islamic devotional music.
Other professionals in Rajasthan work in an arrangement of stable employment. Settled in one area, they
sing at weddings, births, festivals, and other occasions
for specific families of patrons and receive grain, clothing, and money on a seasonal basis in return. Among
such professionals are the Langas and the Manganiars,
who live in the desert regions of Western Rajasthan.
With strong melodious voices and the resonating sound
of the bowed Sindhi sarangi, Langa musicians sing love
ballads of regional heroes and other kinds of songs. Their
traditional patrons are families from a particular class,
the Muslim Sindhi class of the region. Langas have a
long history of professional service. They are Muslims,
but trace their ancestry to the Hindu Rajput class, the
dominant ruling class of Rajasthan. The sarangi they
play is carved from a block of wood with a hollowedout neck and a body covered with skin. Its sympathetic
strings ring out by themselves when the main gut melody
strings are bowed. The small, slightly rounded shape of
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the Sindhi sarangi distinguishes it from the larger classical sarangi. Besides the sarangi, Langas play the satara,
a double-barreled wooden flute; the murli, a reed wind
instrument; and the morchang, a metal mouth harp. They
play virtuoso instrumental interludes between verses of
songs. Talented boys are trained from childhood and are
featured on an instrument or on the dholak as they perform with their older relatives.
Manganiars, who are closely related to Langas, are
also Muslim musicians said to be descended from Hindu Rajput classes. Their traditional patrons are Hindu
families in their region. They are by tradition devotees
of a local Hindu goddess and serve in her temples. Manganiar musicians play a distinctive bowed instrument of
their own, the kamaicha. Kamaichas, which have a large,
round skin-covered body, nearly disappeared from use in
the mid twentieth century when Manganiar musicians
took to playing the harmonium instead. The kamaicha
was later revived with the encouragement of music scholars and the Rajasthan government. Manganiars also play
the dholak or the dhol. The dhol is a large, double-sided
drum held by a standing player and played with sticks.
The Manganiar version of the kartal is a set of wooden
clappers. Manganiars also play various wind instru-
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Bhopas sing and accompany themselves on a bowed instrument, the ravanhattha, telling the stories of
the deity and entering a trance as they perform.
ments of flute and reed varieties.
Manganiars and Langas play a repertoire of songs
classified into the categories “great and small.” “Great”
songs are those more sophisticated in length and poetic
content. They include those related to classical music,
devotional songs of the medieval poets, songs in the
old regional dialect, and local love ballads. The “small
song” repertoire consists of songs sung at festivals and
life-cycle events, whose musical style is less technically
demanding.3
Listening Example 2:
MANGANIARS OF RAJASTHAN,
“KACHI GHULDALO”
Listen to this recording of Manganiar musicians performing a song that would traditionally be sung at a
wedding celebration of a patron’s family. We hear the
delicate sound of the Sindhi sarangi soon joined by a male
singer. Both briefly hold the tonic note, on which the
scale is built. As the song begins with a catchy phrase,
the dholak enters with a quick eight-beat rhythmic cycle.
We can hear other voices joining the lead singer, especially toward the end of each phrase. At about 00:35 the
sarangi plays an interlude based on the main melody. The
entire pattern repeats again with different words, followed by a sarangi interlude. As the song continues, we
might note that the melody lines are the same throughout, and the text of the first line repeats as a refrain, alternating with new lines of text. At each interlude, the
sarangi player creates more elaborate variations in higher
registers, adding some quick running improvisations.
This song celebrates the arrival of the groom who
comes on horseback to the bride’s house. We can hear a
Manganiar musician Mame Khan.
happy, celebratory quality to the song. We can imagine a
procession with family members surrounding the young
groom, who is wearing a bright turban and garlands of
flowers.
Since the 1970s, Langa and Manganiar musicians
have come to the attention of national and international
audiences. Government and private music promoters
have sponsored tours and recordings, and groups have
been featured in international festivals. Today, individual Langa and Manganiar musicians are becoming
recognized for their own accomplishments, rather than
as anonymous representatives of the hereditary group.
Individuals like Mame Khan are working to create careers that balance modern professionalism and family
tradition. [You can visit the website of Mame
Khan here: http://www.mamekhan.com.]
DRUMMING IN KERALA
The state of Kerala, on India’s southwest coast, is home
to a number of distinctive drumming styles. Some are
central to Hindu temple rituals and village festivals. The
sharp, driving sound of drum ensembles is particularly
striking and ubiquitous in Kerala.
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A Manganiar musician plays a distinctive
bowed instrument, the kamaicha.
CHENDA
Drum ensembles accompany processions of a deity
through the streets on a temple festival day. Various combinations of players perform at specific points of a festival. The chenda (also spelled centa) features in a number
of such contexts and ensembles. The chenda melam (chenda
group) is its biggest ensemble. It can consist of as many
as forty-five chendas, fifteen horns, fifteen double-reed
woodwinds, and thirty pairs of cymbals.4 Different sections of a performance feature chenda soloists, with other
chenda players and instrumentalists acting as timekeepers.
Smaller chenda groups perform with cymbals, providing
the basic underlying beat. In listening example 3, you will
hear how rhythmic patterns are layered on top of each
other.
The chenda is hung vertically in front of the player. The
drummer uses one stick, two sticks, or one stick and one
hand, depending on the player’s rhythmic role. A repertoire of sophisticated rhythmic patterns is played. Chenda
drums are traditionally played by men, but female ensembles and players from outside the traditional drumming
lineages are learning in schools and private institutions in
modern Kerala.
Listening Example 3:
TEMPLE MUSICIANS OF KERALA,
“MADDALAM CHENDA KELI”
This recording of a chenda group in a temple context
begins with the cymbals marking the underlying tempo.
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IDAKKA
Hindu temples in India are not just places for worship,
but are also centers of social and cultural life. With people coming and going morning and night, bells ringing,
chants and drumming, a temple is a lively place indeed.
Hereditary drummers in Kerala belong to several different groups, from the high-caste Marars who accompany
dance, theater, and temple rituals, to the Parayans (from
which the term “pariah” is derived) who drum for festivals
among lower castes. Certain drums are associated with
specific parts of a temple ritual, concert, traditional dance,
or theater genre.
The idakka (also spelled edakka or edaykka) is played
at regular points in daily worship services, so Keralans
associate its distinctive sound with temple rituals. The
idakka is a “pressure drum.” Hourglass-shaped, hanging
from the shoulder, and held horizontally, it is played with
a single stick. The drummer raises and lowers the pitch by
pressing the lacing that attaches skin to frame with the
other hand. It is said to be capable of producing all the
syllables of a human voice. Indeed, its sounds range from
high ringing clicks, to midrange punchy staccato, to deep
rolling pulses, and it can even play a full melody, sounding
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The state of Kerala, on India’s southwest coast,
is home to a number of distinctive
drumming styles.
A chenda drum is lightly playing in double time with
sharp-sounding strokes on the edge of the drumhead. At
about 0:27 this introduction resolves into regular on-beat
strokes, and another chenda player enters with patterns in
quadruple time. Listen to the lower and higher sounds
that give different emphases to the rhythm. At about 1:00
the patterns change. The tempo increases. Then, against
the background of the regular cymbal sound and a timekeeping chenda, a solo chenda player plays quick, varying
patterns. At about 2:15, off-beat (syncopated) strokes are
particularly noticeable. At about 2:55, a regular on-beat
pace resumes, and another solo chenda enters, playing quadruple-tempo (4x) patterns. Listen here to the varieties of
tone that the drummer is able to produce. If you listen
closely, you will even hear occasional bursts of strokes in
8x tempo. At about 3:49 the tempo increases again, and
the players settle into a repetitive sound dominated by
the clanging cymbals. The rhythmic clashing of cymbals
is one mark of a culminating ritual in a Hindu temple,
where devotees celebrate the image of the deity.
[Here is a video in which you can see a small group of
temple chenda and cymbal players, with three different layers of rhythm being played by the six drummers: https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua00cmz0aBI. You can see a
larger chenda melam being performed here <https://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=AyFyJzu0QD0> in a diaspora setting in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates.
The World Association of Malayalam, Kerala’s dominant
language, was the sponsor of this performance,
celebrating Kerala culture in a foreign land.]
almost like a string bass.
The idakka is difficult to play, and training consists
of a long, disciplined apprenticeship. The student practices on a solid block of wood and learns to produce
sets of sounds that are first learned through spoken
syllables. [You can see an amazing solo performance
on an idakka in this video: https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=3p1loi5Q38Q.]
A Rural Music Becomes a Pop Genre—
Bhangra
Bhangra is a music and dance now known around the
world. The story of how it emerged from rural Punjab
and ended up in the dance clubs of New York is a story
that parallels modern India and the spread of its global
diaspora.
Bhangra was created out of several Punjabi local dance
styles. After Indian independence in 1947, folkloric
styles, that is, new genres based on rural music, were admired and promoted. Bhangra was first performed and
named by a group made up of hereditary specialists and
college student dancers near the city of Patiala in the
1950s. A local administrator promoted the new dance,
and the group was sent to represent the Punjab state at
the Republic Day parade in New Delhi.5 Bhangra dance
is vigorous and joyful. The music is characterized by its
energetic beat and lyrics celebrating rural life. Its main
instruments are the Punjabi dhol, a large barrel drum
held horizontally and played with sticks, and the tumbi, a small single-stringed plucked instrument. Bhangra
came to be seen as representing the heroic energy of rural
Punjab.
Bhangra was carried to England by Punjabi workers,
where in the 1970s and especially the 1980s studio musicians blended it with Western dance music. Various
phases and styles of bhangra made it something of a pop
phenomenon. DJs made remixes with hip-hop, house,
and other dance genres. In England, Canada, and the
U.S., the reputation of bhangra grew, and it came to represent not just Punjab, but the aspirations and energy of
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A chenda ensemble. The chenda is hung vertically in front of the player and is played with one or two
sticks, or one stick and one hand.
contemporary South Asian youth. College campuses
became homes for bhangra dance competitions, where
panels judge teams in front of a large cheering public.
The dhol might be replaced by synthesized drumbeats,
but rhythms based on the dhol, along with Punjabi lyrics
and the characteristic exuberant vocals, identify bhangra
and its offshoots. The bhangra phenomenon has lasted
in various styles, but recently musicians have been exploring other sources, and Punjabi music of types other
than bhangra seem to be on the ascent. Browse YouTube
to get a sense of the world of bhangra and its offshoots.
Many collections are organized by the decades in which
they were popular. What do you find when you search
“Bhangra 2014”?
Devotional Music
We will define devotional music here as music performed in a religious setting or as a spiritual practice.
Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians all have specific devotional genres, and they are composed in various
styles. We will discuss some of the most well known of
them.
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A bhangra dance performance. Bhangra is a
music and dance now known around
the world.
Hindu Songs of Love and Praise:
Bhajan and Kirtan
Bhakti is devotion—a feeling of love and intimacy
with the divine, longing for the divine presence, or the
agony of separation. The object of longing may be Krishna, Shiva, the Mother Goddess, another manifestation,
or an unnamable ultimate divine. Bhakti is expressed in
ritual actions and, most prominently, in poetry and song.
When bhakti poems are sung, they are called bhajan-s.
The earliest bhakti poetry is traced to the Tamil region
of South India in the seventh century. Bhakti is thought
to have originated as a reaction against dependence on
the priestly elite. Through it, an individual could experience the divine directly, without relying on the rituals
and chanting of elite priests. Poets composed beautiful poems in colloquial languages, using a full range of
imagery, which they drew from a long tradition of love
poetry. Separation, longing, entreaty to a distant lover,
tenderness, and blissful remembrance, are some of the
themes found in bhakti poetry.
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The idakka is a “pressure drum” that is hourglass
shaped, hangs from the shoulder, is
held horizontally, and is played
with a single stick.
An eighth-century Tamil poet expressed bhakti as the
anguish of a girl who feels Vishnu has deserted her. One
manifestation of Vishnu (one of the major deities of Hinduism) is a beautiful figure reclining on a great serpent
and floating on the cosmic ocean.
The whole town fast asleep,
the whole world pitch dark,
and the seas utterly still,
when it’s one long extended night
if He who sleeps on the snake
who once devoured the earth and kept it in His belly
will not come to the rescue,
who will save my life?6
The fifteenth-century Hindi poet Surdas expressed
bhakti as a love that leaves no room for any other. Krishna, a manifestation of Vishnu, is visualized as a playful
and handsome youth who was raised by a human family
in rural north India.
There is no room left in my heart;
while Nananandan (Krishna) remains there,
how can another be brought in?
Walking, looking, awake in the day and dream-
ing in slumber at night,
that intoxicating image strays from my heart not
for a single moment.”7
LONGING FOR HER LORD: MIRA
Many of the poets who composed bhajans are honored
as sant-s, people who “know the spiritual truth.” One
of them is Mira (also Meera or Mirabai). The story of
her life is told in her bhajans, which have been carried
by singers all over India. Later, Mira bhajans were also
composed by others in her name.
Mira was born in the late sixteenth century to a royal
family of Rajasthan. She became a devotee of Krishna,
falling in love with him in childhood. As a young woman, she was given in marriage to the king of another royal
household. She refused to act as a royal daughter-in-law,
however, and persisted in her single-minded devotion to
Krishna. She even left the household to join groups of
wandering devotees, a great offense in the social environment of sixteenth-century Rajasthan. Bhajans tell of
her persecution by her father-in-law, who even tried to
poison her. Her poems express longing, suffering, and
the ecstatic joy of pure devotion.
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A painting of Mira, a poet and sant. The story of Mira’s life is told in her bhajans, which have been
carried by singers all over India.
Mira tied bells to her feet and danced;
I have myself become the slave girl of my Narayan
(Krishna).
People say Mira has gone mad; kinsmen call her a
destroyer of family;
Ranaji sent a poisoned cup, Mira laughed as she
drank it.
Mira has readily found her lord, the courtly
Giridhar (Krishna), the eternal one.8
Listening Example 4:
MIRA BHAJAN, “MANADE RA MOHAN”
Listen to this Mira poem sung by a Langa professional group. The track begins with rhythmic strokes on the
ektar, the single-string drone instrument. A dholak then
enters, along with finger cymbals. The rhythm is not a
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straight meter of fours or threes, but one with an uneven
grouping. Soon we hear the Sindhi sarangi, the bowed
instrument of Langa musicians, enter with a beautiful
melody. The singer begins with a long single tone. This is
the tonic on which the song is based. As the song begins,
the rhythm becomes easier to follow. It is a seven-beat,
loping cycle, of 1 2 – 1 2 3 4.
The instrumentation—ektar, dholak, finger cymbals—
is typical of many devotional genres in India. The Sindhi
sarangi, and the singer’s tone and language, identify this
music as that of Rajasthani professionals.
Listen to the short core theme sung first and followed
by a pause. It will come again at 1:00. It is followed by a
section of higher-pitched melody lines. At about 2:30 the
theme comes again. The sarangi is heard lightly in the
background as a drone and in short interludes that echo
the vocal phrases during pauses. The complex melody,
the highly skilled voice, and the sophisticated instrumental accompaniment mark this as professional music.
As you listen, now try to feel the mood of the song. Do
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One of the most well-known nirgun bhakti sants is Kabir, who is shown in this painting
(second from the right) with a group of followers.
you feel the dignity of the music, the feelings of longing,
and the joy of celebration? The voice expresses so well the
longing quality of Mira’s bhakti. The Sindhi sarangi, for
many listeners, evokes images of the beautiful
desert environment of Rajasthan.
IN SEARCH OF WHAT IS BEYOND
DESCRIPTION: KABIR
Some, like Mira, express devotion to a deity who appears to them vividly in human guise. Other devotees
worship a divine who is beyond all description. The senses cannot perceive him directly, and there are no words
capable of describing him. This type of devotion is called
nirgun bhakti: devotion to a divine that is “without characteristics.” This kind of bhakti often crosses the boundaries that divide religious sects.
One of the most well-known nirgun bhakti sants is
Kabir, who is admired across sectarian lines. He is said
by Hindus to be Hindu and by Muslims to be Muslim,
and his songs form a part of the Sikh sacred book. Ka-
bir was born into a poor weaver’s family in the Hindispeaking region of North India in the fifteenth century.
Kabir’s poems speak out against hypocrisy, blind ritual,
and class prejudices. His poems address the listener directly, asking us to find truth by looking deeply into our
own selves. Don’t depend on a priest, pandit (scholar),
or teacher, he says. Don’t even depend on a deity such
as Brahma (like Vishnu, another powerful figure in the
Hindu pantheon). The only real teacher is within you.
Read, read, pandit, make yourself clever,
Does that bring freedom?
kindly explain.
Where does the supreme being dwell?
In what village? Pandit, tell
his name. Brahma himself
made the Vedas, but he doesn’t know
the secret of freedom.
People babble of alms and merit
but don’t hear news
of their own death.
One name—unreachably deep.
Unmoving—the servant Kabir.9
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A painting of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (b.1486) performing kirtan, devotional chanting and dancing.
You have been introduced to two great bhakti sants,
Mira and Kabir. Their poems represent just a sample of
the various expressions of bhakti. And just as there are
many forms and styles of bhakti poetry, its sung versions,
bhajans, are set to many musical styles. Certain bhajans
are known throughout the Hindu world, and their tunes
alone are instantly recognizable to millions of people.
“Vaishnava Jana To” is one such tune. It was a favorite
of Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948), one of the great social
and political figures of India’s independence movement.
The lyrics, in Gandhi’s mother tongue Gujarati, speak
of an ideal devotee as one who is selfless, respectful, and
truthful.
Vaishnavas (devotees of Vishnu) are those who
feel the pain of others, help those in misery, and
never let ego or conceit enter their mind.
Vaishnavas respect all the people of the world.
They do not criticize anyone; their words, actions
and thoughts are steady and calm. The mother of
such a one is blessed indeed.10
Listen to the melody of “Vaishnava Jana To” by searching for it on YouTube. You will find it performed in many
formats, including instrumental versions. To hear other
bhajans in a contemporary popular style, try browsing
“bhajan” on YouTube. You will get a sense of how big the
market is for studio-produced bhajans, with synthesized
instrumentation and studio-enhanced vocals.
KIRTAN
Kirtan, “sung praise” is another type of Hindu devotional music. The term is used in a variety of ways. In the
Hindi-language region of North India, kirtan is a chant,
a short text sung in a group in a call-and-response format. A lead singer sings the text, and the group repeats it
a certain number of times. You may see an all-night kirtan being held under a colorful canopy in a small town,
or a kirtan being held continuously over a week, broadcast from loudspeakers in a city. These kinds of kirtans
are sung in a steady, easy rhythm. The text and melody
may be repeated many times, creating a special participatory experience. Over the course of a kirtan, the pace
and volume may increase, building a sense of intensity.
Kirtans are considered to have benefits for those singing
as well as for the community in which they are held.
In other regions and among specific sects, kirtans have
their own formats and use specific texts. A spiritual leader or teacher is often the leader of a kirtan assembly. In
North or South or western India, you might find a spiritual leader leading a stadium full of people in a kirtan
and interspersing spoken teachings with singing.
Sikh kirtan or Shabad kirtan (“Kirtan of the Word”)
is the devotional singing of poetry contained in the
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The Bengali language area straddles the Indian
state of Bengal and the People’s Republic of
Bangladesh in the northeast and is
home to the Bauls.
Sikh holy book, the Guru Granth Sahib. Sikh philosophy, which developed out of Hindu bhakti and Islamic
Sufism, emphasizes human equality, service, discipline,
and restraint. As in nirgun bhakti, the divine is beyond
naming. Indeed, Kabir’s songs form a part of the Sikh
kirtan repertoire. Sikh kirtans, performed in Gurdwaras
(Sikh places of worship) by specialized singers, are characterized by dignity and quiet reverence.
A contemporary type of kirtan has found a place in
the U.S. You will find large groups assembled in yoga
studios, workshops, and special gatherings to be led in
kirtan chants by nationally known specialists. The contemporary Western kirtan is in many cases non-sectarian. That is, it is seen as a healing or soothing practice not
belonging to any specific religious group.
If you search “kirtan” on YouTube, you will find
many examples of Sikh kirtans, contemporary kirtans,
and kirtans led by spiritual teachers. You would have to
search a bit harder to find the more traditional kinds of
kirtan held by local people in a small town or village.
[This YouTube video shows a traditional “akhand ” (continual) kirtan in the city of Varanasi, in the Hindi-language area of North India: https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=dnxgR23MKYM.]
Music for Ecstasy:
Baul and Sufi Music
BAULS OF BENGAL
The Bengali language area straddles the Indian state
of Bengal and the People’s Republic of Bangladesh in the
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BHAJAN SUMMARY AND A NOTE ON
MUSICAL SETTINGS
Listening Example 5:
BAUL SONG, “EKDIN MATIR BHITAR
HOBE GHAR”
Baul musician Debdas Baul.
This song is about how fleeting life is. Wealth, pride,
and good looks are just temporary. The poet reminds
himself to look beyond this to find what is permanent.
One day your home will be inside the soil,
O mind of mine—why do you build this house of
bricks on the surface?
The bird of life will flee the cage,
Everything else will stay on earth but you will
vanish.
Your friends and your family, your mother and
father too,
Will all become strangers to you.
Your whole body, your skin and bones, will rot
away—
And lie on the ground in bits.
O mind of mine, why build this house of bricks…
In the pride of your beauty, you have decked yourself out—
You have put on gold, gems, and fancy clothes;
When life leaves your body, all this will be left
behind—
Your lifeless body will be covered in plain white
cloth,
O mind of mine…
The dotara, a plucked, fretless string instrument,
opens this piece with a snatch of melody. Its skin-covered belly gives this instrument a distinctive percussive
sound. We hear a duggi, the small one- or two-piece
hand drum used in Baul music. And, we hear the shake
of a set of bells called ghungur. The bells are tied to the
Baul singer’s ankle and are sounded by the shake of the
foot. The instruments begin a rhythmic riff in a quick
eight-beat pattern. The singer enters with the song. The
dotara matches the melody and adds rhythm to the vocal
line, playing short interludes between the verses.
[You can see the Bengal countryside, the circling
dance, and the orange-colored robes characteristic of
Baul groups in the short video “Looking for Debdas
Baul”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJj9B2g61-c.
You will also see a few other Baul instruments. There
is an ektara, the single-string drone, and a small singlepiece duggi.]
Baul poetry, music, and philosophy came to be widely
known through the writings of Rabindranath Tagore.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941), an early-twentieth century Bengali thinker and poet, was India’s first
Nobel Prize winner. He saw the Bauls as representing
social equality and an inspired spirituality. In the later
twentieth century, Baul musicians received worldwide
exposure. Some Baul musicians travel on international concert tours and attract admirers
around the world.
—(transl. By Dr. Sagaree Sengupta,
personal communication)
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northeast. It is home to a widely dispersed sect known as
the Baul. The musical style of the Bauls and the songs
they perform are treasured in the Bengali language region and have become known across the world.
Anyone may become a Baul by renouncing home life
and social norms and following Baul ideals. The Bauls
believe that the divine is to be found inside oneself and
is cultivated through love. Men, women, and people of
all castes and religions are equal in Baul philosophy. But
one needs to actively practice methods that will lead to
union with the divine. The only true teacher is “the man
of the heart.” The unconventional practices of Bauls—
moving from place to place, singing and dancing ecstatic
poetry, and behaving in eccentric ways, led to the origin
of their name from a word meaning “mad.” Music is central to Bauls, who sing and dance poetry written by past
and present-day Baul poets.
SUFI POETRY
If you go to Delhi, you might seek out the shrine of
the Sufi Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya, at the center of the
busy neighborhood named after him. This fourteenthcentury saint belonged to the Chishti order of Sufi practitioners, who used poetry and music as an important
part of their mystical practice.
In Sufism, the goal is closeness to God through contemplation, recitation, and disciplined practices. The object of Sufi love is conceived of in terms of human love,
and the divine object is often referred to as the Beloved.
The Sufi suffers in separation from the Beloved, but feels
that this suffering is the highest calling in life. Constantly recalling the Beloved’s characteristics and practicing the disciplines of one’s order are at the core of Sufi
ritual. The spiritual teacher, called the sheikh or pir, is
one’s guide to the Beloved and may be seen to represent
the Beloved himself.
Amir Khusrau was one of Hazrat Nizamuddin’s
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disciples, and a poet and musician at the royal court in
Delhi in the fourteenth century. Khusrau is celebrated
for his poems of Sufi devotion. He wrote:
Every sect has a faith, a direction to which they
turn. I have
turned my face towards the crooked cap of my
spiritual guide
Nizamuddin Auliya. The whole world worships
some place or other.
Some look for God in Mecca; some go to Kashi (a
Hindu place of pilgrimage). Why shouldn’t I, Oh
wise people, fall at my Beloved’s feet?11
Bulleh Shah was a Sufi whose songs are much loved
for their simplicity and straightforward appeal. He was
born around 1680 in Uch, Punjab, in Pakistan. The true
Sufi, he says, is so intoxicated by love that he sings and
dances without regard for rules.
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Photograph of the shrine of the Sufi Hazrat Nizamuddin.
A performance by the Warsi Brothers
qawwali group.
He who is stricken by Love
Sings and dances out of tune.
He who wears the garb of Love
Gets blessings from above.
Soon as he drinks from this cup
No questions and no answers remain.
He who is stricken by Love
Sings and dances out of tune.
He who has the Beloved in his heart,
He is fulfilled with his Love.
No need he has for formality,
He just enjoys his ecstasy.
He who is stricken by Love
Sings and dances out of tune.12
QAWWALI
Certain hereditary musicians, like Amir Khusrau
and Bulleh Shah, specialize in the songs of Sufi poets.
Others from various backgrounds perform specialized
drumming at Sufi shrines. Music performed in a Sufi
ritual setting is called sama’ or “listening.” In this section
you will be introduced to a few such genres.
The best-known category of hereditary musician in Islamic contexts in India and Pakistan is qawwali. Qawwals are traditionally employed as singers at Sufi shrines.
A qawwali group consists of as many as twelve men: a
lead singer, sometimes a second lead singer, a tabla player, a harmonium player, and a chorus of backup singers.
A qawwali performance in a shrine context consists of
a formal sequence of songs. Beginning with a Quranic
recitation, the leader will lead the group through one
song after another: Persian verses, Sufi songs, local folk
songs, and ghazal-s, a type of rhyming poetry in the
Urdu language. The qawwali leader chooses the songs,
but looks to the audience for hints as to the desired subject and mood.
Qawwali lead singers are known for their strong voices and for the skill with which they vary the melodies
and improvise variations. The chorus sings the refrain
between each verse, which they accompany with vigorous handclaps. Qawwali music is recognizable by these
Listening Example 6:
QAWWALI, “ALLAH HOO,” WARSI
BROTHERS: SUFI QAWWALI
At the start of this qawwali performance, we hear a
tabla, harmonium, and hand clapping. The pace picks
up, then the sounds cease, and the lead singer intones
the tonic note, with the group joining in. The lead singer
sings a phrase introducing the melody and begins with a
verse in Urdu:
A cry comes from within the body: ‘who is here in
this place?’
The answer comes from the heart: ‘there is nothing
but Allah here in this place.’
The song’s theme, “Allah hoo,” is a zikr, a chant, spoken
repeatedly as a Sufi spiritual practice. This refrain, sung
here at a stately pace with the backup singers clapping
in a regular rhythm of fours, creates a dignified and elevated mood. The lead singer continues with verses from
different Urdu poets on the theme of the omnipresence
of Allah:
“Allah hoo”
Everything begins with you, and everything will
surely end with you one day
The world’s hubbub surrounds us: without you,
surely there is no world at all
I am dependent in every way
You are permanent; tell me, who will go first?
The scent of every flower is because of you;
your presence is in every breath
When you wish, it will be my end
Surely, everything exists in god’s name
—(excerpts translated by Allyn Miner)
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handclaps along with the strong vocals and compelling
rhythm.
The goal of a qawwali performance in a Sufi context
is to bring the audience to a state of spiritual excitement.
Listeners, ideally, are drawn into spiritual states of mind
called hal, and they express it by rocking, swaying, and
sometimes standing up and circling in a slow ritual dance
called raqs.
“SUFI MUSIC”
Beginning in the 1970s, around the time that the music of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was becoming more widely
known across Pakistan, other Sufi singers came to the
attention of the public. Radio and TV in both Pakistan and India were major shapers of public tastes, and
government-sponsored TV sought out representatives of
folk culture. Through TV, a number of folk and Sufi musicians became national stars in Pakistan. One of them
was Abida Parveen (b.1954). In the 1980s, like Nusrat
Fateh Ali Khan, she began to be promoted internationally, with tours and recordings. Gifted with a strong and
emotion-filled voice, Abida Parveen specializes in solo
singing of Sufi poems, usually accompanied by harmonium and tabla. She is the best-known female Sufi singer
from the region. [You will see how charismatic a singer
Abida Parveen is if you watch this video: https://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=beP-c-W7Ue8.]
In recent decades, more and more Sufi styles of shrine
singing have become known to a wider public. If you
were to go to Lahore, in Punjab, Pakistan, you would
see crowds of young urban people gathering to watch the
exciting drumming of Pappu Sain at the Shrine of Shah
Jamal. He spins as he plays the dhol, a large barrel drum
played with sticks, in a style called dhamal. Dhamal
drumming now has a fan base that extends far beyond
the Sufi shrines where it began. [You can see a sample
of Pappu Sain’s drumming here: https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=lKECdLU7bdk.] Interest and enthusiasm
for Sufi music genres has continued to grow in India and
Pakistan, especially among the urban public. International interest is also surging.
As you might have picked up from the previous paragraphs, there is no one genre of “Sufi music,” or even
Sufi music from Pakistan or India. Rather, it is a catchall term for songs composed by Sufi poets, performed
in any musical style. The term may have originally applied to qawwali and the singing of Sufi poetry, but it
has come to include virtually any music inspired by Sufi
thought, sound, or even looks. A passionate vocal style,
driving rhythm, often a type of dress resembling Sufi
robes, and the circling dance tend to be characteristics
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of “Sufi music.”
Section II Summary
Regional Music Traditions
o Music and language may be local, regional, or
pan-regional, that is, shared across narrower or
wide areas.
o Some instruments are widely shared across South
Asia. Barrel-shaped drums, clappers, and the harmonium are ubiquitous. String and wind instruments are typically played by specialists.
o In rural India, women’s and men’s groups sing distinctive types of music.
o Musicians, male or female, are usefully characterized as non-specialist or specialist, and non-professional or professional.
o Hereditary professionals have been important
carriers of traditional Indian music. In any one region, caste names describe a great variety of musical specialists.
o In Rajasthan, in Northwestern India, Manganiar
and Langa are specialist professional groups which
have become widely known outside their region.
They sing songs suited to specific occasions and
celebrations for traditional patrons’ families. The
dholak, Sindhi sarangi, and kamaicha are among the
instruments they use.
o I n Kerala, in Southwest India, drumming in temple and ritual settings is a distinctive tradition. A
chenda group layers rhythms and tones to build a
piece.
o Bhangra music originated in Punjab and has come
to signify Punjabi identity and South Asian youth
culture in international venues.
Devotional Music
o Bhakti is Hindu devotionalism. It is expressed in
poems which, when sung, are called bhajans. Bhakti
incorporates a wide range of emotional expression.
o The sixteenth-century poet Mira is one of the
prominent female bhakti figures. Her stories tell
how she sacrificed worldly duties for a single-minded loving devotion to Krishna.
o The medieval poet Kabir described a deity who
was beyond description, in a type of devotionalism
known as nirgun bhakti.
o Bhajans are sung in many types of musical styles
and instrumentations—regional, classical or popular.
o Kirtan is a type of Hindu devotional chant.
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In the 1980s, a qawwali singer from Pakistan, Nusrat
Fateh Ali Khan, came to the attention of audiences outside his native Punjab. His strong emotional voice and
the stirring lyrics of his qawwali songs caught the ears of
listeners all over Pakistan and eventually in Europe and
the U.S. as well. By the time he passed away in 1997 at
age forty-nine, he was a phenomenon, traveling worldwide and performing in concert and studio recordings
and film scores. Today his nephew Rahat Nusrat Fateh
Ali Khan is an active concert and studio performer.
Qawwali is now a familiar genre on the “world music”
market.
o Qawwali is a genre of music traditionally sung
by specialists at Sufi shrines. Its songs come from
many poetic sources. Qawwali has become known
outside shrine settings and is performed in concert
halls all over South Asia and the world.
o The term “Sufi music” is a catch-all term for music
derived from or inspired by Sufi poetry.
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o The Baul sect of Bengal uses music to express a philosophy of seeking union with the divine through
love. Dotara and tabla are among the instruments
they use.
o Certain Sufi sects use music to express longing and
separation from the divine Beloved.
Indian Classical Music
What Is “Classical”?
The term classical came to be applied to the art music of the courts and temples of the Indian subcontinent
when it came to urban centers in the nineteenth century.
The term implies a long history, sophisticated techniques,
and refined theory. In practical terms, “Indian Classical
Music” is a term for the music based on raga and tala.
Hindustani and Carnatic (or Karnatak) are the terms
for the classical music of North and South India, respectively, which developed distinctive systems by about the
fifteenth century. The sections below will introduce you
to the principles shared by both Hindustani and Carnatic music.
Theory and Practice
A long history of music theory is preserved in written texts in Sanskrit and other languages. The field is
called sangita shastra (“music technical works”), and
music historians study them to reconstruct the thought
and practices of the ancient and medieval periods. The
written texts reflect and represent a long-standing oral
tradition. Formal rules were transmitted through memorization for many generations. A sixteenth-century
scholar would be able to recite many verses on the definition of musical sound, or on the categories of ragas, or
the virtues of a good vocalist. Even now, specialists in
the shastra can recite appealing verses or definitions from
medieval theory.
The Natyashastra, compiled before 400 ce, is a compendium of theory on theater, dance, and music. It includes an elaborate theory of musical pitch (svara and
shruti) that is still studied today. The Natyashastra, like
other technical works, was composed in tightly condensed rhyming verses so that it could be memorized and
handed down in oral traditions.
Theory texts specifically on music were produced all
over North and South India in the centuries that followed, often by court scholars who were also composing
texts on philosophy, poetry, architecture, and many other
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arts and sciences. The ninth-century Brihaddesi contains
the first extended treatment of raga, beginning with the
definition of the word:
A special sound, ornamented with specific pitches
and syllables, which delights the minds of listeners,
is called raga.
The fourteenth-century Sangitaratnakara is the premier text of the medieval period. Its seven chapters became the basis for many later texts written in Persian
and regional languages. The chapters cover pitch (svara),
melody (raga), various techniques (prakiranaka), compositions (prabandha), rhythm (tala), instruments (vadya),
and dance (nrtya).
Traditional scholars memorize technical verses and
call them up as necessary for teaching and in debates.
Thus there is interplay between text and oral tradition.
In the context of South Asia, “theory” and “text” should
not be understood as being entirely dependent on written books.
Modern Theory
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, musicians
came to the growing cities where classical music was
promoted as an urbane art. Some students sought out a
professional musician and studied in an apprenticeship
arrangement. But many more went to one of the schools
for music that were founded on Western models.
Educators saw the practices of traditional musicians
generally as unsystematic and out of touch with modern
education. They even accused professionals of not being
grounded in the theory of the Sanskrit texts. They set
out to create a standardized theory and notation, a project that spanned the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries.
In the North, two high-caste Hindus from western
India were successful in creating curricula that are still
used in many schools today. Vishnu Digambar Paluskar
(1872–1931) was a charismatic performer who attracted
students with his focus on devotional sensibilities. Vish-
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SECTION III
What Is a Raga?
Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande (1860–1936)
reinterpreted Sanskrit terms and presented
classroom-friendly music curricula.
nu Narayan Bhatkhande (1860–1936) reinterpreted Sanskrit terms and presented classroom-friendly music curricula. If you were to study music in a classroom in North
India, you would likely be taught the notation and theory
terms standardized by either of these two men.
In South India, the Madras Music Academy, founded
in 1928 in present-day Chennai, was active in projects to
standardize Carnatic music theory. Terms and concepts
from certain Sanskrit works came to be generally accepted among the experts. The work of Purandara Dasa
(fifteenth century) was adopted for teaching pedagogy
and that of Venkatamakhin (seventeenth century) for
raga classification.
In both North and South, the newly standardized
theories provided a teachable method, but they favored
terms from the distant past over terms used by contemporary professionals. Outside the schools, professionals continued to learn within their family lines and to
teach students in one-on-one traditional settings. While
schools of music have created access for many, longterm apprenticeship with a teacher has continued to be
the ideal model for learning music performance. This is
called the guru-shishya or ustad-shagird relationship.
(You will read more about this later.)
Ragas are the melodies or, more precisely, the melodic
structures of Indian classical music. Every raga is a set
of melodic motifs used for playing both composed and
improvised material. The concept of raga has excited musicians from all over the world for hundreds of years. So,
what exactly is a raga?
o Each raga uses specific pitches in a scale. For example, the Hindustani Raga Yaman uses the pitches
of the natural or Western major scale but with a
sharp 4th.
o Some pitches are resting notes, on which the melody often lingers. The main resting notes of Raga
Yaman are the 3rd and the 7th.
o The pitches of a raga are used in particular phrasings and contours. In Yaman, the phrasings 7 2 3
and 7 6 4 6 5 occur over and over.
o Certain pitches and phrasing require delicate slides
and microtones. The 7th in Yaman is often delicately
sharpened, and there is a slide between 2 and 3.
The student learns all these musical-structural features of a raga in a long process of memorization and
supervision by the teacher. Some teachers have students
memorize composed pieces containing the raga’s phrasings. Other teachers guide the student in moving freely
around a raga, correcting any wrong turns.
And there is more to a raga than its pitches and phrasings. Just as fundamental to a raga is its expressive quality. Each raga is thought to express particular moods, and
some are thought to have curative powers or a relationship with the natural environment. In Hindustani music,
each raga is associated with a particular time of day and
is only performed at its proper time. Raga Yaman is a raga
of the early evening, performed after dark. Some ragas
are associated with a season. For example, Raga Megh
(“cloud”) is played during the monsoon season and is
thought to bring rain if played perfectly. These kinds of
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A Hindustani vocal performance.
Swara
Position
Notation
1
Shadja
Sa
S
2
Komal Rishabh
Re
R
3
Shuddh Rishabh
Re
R
4
Komal Gandhar
Ga
G
5
Shuddh Gandhar
Ga
G
6
Shuddh Madhyam
Ma
M
7
Tivra Madhyam
Ma
M’
8
Pancham
Pa
P
9
Komal Dhaivat
Dha
D
10
Shuddh Dhaivat
Dha
D
11
Komal Nishad
Ni
N
12
Shuddh Nishad
Ni
N
associations are essential to one’s experience in listening
to a raga. Each listener accumulates feelings and associations, which augment the pleasure of the performance.
A raga is performed by a main vocalist or instrumentalist, or sometimes two, accompanied by a small ensemble. The main musician sits in the center. A drum accompanist sits to the musician’s right. In Hindustani music,
the drum will usually be a tabla, and in Carnatic music
a mridangam and perhaps a kanjira. On the left there
may be an accompanying melody player, a harmonium
or sarangi player in Hindustani music and a violinist in
Carnatic music. Behind all the musicians, on one or both
sides, will be players of the tambura (or tanpura) drone.
The main musician performs a raga in a sequence of
composed and improvised sections. The violin, sarangi, or harmonium accompanist softly echoes the main
melody, and the drummer keeps the tala rhythmic cycle.
You may notice that the harmonium, sarangi, or violin
accompanist plays in unison with the main performer
in composed sections and drops behind in improvised
sections. The tambura drones the tonic note throughout
the performance. Though many pitches are heard at the
same time, this is not considered harmony, but rather is
seen as a melody line with accompaniment.
42
Short Name
In the sections that follow, you will be introduced to
some of the formats in which ragas are performed. But
first, let’s have an overview of pitch and scale in the Indian classical system.
Svara (Pitch)
The Indian term for pitch or musical tone is svara, a
Sanskrit term for sound. Seven svaras make up the scale,
and their names are found in the very earliest texts. The
full names denote ancient places, peoples, or a position
in the scale:
o Shadja, Rishabha, Gandhara, Madhyama, Panchama,
Dhaivata, Nishada
o They are more often designated by their first syllables. When the pitches are sung using their names,
it is called “singing svaras” (Carnatic) or “singing in
sargam” (Hindustani): Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni.
o In writing notation in the Roman alphabet, the
first letter is used: “S R G M P D N.”
o A sequence of seven svaras makes up a saptaka
(“consisting of seven”), which would translate as
octave.
There are twelve possible pitches in the octave in both
the Hindustani and the Carnatic systems, though they
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Table 2: The Hindustani Chromatic Scale
including enharmonic notes
(i.e., notes with more than one name)13
Swara
Position
Short Name
Notation
Mnemonic
1
Shadja
Sa
S
sa
2
Shuddha Rishabha
Ri
R1
ra
3
Chatushruti Rishabha
Ri
R2
ri
3
Shuddha Gandhara
Ga
G1
ga
4
Shatshruti Rishabha
Ri
R3
ru
4
Sadharana Gandhara
Ga
G2
gi
5
Antara Gandhara
Ga
G3
gu
6
Shuddha Madhyama
Ma
M1
ma
7
Prati Madhyama
Ma
M2
mi
8
Panchama
Pa
P
pa
9
Shuddha Dhaivata
Dha
D1
dha
10
Chatushruti Dhaivata
Dha
D2
dhi
10
Shuddha Nishada
Ni
N1
na
11
Shatshruti Dhaivata
Dha
D3
dhu
11
Kaisiki Nishada
Ni
N2
ni
12
Kakali Nishada
Ni
N3
nu
are explained quite differently. Flattened and sharpened
notes have different names in the two systems.
The twelve steps in an octave correspond roughly to
the twelve steps of the Western octave, but tuning is
done by ear. The Indian system does not use the Western
equally tempered scale. The Indian theory of intervals
involves the idea of shruti, or microtone.
Shruti and Gamaka (Microtone and
Ornament)
A svara is conceived of as not just a point, but as the
interval between it and the adjacent pitch. The intervals
that constitute svaras consist of microtonal divisions
called shrutis. Shruti has been a subject of keen interest
among musicologists and performers for generations. The
term is used in three basic ways, but in all of its senses it
connotes core concepts in Indian classical music.
SHRUTI IN SCALE THEORY
The Natyashastra and other theory texts define shruti
as the smallest interval that the ear can discern. These
texts use shrutis in conjunction with ideas of consonance
and dissonance to describe the svara pitches in an octave.14 In the Natyashastra system, the octave consists of
twenty-two shrutis. Each svara has a specific number of
shrutis. The following configuration is the basic one.
- - - Sa - - Re - Ga - - - Ma - - - Pa - - Dha - Ni
Sa, Ma, and Pa have four shrutis, Re and Dha have
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Table 3: The Carnatic chromatic scale,
three, and Ga and Ni have two. The Natyashastra descriptions of consonance and dissonance coincide generally with ideas in Western music. Svaras at intervals of
nine or thirteen shrutis (fifths and fourths) are consonant; at intervals of two (half-steps) are dissonant; and
at other intervals are neutral.
In a configuration in which a particular svara has a
different number of shrutis, the svara name will also
change. A Pa which has only three shrutis, for example,
is a “three-shruti Panchama.” It now comes into a consonant relationship with Re, being a nine-shruti interval,
that is a fourth.
It seems that shrutis had a practical application in the
music of the ancient period. Scales were built from different tonic notes and thus had various patterns of consonance. Shruti intervals were used to explain this. The
idea of the moveable tonic, however, died out in the medieval period. All raga scales now begin with Sa. Since
the medieval period, the idea of twenty-two shrutis and
of a certain number of shrutis for each svara has become
purely theoretical.
Today the shruti theory is taught in the abstract but is
44
not used in practice. Musicians and theorists value it as a
sophisticated contribution to the world history of musical scales. For practicing musicians, it is also a reminder
that Indian tuning is not based on the Western equally
tempered scale.
SHRUTI AS NUANCE
Musicians and listeners alike often use the term shruti to mean a delicate shading of pitch. When a svara is
slightly sharpened or flattened for expressive purposes,
a listener might say, “listen to that shruti!” A raga might
require that note to be sung extra flat or sharp, in which
case the teacher would say “this is how the shruti should
be played in this raga.” In this usage, shrutis are not
counted or measured. The core concept here is that shrutis, minute intervals, are at the heart of expression in a
performance, and they give color and life to a raga.
SHRUTI AS TONIC AND DRONE
The term shruti is often used in Carnatic music to refer
to the tuning of the Sa, that is, the note on which the
scale begins. Like the Do of the Western solfege system,
Sa is set to a pitch suited to the range of the singer’s voice.
An accompanist might ask the lead vocalist, “what shruti
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Figure 3: Hindustani Notation, Bhatkhande
Style15
FIGURE 4: Carnatic
C
Nootation16
will you
using
tonight?”
and the vocalist might reply is better suited to India’s music. India’s notation is not
Talabe(Rhy
ythmic
Cycles)
“C” or “the first black key” on the harmonium. This will intended to convey all the nuances of performed music.
also be
the main
pitch
which
the tambura
is tuned.
if ,notational
are addedm
to indicate
When
yo
ou go
to to
a pe
of
o Indian
classsicalEven
music
you will signs
seee listeners
moving
theirornaments
r
rformance
or
techniques,
the
notation
is
not
meant
to
be read as a
Shruti
is in
a subtle
manipulation
a asvara,
but every
heads
appreciation
n of the of
raga
melody.
Yo
ou will
also
see
people
c
clapping
soft
tly
and
maki
prescription for performance. Rather it is a tooling
to trigger
raga other
performance
is
full
of
a
profusion
of
slides,
turns,
nd gestures as
a they follow
w the rhythm
ms ofathe
muusic.memory
These for
hhands
action
s areorally
formal
han
student’s
what
has
been
learned
or to
and flourishes. These are collectively called gamaka.
marks
of
f
tala
cycles.
The
term
ta
ala
itself
mea
ans
“clap.”
record
the
basic
outline
of
a
piece.
Sanskrit and other language texts contain lists of named
gamakas, but names may or may not be used by present- Tala (Rhythmic Cycles)
Talas aree the
ic signs
cyclesaretosometimes
which
w
raga
performancees are set. Taala refers to an overall
day performers.
In rhythm
notation,
used,
When you go to a performance of Indian classical mubut gamakas
be notated
precisely.
They
are apsystem ocannot
f rhythmic
cycles
c
as welll as
to speci
ific named
w is moving
an introd
duction
he
sic, youcyycles.
will seeBelow
listeners
their
headstointh
appreciapliedbasics
fluidly of
and
in
the
context
of
raga
phrasings
and
are
f tala, which are shared by
b both Carn
natic and
Hin
ndustani
muusic.You will also see people clapping
tion of
the
raga melody.
learned orally from a teacher.
softly and making other hand gestures as they follow the
Gamaka
of nsists
a note that
pleasure
of thematra
music.
hand
are
- Each
Eis the shake
tala con
of abrings
sp
pecific
numb
ber of rhythms
beats, ccalled
a, orThese
“measu
ure.”actions
Commo
on formal
to the mind
of the
listener.
ta
alas
range
frrom six to six
xteen matrass. marks of tala cycles. The term tala itself means “clap.”
—Sangitaratnakara
Talas are the rhythmic cycles to which raga perforset. Talaaas
refers
an cy
overall
system hout
of rhyth- theory
A cycle
is cal
lledbasic
an avart
tana,Hindustani
a “rotaation,”mances
and ittare
is tracked
the to
tala
ycles through
Carnatic
names
ten
gamakas.
mic
cycles
as
well
as
to
specific
named
cycles.
music has noa specific
number,
with
traditions
varying
performance. The first beat
b of the ta
ala cycle is oof special im
mportance annd may oftenn Below
be is
an
introduction
to
the
basics
of
tala,
which
are
shared
by
from teacher em
to
teacher. Gamakas or ornaments such as
mphasized.
both
Carnatic
and
Hindustani
music.
andolan (“oscillation”), sphurita (“touch”) in Carnatic
music, and meend (“slide”) or murki (”knot”) in HinduEach tala consists of a specific number of beats,
- are
A tala
is hear
rd as groupin
of beats, of
called o
anga
a (Carnatic) or vibhag (H
Hindustani), such
stani music
heard
throughout
the ngs
performance
called matra, or “measure.” Common talas range
as
s:
a raga. In Hindustani usage, the term gamak came to
from six to sixteen matras.
be the name of one distinctive ornament, a forceful apo A cycle is called an avartana (or avartan), a “rota1 2 3from
4 | 5above.
6 | 7 8 or 1 2 3 | 4 5 | 6 7
proach to a svara
tion,” and it is tracked as the tala cycles throughout
a
performance. The first beat of the tala cycle is of
THE USE OF NOTATION
The
T
grouping
gs
are
marked
d
by
hand
ac
ctions,
which
h areimportance
either eemphasized
or de-be emphasized.
special
and may often
Syllabic svara notation has been used from the time
mphasized.
S nota tala
heard
as which
gro
oups of o
beats
withis specif
ofofemphasis.
.
Astala
heardfic
as patterns
groupingso
beats, called
anga
of the earliestem
texts, thoughSo,
as a is
score
from
(Carnatic) or vibhag (Hindustani), such as:
to perform. In the twentieth century, Indian music educatorsIndebated
whether
adopt
Western
Carnattic
music,toth
he
emphasize
edstaff
handnotation,
actio
on is a clap oor a slap on the knee. Thhe debut ended
up
agreeing
that
the
notation
of
svara
syllables
3 4 | 5up6 |touch
7 8 orto1 tthe
2 3 |knee
4 5 |or
6 7tto the
emphasizzed actions are
a of two kiinds: a wave, which mayy be1a2palm-u
other han
nd; and a tou
uch of fingerrs, one after another,
a
begginning with the pinky, to the knee oor to
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Figure 4: Carnatic Notation16
hand actions
1
clap
2
little
finger
3
ring
finger
4
middle
finger
5
clap
6
wave
7
clap
8
wave
Figure 6: Tintal with accompanying
hand actions
1
clap
2
-
3
-
4
-
5
clap
6
-
7
-
8
-
o Th
e groupings are marked by hand actions, which
are either emphasized or de-emphasized. So, a tala
is heard as groups of beats with specific patterns of
emphasis.
In Carnatic music, the emphasized hand action is a
clap or a slap on the knee. The de-emphasized actions
are of two kinds: a wave, which may be a palm-up touch
to the knee or to the other hand; and a touch of fingers,
one after another, beginning with the pinky, to the knee
or to the other palm. Singers, and some of the audience
members, will do these actions through much of a performance.
Aditala, a popular tala of Carnatic music, has eight
matras. Claps are done on 1, 5, and 7, and the other actions are marked in figure 5.
In Hindustani music, there are two types of hand actions: a clap and a silent wave or palm-up touch on the
knee with the back of the hand. Tintal, a well-known
tala of Hindustani music, has sixteen matras with the
hand actions noted in figure 6.
Audiences keep a close eye on the hand of the singer
to stay in touch with the tala cycle, but they also listen to the melody and the drumming. The composed
melody lines in a raga fit in the tala cycle in a repeating
and recognizable way. Astute listeners catch where the
main theme begins in the cycle and enjoy hearing how
the singer, drummer, or instrumentalist returns to this
precise point after each variation. In our discussion of
the next listening examples, you will read more details
46
9
wave
10
-
11
-
12
-
13
clap
14
-
15
-
16
-
The teacher-disciple relationship is at the
heart of traditional learning in South Asia.
about how the drummers help the performers and listeners keep track of the tala.
Guru-Shishya / Ustad-Shagird: The
Traditional Learning Relationship
How do singers, instrumentalists, and drummers
learn to negotiate the intricacies of raga and tala? Most
performance techniques are learned orally from a teacher. The teacher-disciple relationship is at the heart of traditional learning in South Asia. Terms for the master
and disciple from the Sanskrit are guru and shishya. In
Urdu, from the Persian, the terms are ustad and shagird.
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Figure 5: Aditala and accompanying
1
clap
2
-
3
wave
4
-
5
clap
6
-
7
wave
8
-
9
clap
10
-
11
clap
12
-
9
tete
10
kata
11
gadi
12
gena
Figure 8: The theka of Chautal
1
dha
2
dha
3
din
4
ta
5
tete
6
dha
The sensibilities of these relationships find their way into
classroom environments as well.
Guru means “teacher,” and the term has deep resonances. The guru is a teacher, but is also ideally a spiritual
guide and a model for the student’s life. A student who is
accepted as a shishya (“taught”) is initiated with a formal
ceremony and becomes a devotee of and an apprentice to
the guru. The student eventually becomes a representative of the guru’s artistic lineage. The guru is responsible
for training the shishya, and the shishya is always humble
and ready to serve the guru without question. As mentioned previously, in Urdu, the term for master or teacher
is ustad, and the disciple is the shagird. An ustad guides
the shagird through a long period of apprenticeship. A
disciple holds a reverential attitude toward the teacher
that lasts a lifetime.
In North India, the term for one’s stylistic lineage is
gharana, or “household.” In both Carnatic and Hindustani music, the names of the teachers from whom a musician learned are the first and most prominent credentials in the musician’s biography.
Hindustani Music—Three
Examples
We now turn to some examples of Hindustani music.
Dhrupad
Listening Example 7:
RAGA YAMAN, CHAUTAL (TWELVE BEATS),
the GUNDECHA BROTHERS
In listening example 7, we hear a vocal performance of
7
din
8
ta
The Gundecha Brothers, performing at the Baha’i
Center in Bellevue, Washington.
Left to right: Akhilesh Gundecha,
Umakant Gundecha, Ramakant
Gundecha.
Raga Yaman in the genre called dhrupad. The performers are the Gundecha Brothers, and they are accompanied by a tambura drone and a pakhavaj drum. Let’s
learn about this performance.
Yaman is a raga of the early evening. Every raga in the
Hindustani system is associated with a time of day—
from dawn through noon, to sunset, and various stages
of the night—and each is performed at its appropriate
time. Ragas are thought to have other connections with
the natural world as well. Some are associated with a
season, and some are said to have healing or other powers. Raga Yaman is thought to evoke delicate moods of
love. Familiar in name and reputation to even casual lis-
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Figure 7: Chauntal cycle hand actions
Sa
Ga(komal)
Ma
Pa
Ni(komal)
S
Figure 10: Pitches of the Raga Bhimpalasi in descent
S
Ni(komal)
Dha
P
teners, it is a great audience favorite.
Yaman uses all natural pitches, except for a sharp
(tivra) instead of a natural 4th:
Sa Re Ga Ma(tivra) Pa Dha Ni.
The 3rd and 7th (Ga and Ni) are resting notes, that is,
notes on which phrases pause. Typically in ascent, the 1st
and 5th (Sa and Pa) are passed over. In descent, they are
often circled around before being resolved onto.
Dhrupad singers were the most prestigious musicians
in the pre-modern court centers of North India. The sixteenth-century Mughal Emperor Akbar, celebrated for
his patronage of painting, architecture, literature, and
music, employed the legendary dhrupad singer Tansen,
who is said to have been able to light a fire when he sang
Raga Dipak (“dipak” means “illuminating”). Many generations of dhrupad singers and instrumentalists have
traced themselves, by bloodline or training, to Tansen.
As this recording begins, we hear the Gundecha
Brothers singing in unison. They are singing the first
line, the sthai, of the dhrupad composition. It is a descending phrase of Raga Yaman. In the background we
can hear a tambura drone. Long sustained notes and a
strong voice mark the dhrupad style. Dhrupad is almost
exclusively sung by men. At 0:22 the sthai repeats as the
pakhavaj drum enters.
Prathama sharira gyana — “First, there is the knowledge of the body”
The language is Hindi, and the subject of the song is
the philosophy of meditation and the origin of sound in
the human body as described in Sanskrit texts.
The pakhavaj is the premier drum of pre-modern
North Indian court music and is the ancestor of the
modern tabla. It is a barrel drum held horizontally and
48
M
Ga(komal)
Re
S
played by both hands. The pakhavaj is characterized by
its strong ringing sound and deep booming pitches. The
job of a pakhavaj player is to complement the melody by
alternating tastefully between simple and complex patterns.
The Gundecha Brothers repeat the sthai two or three
times. It is set to a tala cycle of twelve beats, called
Chautal. If you were to see the performance, you would
see the singers marking the Chautal cycle with the above
hand actions given in figure 7.
In Hindustani drumming, each tala is expressed not
only with a fixed set of hand actions, but also with specific drum strokes, called the theka, or “support.” The
drum strokes are spoken as syllables. Indeed, oral training requires that drummers learn to speak every pattern
that they learn. The theka of Chautal is provided in figure
8.
Listeners and singers listen to the theka to keep track
of the tala cycle during a performance. While the singer
is singing basic composed lines, the pakhavaj player may
enliven it with improvised patterns; but when the singer
improvises, he will play the theka. The song continues
with the words:
Nada bheda tin sthana—“primordial sound has three
registers”
At about 2:20 the brothers begin the antara, the second and final line of the pre-composed part of the performance. In the antara, the melody reaches the higher
octave. At 3:12 they finish the antara and return to the
sthai, and at 3:30 the composition is complete. Each
brother will now take turns singing variations on the
composed lines. They will always use the pitches and the
phrases of Raga Yaman.
Improvisation in dhrupad is methodical and system-
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Figure 9: Pitches of the Raga Bhimpalasi in ascent
hand actions
clap
1
dha
2
3
dhin dhin
4
dha
clap
5
dha
6
7
dhin dhin
8
dha
wave
9
dha
10
tin
11
tin
12
ta
clap
13
ta
14
15
dhin dhin
16
dha
atic. The first variations are slow and restrained. You can
hear the singers beginning to add varying rhythms to the
word “prathama.”
They always end their variations just in time to return
to the sthai on the first beat of the tala cycle, and they
will gradually begin to use double speed and syncopated
rhythms for variations.
A dhrupad performance of a raga evokes a dignified
and refined musical environment, reminding audiences
of the great patrons and singers of the past
and the long legacy of Hindustani music in
the courts.
Khyal
Listening Example 8:
KHYAL, VANI: RAGA BHIMPALASI KHAYAL,
VEENA SAHASRABUDDHE
In listening example 8 we hear a performance of Raga
Bhimpalasi in the vocal genre called khyal. The performer is a well-known singer, Veena Sahasrabuddhe. Khyal
music has many female singers, and in fact women professionals in pre-modern courts were important carriers
of khyal and other genres.
Khyal is the predominant vocal genre of Hindustani
classical music today. The elaborate flourishes and flowing style of the voice that you hear in this recording are
characteristic of it. Khyal means “imagination,” and its
quick movements and free-flowing approach to improvisations immediately differentiate it from dhrupad. A full
khyal performance consists of a slow-tempo composition
and variations, called the bada (“big”) khyal, and a fast
composition called the chota (“small”) khyal. This recording is of a chota khyal.
Bhimpalasi is a late afternoon raga. The mood might
be said to reflect the mellowness of the late afternoon
sun. There is a touch of melancholy or yearning perhaps.
Veena Sahasrabuddhe is a well-known
singer of khyal and bhajan.
Bhimpalasi uses the flat (komal) 3rd and 7th (Ga and Ni),
and the other pitches are natural. In Bhimpalasi, the 2nd
and the 6th (Re and Dha) must be skipped in the ascent.
(See figure 9.)
The 2nd and 6th are sung or played in descent, and a
soft, gliding touch on them characterizes Bhimpalasi.
(See figure 10.)
Resting notes are the 4th and 5th (Ma and Pa).
Against the background of the tambura drone, Ms.
Sahasrabuddhe begins the sthai and is joined by a tabla
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Figure 11: Tintal with its theka, counts and
The tabla is a pair of single-headed drums,
propped in front of the player, who sits
cross-legged and plays with both
hands on the horizontal skin surfaces.
drum. The lyrics are: Piya pasa le ja re (“Please take me
to my beloved”).
Khyal lyrics often speak of love, and allude to both
human love and bhakti devotion. The melody is instantly
recognizable as Bhimpalasi by the way it glides in a descending phrase and resolves onto the Sa. The Sa is also
where sam, the first beat of the tala cycle, occurs in this
composition.
Tabla is the prevalent drum of Hindustani classical
music. It is well known all over the world today, recognized for its bell-like tone and expressive intonations.
Tabla players are stars, playing lightning-fast solos and
brilliant accompaniment. The tabla is a pair of singleheaded drums, propped in front of the player, who sits
cross-legged and plays with both hands on the horizontal skin surfaces. The right-hand drum has a ringing tone
and is tuned precisely to the tonic Sa. The left-hand drum
has a deep resonating sound. The tabla player presses on
it with the heel of the hand as he hits the skin with his
fingertips to make changes in pitch. Most tabla players
are male, though there are a few women professionals in
the performing circuits.
The tal in this recording is tintal, the most common
tala in Hindustani music. It is played in a medium tempo. You can hear how the tabla player alternates between
playing the basic theka and making elaborate flourishes
in double and quadruple-tempo. Like the pakhavaj, the
role of the tabla is to keep the tala cycle but also to ornament and complement the singing.
50
figure 11 shows the tintal with its theka, counts and
hand actions.
Members of the audience might be quietly clapping
and waving in this pattern as they follow the performance.
A khyal composition is short, consisting of only a
couple of lines—sthai and antara—but the composition
becomes the anchor for a long series of variations. The
beginning of the sthai is used as the theme to which
variations return. This phrase is called the mukhra, or
“face,” of the khyal.
You can hear the mukhra repeated many times, interspersed with short variations, in this recording. At 2:50
Veena begins a longer improvisation in a flowing style
called vistar (“expansion”). In vistar, the singer sings
long sustained notes and explores the raga with winding,
delicate phrases. Around 4:40 Veena ascends to the high
octave, where she continues to sing in vistar style. Later
parts of a khyal performance will feature fast running
improvisations called tans.
For audiences in India, khyal represents the highly refined beauty and imaginative qualities of contemporary
North Indian classical music. Developed by the great
musicians of various gharanas during the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, it thrives today as it continues to be developed by expert male and female singers.
Hindustani Instrumental Music
In the next recording, we will recognize many aspects
of dhrupad and khyal which are used for instrumental
performances of a raga in Hindustani music.
Listening Example 9:
SITAR AND SAROD, RAGA MANJ KHAMMAJ,
ALI AKBAR KHAN AND NIKHIL BANERJEE
In listening example 9 we hear two of North India’s
great instrumentalists, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan (1922–
2009) and Pandit Nikhil Banerjee (1931–86). They are
playing Raga Manj Khamaj in a duet on the sarod and
the sitar. Ustad is an Urdu term from the Persian for
a teacher or master, as you read earlier, and Pandit is
a term from the Sanskrit that means scholar or master.
These terms are used as honorific titles and are given to
senior artists, usually Muslim and Hindu respectively, by
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The theka of tintal—the set of strokes played on the
tabla—are as follows:
dha dhin dhin dha dha dhin dhin dha dha tin tin ta ta
dhin dhin dha
Ali Akbar Khan was known for his masterful playing of the sarod, a plucked instrument held
across the lap and played with a
triangular plectrum.
companiment. The instrumentalist explores the phrases
of a raga without rhythmic restraint. Alap is considered
a challenging part of a raga performance, as it requires
a thorough knowledge of the raga and precise intonation. A full-length alap may last for a half hour or more.
In this recording, Ali Akbar Khan and Nikhil Banerjee
exchange alap phrases for about three minutes, moving
up and down the range of their instruments.
Raga Manj Khamaj uses all natural pitches plus the
flat 7th (komal Ni). The 4th (Ma) is a resting note, used so
prominently as to sound sometimes like the tonic. This
evening raga is known for its catchy, sweet phrasings. It
was probably derived from folk melodies.
At 3:25 the performers begin the gat. The gat is the
composed section of an instrumental performance. A gat
is short, as is a chota khyal composition. It consists of two
lines—sthai and antara—and is followed by variations.
This gat begins with a five-beat mukhra, and the tabla enters on sam (the first beat of the tala cycle). This gat is set
to a medium-slow tempo tintal. Its mukhra will always
begin on the twelfth beat of the cycle. For the first few
cycles of tintal, the tabla player plays an elaborate solo
while the instrumentalists continue to repeat the gat.
Tabla players draw on a large repertoire of composed
and improvised material. Composed pieces for tabla are
treasured inheritances from one’s teacher, and many have
been carried for generations.
One of the improvised items in the tabla repertoire is
the qaida (“foundation”). A qaida is a pattern with a fixed
set of strokes, such as those shown in figure 12.
The player expands on this by multiplying the internal
patterns, such as the following:
dha dha tira kita dha dha tira kita dha dha tira kita dha
dha tun na
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general consensus.
Ustad Ali Akbar Khan lived in Kolkata and Mumbai,
where he became one of the stars of Indian classical music in the twentieth century. He learned with his father,
Allauddin Khan, who was also the guru of the internationally known sitar player Ravi Shankar. Ali Akbar
Khan made his first trip to the U.S. in 1955 and founded
a school in the San Francisco area in 1967. He lived there
for much of the last forty years of his life.
The sarod is a plucked instrument held across the lap
and played with a triangular plectrum. Sarod means
“music” in Arabic. The Indian sarod was a modification
of the rabab, an instrument of similar shape, which is
played in Central Asia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. The
sarod’s wide neck is covered with a shiny chrome metal
plate, and it has no frets. The player presses the fingernails of the left hand against the melody strings and can
slide along the neck to sound many notes in one stroke.
The deep wooden body is covered with a goatskin, giving
the sarod a distinctive punchy sound.
Nikhil Banerjee was a beloved sitar player of Kolkata.
He studied with a series of great masters, including Allauddin Khan and Ali Akbar Khan, and became known
for his profound touch and rigorous discipline.
The sitar developed out of long-necked fretted instruments that came into India from Central Asia. In India,
the neck was widened, and strings were added to produce the ringing sustain so necessary for Indian music.
Arched metal frets on the Indian sitar allow the player to
pull the melody string to the side, producing as many as
five pitches on a single fret. The wooden face is backed
by a resonator made of a half-gourd, on which the player
rests his or her right forearm. The player strokes with a
wire plectrum clamped to the right index finger.
Both the sitar and the sarod have resonating strings
that vibrate “sympathetically,” that is, they respond to
the vibration created by the main melody string and ring
out without being touched by the player. With their vibrant sound and their capability for sustained notes as
well as virtuoso speed, the sitar and sarod are admired
around the world.
At the start of this recording, we hear a distinctive
shimmer as Nikhil Banerjee runs his fingernail across
his sitar’s thirteen sympathetic strings. These strings run
under the frets. Immediately, Ali Akbar Khan enters
with lively phrases of Raga Manj Khamaj on the sarod.
Nikhil Banerjee answers with phrases on the sitar. The
sarod has a more muted sound, and the sitar a sharper
twang. The players alternate in the free-rhythm section
of the raga performance called alap.
Alap, “conversation,” is the first part of a raga performance in the instrumental style. Developed originally by
dhrupad musicians, it was later incorporated into other
genres. Alap is improvised and played without drum ac-
1
dha
2
dha
3
tira
4
kita
5
dha
6
dha
7
tun
8
na
Nikhil Banerjee was a beloved sitar player of
Kolkata. He became known for his
profound touch and rigorous discipline.
ta ta tira kita ta ta tira kita dha dha tirakita dha dha
dhin na
After the tabla player expands the patterns, he creates
longer and more elaborate variations in double and quadruple time. Throughout a tabla solo, the underlying tala
cycle remains constant.
A tabla solo culminates in a tihai, or “group of three,”
a phrase repeated three times with a gap of equal duration between each repetition. A tihai ends precisely at
the intended point of the tala cycle. In this recording, the
tihai begins at 4:14 and ends at 4:30 on sam.
The tabla player returns to the theka, and Ali Akbar
Khan begins melodious flowing melodic improvisations
called vistar. (We heard vistars in the khyal vocal recording.) Vistars float around and across the beats of the tala,
as beautiful combinations of the raga’s pitches. After several sets of vistars, the performance will continue with
the sitar and sarod players improvising in fast and complex patterns, returning to the gat periodically.
The faster rhythmic improvisations in instrumental music, as in khyal, are called tans.
52
9
ta
10
ta
11
tira
12
kita
13
dha
14
dha
15
dhin
16
na
Large audiences pack concert halls to hear hours
of ghazal singing by such greats as
Ghulam Ali of Pakistan (b. 1940).
Semi-Classical Genres—Thumri and
Ghazal
We have listened to examples of dhrupad, khyal,
and instrumental music. These genres are sometimes referred to as “pure classical.” If you were to attend many
concerts in Mumbai, Delhi, or Kolkata, you would surely
hear “semi-classical” music as well. Semi-classical refers
to song styles that use specific “light” ragas and focus
on the poetry of the song. Two important semi-classical
genres are thumri and ghazal.
Thumri (probably from “thumak,” the sound of a dancer’s ankle bells) are songs in poetic Hindi about love. In
pre-modern court environments, elite patrons employed
large numbers of female singers and dancers and their
male accompanists. The women sang and performed
many types of songs for male patrons. Some were specialists in thumri and acted out the lyrics of seductive
love with great skill and delicacy, using hand gestures
and facial expressions. Some thumri singers were famous
and were richly compensated for their alluring skills.
Thumri is sung in “light” ragas and in talas, which can
be improvised on more freely than “pure classical” ragas.
A thumri in Raga Pilu or Raga Bhairavi will elicit moans
of enjoyment from the audience. Thumris are sung in melodious style with a focus on interpreting the words of the
poem. To hear a thumri by a female specialist with roots in
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Figure 12: An example of a qaida
Tumhari saath bhi tanha hun—tum na samjhoge
Main apne khwab ka sayan hun—tum na samjhoge
I am alone even with you next to me—you won’t understand
I am the shadow of my own fantasy—you won’t understand
Tumhare pyar men jo mujh se ajnabi thahri
Main woh khushi ki tamanna hum tum na samjhoge
The distance that I always felt in your love,
I desire that—you won’t understand
Ghazal poetry is recited in special mehfil-s (Urdu for
“gathering”) or is sung as semi-classical music. The sung
ghazal is one of the major song types of North India.
People without specialized training can sing ghazals, and
it is common for a talented young person, man or woman,
to entertain friends with ghazal songs. Specialist ghazal
singers are great stars in India and Pakistan. Large audi-
ences pack concert halls to hear hours of ghazal singing
by such greats as Ghulam Ali of Pakistan (b. 1940) or
Pankaj Udhas of Gujarat (b. 1951).
Ghazals appeal to audiences who savor the poetic content and think of the refined history that ghazals represent. If you explore YouTube videos of ghazals, you will
notice that they are sung in many different styles. A more
“classical” ghazal style will have minimal instrumentation, perhaps a harmonium and a tabla. A raga may be
used to set a ghazal melody, but a ghazal singer will often
mix ragas or create new melody lines. A “pop” ghazal will
be backed up by a synthesizer or a studio orchestra, and
a pop ghazal singer may create new tunes or use ones that
others have composed.
Carnatic Music—
Two Examples
Carnatic musicians in the twentieth century adopted
a system of organizing ragas from a seventeenth-century
treatise by the theorist Venkatamakhin. In this system,
called the melakarta system, permutations of seven svaras
in the twelve-note chromatic octave are arranged systematically and given names and numbers. There are
seventy-two of them, and they are called janaka (“parent”) ragas. Other ragas that employ only some of the
seven pitches, or use pitches in a non-linear order, are
grouped under the parent scale whose pitches they use.
They are called janya (“derived”) ragas, and there are
an unlimited number of them. Here we will consider a
couple examples of Carnatic music—one a kriti and the
other an example of ragam-tanam-pallavi.
Listening Example 10:
KRITI, “SADHINCHANE,” SAINT TYAGARAJ
GHANARAGA, PANCHARATNA KRITIS, SANJAY
Subrahmanyan & and P. Unni Krishnan
In listening example 10 we hear a performance of
Raga Arabhi in the genre called kriti. The performers,
Sanjay Subrahmanyan (b. 1968) and P. Unni Krishnan
(b. 1964), are current stars of Carnatic vocal music.
Arabhi is a janya, or “derived,” raga, and its parent is
Sankarabharanam, which uses notes equivalent to the
Western major scale. When singing Arabhi, one must
skip over the 3rd and 7th (Ga and Ni) while ascending, but
include them in descent. Arabhi is said to use relatively
few gamaka ornaments and have a cheerful mood.
At the beginning of this recording, we hear the sound
of the tambura briefly before two male voices enter, singing in unison. The kriti (“creation) form makes up a large
part of the Carnatic music repertoire. At a concert of
Carnatic music, which typically lasts about three hours,
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the world of courtly entertainment, listen to Girija Devi:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJS6Em8y3VU.
As she sings this simple line—“Oh, your eyes, my beloved,
filled with love”—over and over with various beautiful
phrasings, listeners savor the nuances of each word and
the various moods that they evoke.
Ghazal is a type of rhyming poetry composed in a series of couplets. The ghazal form originated in Arabic
and Persian, but in South Asia, Urdu became its preeminent language. Ghazals are composed in other languages
of North India and Pakistan as well, however, and you
can even find ghazals in English.17
The Urdu language developed as Persian and Arabic
intermingled with the colloquial languages of North India, where it developed a rich literature of its own. Urdu
is written in the Persian script, called nastaliq. In the
twentieth century, Urdu came to represent South Asian
Muslim cultural identity. It is the national language of
Pakistan.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the ghazal
became a celebrated form in Urdu literature. A ghazal
couplet consists of two short lines, composed in a specific
poetic meter, ending in a rhyme. The same end-rhyme is
used in the other couplets in a sequence. Each two-line
couplet is called a she’r, and each is a complete poem
that can stand alone. Ghazal poetry speaks in the male
voice about the agony of love. The agony can be separation from the divine Beloved, or about human love, and
is often about both. Ghazal poets celebrate the irony that
the suffering of a lover is the highest calling in life. They
specialize in imaginative and surprising expressions of
suffering. Consider the following example:
1
clap
2
little
finger
3
ring
finger
4
middle
finger
5
clap
6
wave
7
clap
8
wave
Acclaimed Carnatic vocalist Sanjay
Subrahmanyan performing.
you will hear a series of pieces, as many as twelve, sung
in different ragas. The largest number of them will be
kritis, elaborate compositions that can be sung on their
own or interspersed with sequences of improvisations.
The bulk of kritis performed today were composed by
celebrated musicians of South India in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. Three composer-musicians who
lived between about 1750 and 1850 are known as the
“Trinity.” They are Tyagaraja, Mutthuswami Diksitar,
and Syama Sastri. Celebrated as geniuses of raga interpretation, and inspired poets, they are revered as spiritually accomplished figures as well. Most of their lyrics express bhakti devotionalism, but the kriti and other forms
in which they set their poetry use the highly specialized
techniques of raga and tala and are categorized as classical concert music. There are said to be about 1500 kritis
and other composition types composed by the “Trinity”
that are still performed today.
Tyagaraja, the composer of the kriti on this recording, lived in the Tamil-language area of South India but
composed in the Telugu language. Tyagaraja is said to
have shunned the patronage of wealthy elites to live as
an ascetic, performing his songs for the common folk of
the region. There are estimated to be seven hundred of
Tyagaraja’s kritis still performed today. Every year, thousands of musicians and avid listeners travel to the small
54
Painting of the great Carnatic music
composer Tyagaraja.
town of Thiruvaiyaru in Tamil Nadu, where Tyagaraja
died, to honor him and sing his compositions. Yearly
celebrations are held elsewhere as well. In the U.S., the
Cleveland Tyagaraja Festival of 2014 was held for the
thirty-seventh year and attracted more than eight thousand visitors.
A kriti has three main sections, called pallavi, anupallavi, and charanam. In this recording, we first hear
Subrahmanyan and P. Unni Krishnan sing the theme
line, called the pallavi (“bud”).
Sadinchane O Manasa
“Oh mind, he achieved his objective”
The speaker in the poem is a devotee, who is ironi-
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Figure 13: The aditala cycle hand actions
Figure 14: An example of a
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mridangam pattern19
Here is a mridangam pattern that begins with supporting patterns called “time
flow” patterns and ends in a phase repeated three times, called a mora.
cally telling himself that though Krisha promised that
he would be always be near, he really had other plans.
Krishna, he says, was determined to remain distant from
his devotee.
The singers repeat the line of the pallavi several times,
and the melody varies slightly at each repetition. At 1:00
they begin the next line, called the anupallavi (“following the bud”). They sing the first half of the line four
times and then the second half once, before returning to
the pallavi.
Bodinchina SanMargava chana mula
“He belied his own teachings...”
Bongu gesi thabattina pattu
“He spoke opportunistically.”18
A lively mridangam drum accompanies the singers.
The tala is Aditala, the most common cycle of Carnatic
music, to which you were introduced in the section above
on tala. We can imagine the two singers visibly keeping
the eight-beat Aditala cycle:
The mridangam is the premier drum of Carnatic music. Like many other drums of South Asia, it is a barrel
drum, held horizontally across the lap and played with
both hands. Each barrel drum that we have encoun-
The mridangam is the premier drum of Carnatic
music. Like many other drums of South Asia, it is a
barrel drum, held horizontally across
the lap and played with both hands.
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tered in our study of Indian music is constructed differently and has a unique sound. The dry, slightly buzzy
sound of the mridangam is distinctive. The player carefully tunes the right side to the tonic Sa by tapping on
the rim with a polished stone. The mridangam is considered the king of drums in Carnatic music. A percussionist may play other drums, but will always have learned
the mridangam first. Part of a mridangam player’s skill is
to create patterns that enhance the flow of the song. The
player often knows every nuance of the kriti composition
and can echo it precisely with delicate skilled strokes.
The other part of the mridangam player’s repertoire consists of complex calculated patterns that provide exciting
interludes to a song. All the patterns fit precisely inside
the tala cycle.
In this recording, the mridangam provides a driving
complement to the singing throughout. If you listen
closely, you will also hear a kanjira. The kanjira is a small
frame drum, like a tambourine, held in the left hand and
played with the right. A small set of metal plates inset in
the frame jingles as the player hits the drum’s skin head.
Kanjira players are able to produce an amazing variety
of sounds.
At 1:45 the singers begin the next section, called the
charanam. The charanam melody is used for the remaining verses of the kriti poem.
Oh Lord of Tirupati! Self-Illuminating! The greatest of
great! Dweller in the hearts of good people…. This worshipper of yours sings the praise of the king of the human race.20
Between each verse, the singers intersperse “svara” in
which they sing the notes of the raga pitches. Listen, for
example, at 2:24 when you will hear the interlude “Pa,
Ma Ga Re, Ma Ga Re Re Sa Sa, Sa Dha Dha Pa, Dha
Sa Sa Re Ma Pa.”
Tyagaraja is said to have composed his kritis with a
56
Ravikiran plays the chitravina.
perfect balance of lyrics, melody, and rhythm. He captured the emotions of the raga in innovative
ways that continue to thrill singers, instrumentalists, and listeners.
Listening Example 11:
RAGAM TANAM PALLAVI ON CHITRAVINA
AND VIOLIN, Chitravina N.
RAVIKIRAN
listening example 11 is a performance of Raga Mukhari
by Chitravina N. Ravikiran on the chitravina, accompanied by a violin. This performance is not composed,
but is an improvised piece called ragam-tanam-pallavi,
often shortened to “RTP.”
At the start of this recording, we hear the tambura
drone followed by the sound of Ravikiran plucking the
melodious sympathetic strings of his chitravina. Ravikiran (b.1967) is a premier player of this instrument. The
chitravina has a long fretless wooden neck attached to a
round wooden body and a gourd resonator at each end.
It sits horizontally in front of the player, who plucks the
strings with two fingers of the right hand and slides a
wood or horn piece along the strings, like a slide guitar.
Ravikiran follows each pluck on the instrument with
long elaborate slides. A violin player shadows him, echoing the final parts of his phrases. It is characteristic of
improvised sections of music that an accompanying melody player cannot play in unison, but will follow behind
the main soloist.
The players begin to explore the pitches and ornaments—svaras and gamakas—of Raga Mukhari. Mukhari
is a janya raga, derivative of Raga Kharaharapriya, which
has flat 3rd and 7th (Ga and Ni) pitches. In Mukhari, one
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The kanjira is a small frame drum held in the left
hand and played with the right. A small set of
metal plates inset in the frame jingles
as the player hits the drum’s skin head.
o The ancient theory of shruti divided the scale into
twenty-two microtonal divisions. Svaras were defined in terms of the number of shrutis that they
contained.
o Other uses of the term shruti are nuances of pitch
and the tuning of the tonic.
o Gamaka is the term for ornaments, which are essential to raga performances.
o Notation in Indian classical music is a system using the svara syllables. It is not used as a score from
which to read, but as a tool to trigger the memory
of a learned piece or to outline a piece of music.
o Tala is the Indian classical system of rhythmic cycles. A cycle is divided into groupings, which are
marked by hand actions.
o The traditional teacher-student relationship is one
of long-term apprenticeship. It is basic to one’s musical identity. Guru-shishya are terms from Sanskrit and ustad-shagird are terms from Persian
that describe the relationship. Ustad and Pandit are
honorific titles for “master musician.”
Hindustani Music—Three Examples
Section III Summary
Principles of Indian Classical Music
oC
lassical Indian music is the art music of urban
India and reflects a long history and systematic
theory. Classical music is based on the concepts of
raga and tala.
oH
industani (North India) and Carnatic music
(South India) are the two classical systems of Indian music.
o Music theory, called sangita shastra, is found in
written texts and is transmitted orally as well.
oM
odern music theory in Hindustani and Carnatic
music was standardized by educators in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries for classroom teaching.
o Ragas are the melodic structures of Indian classical
music. They are defined in terms of scale and pitch
and also in terms of expressive quality and other
associations.
o A raga is performed in the format of a main melody
player or singer and accompanists.
o A raga performance consists of a sequence of composed and improvised sections.
o Svara is the term for pitch or musical tone. There
are seven svaras in Indian music. The Indian octave has twelve half steps. The twelve tones have
different names in the Hindustani and Carnatic
systems.
o Raga Yaman is one of the most well-known ragas
of Hindustani music.
o Dhrupad is a genre cultivated in the pre-modern
courts of North India. Its legendary sixteenth-century performer was Tansen. The style and instrumentation of dhrupad are specific to it and evoke
for listeners earlier eras of music.
o The two parts of a classical composition in Hindustani music are the sthai and antara.
o Th
e pakhavaj is the predecessor of the modern tabla drum. It maintains the tala cycle with a theka, a
fixed sequence of strokes. Chautal is a twelve-beat
cycle used commonly in dhrupad.
o K hyal is the predominant vocal genre of Hindustani music today. It is performed in slow and fast
composed sections and variations called bada khyal
and chota khyal.
o Bhimpalasi is an afternoon raga.
o A khyal ensemble includes the main singer, tambura
drone, tabla drum, and harmonium accompanists.
o Th
e composed theme begins with a phrase called
the mukhra, to which the performer returns between each other line or variation. Slow fluid variations are called vistar, and fast running rhythmic
variations are called tans.
o Ustad Ali Akbar Khan was a prominent player of
the sarod. Pandit Nikhil Banerjee was a famous
player of the sitar. Sitar and sarod are prominent
plucked string concert instruments in Hindustani
music.
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must skip the 3rd in ascent and play a “zig-zag” phrase
when ascending to the Sa. A flat 6th (Dha) is also added.
In this segment, Ravikiran begins around the middle of
the scale and descends to the tonic Sa and below. He
will gradually ascend up the middle octave to the higher
register.
Listeners follow this abstract exploration of a raga
with great concentration and thrill to the musician’s
imaginative and varied phrasings. The RTP, like the alap
of Hindustani music, is considered challenging and aesthetically satisfying. In a full-length concert, the RTP
is usually played around the middle and is considered
a high point of the performance. A full RTP will build
in tempo and conclude with a composed line called the
pallavi, which is set to a tala and is used as a basis for
elaborate rhythmic improvisations.
A Carnatic concert, with its sequence of elaborately
composed and profound kritis and improvised pieces,
such as ragam-tanam-pallavi, demonstrates
the great legacy of hundreds of years of court
and temple music in South India.
Carnatic Music—Two Examples
oC
arnatic raga theory classifies janaka, or “parent,”
and janya, i.e., “derivative,” ragas.
58
o Kriti is a prominent genre for Carnatic raga performance.
o A large repertoire of kritis and other types of Carnatic musical forms were composed by three revered
musicians, called the “Trinity,” who lived between
1750 and 1850.
o A kriti has three main sections, called pallavi, anupallavi, and charanam.
o Mridangam is the main drum played in accompaniment to Carnatic music. The kanjira is another.
o Ragam-tanam-pallavi is an improvised raga performance in a Carnatic concert.
o A chitravina is a plucked instrument played with a
slide. Ravikiran is a prominent chitravina player.
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o Ragas are played in the Hindustani instrumental
genre beginning with alap, a free-rhythm noncomposed section. The composed part of an instrumental performance is the gat accompanied by
a tabla.
o The tabla repertoire includes qaida, which is a
theme on which the drummer expands. A tabla
solo section culminates in a tihai, a phrase repeated
three times.
o Semi-classical genres in Hindustani music are
thumri and ghazal.
Film and Popular Music
music and introduce you to some examples. For an introduction to film dance and to the plots and characters
of Indian films, seek out some Hindi, Tamil, or other
films. You will likely be intrigued by the catchy music
and spectacular productions of Indian cinema. Indian
popular music outside of the film-based mainstream
consists of a full range of rock and fusion genres. We will
offer an overview of Indian rock following our discussion
of film music.
Bollywood: Hindi Film Music—
General Characteristics
Renowned sitar player and composer Ravi Shankar composed the soundtrack for the film Pather
Panchali, which is counted
among the greatest films of all times.
Introduction
Mainstream films are musicals in India, and film
songs dominate popular music. The Hindi-language film
music of Bollywood is loved across South Asia and has
a following all over the world. Since the 1930s, the styles
of Bollywood have profoundly influenced and reflected
popular tastes. Film industries thrive in other language
regions as well. In 2012 the Film Federation of India reported that it certified feature films in thirty-five different languages. Indian films have been shown in international film festivals since the 1950s, and many have won
awards. Pather Panchali, the 1955 Bengali-language film
by director Satyajit Ray, is just one of the Indian films
counted among the greatest films of all time. The South
Indian film industry, with its biggest center in Chennai,
produces films in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam. The Indian film industry has rapidly adjusted to
wider economic, social, and musical contexts over the
decades, and Indian film is considered an important expression of popular culture and social history.
The sections that follow will outline aspects of film
In March 1931, the first Indian sound film, Alam
Ara, attracted excited crowds to the Majestic Theatre in
Mumbai. The film, whose title translates as “Ornament
of the World,” was a love story of a prince and a gypsy
and was full of music and dance. The impact of this film
continues to be felt to this day, as mainstream movies in
India continue to feature music and dance.
The language of Hindi film songs is typically a mix of
Hindi and Urdu. The standard urban Hindi of North
India is itself a mix, made up of various longstanding
Indic vernaculars, with loan words from Sanskrit, Persian, and European sources. Lyricists write in a range of
styles, from spoken colloquial to high literary, to ironic
or humorous. The poetic vocabulary of Urdu is especially
favored, but the language of songs also reflects modern
spoken usage. Lyricists are considered contemporary poets in their own right.
Feature films usually contain five to seven song sequences, some backed by spectacular choreographed
group dances. Indian mainstream films are known for
their quality of exuberant spectacle, that is, for their
non-realistic or heightened styles of plot line, music,
dance, and costume. Scholars point to long traditions of
musical theater and storytelling as the sources for these
characteristics. For centuries, hereditary performers
throughout South Asia have recited and acted out epic
stories with long interludes of song and dance.
In the early decades of film, a film’s actors would
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SECTION IV
A poster for the film Alam Ara, from 1931,
the first Indian sound film.
also be its singers, though the songs were recorded
separately in the studio. Since the early 1950s, however,
songs have been lip-synced by actors and recorded by
“playback singers.” Playback singers are not seen in the
films but are stars well known to the public, attracting
thousands of people to stadium-sized concert events.
Generally speaking, film songs derive from traditional song genres in that they feature a main solo singer or
two, with vocal and instrumental accompaniment. The
vocal line may have some of the melisma (a flow of several notes over a single syllable) of traditional music. It
will surely have distinctive touches of ornamentation. A
film song may use the phrases of a raga, or several ragas,
or have melody lines created by the composer.
Chords and harmony are used, sometimes in familiar
Western progressions, though for the most part film song
melodies are not based on the chord-based tonalities of
the Western system, but rather on melodic phrases. You
will remember that a raga uses specific pitches in phrasings that are distinctive to it. Film songs may or may not
use recognizable phrases from ragas, but they center on
melody. In general, chords are used in Indian film music
to color and fill melody line rather than to act as the
structure behind it.21
Instrumentation in Indian film music is famously
eclectic. Early film song ensembles consisted of traditional instruments such as tabla, harmonium, sarangi,
60
and flute. Even now, the distinctive sounds of Indian
drums is often pronounced. But from the 1940s to the
1990s, large studio ensembles came to be standard in
film music. They included violin sections, clarinets, saxophones, xylophones, keyboards, and all kinds of percussion. Instruments from all over the world are used
to create the ambience and messages that the composer
wishes to convey.
Bollywood Style in 1936 and 1955
K. L. Saigal (1904–47) was a legendary singer and
actor. In the 1936 Hindi film Devdas, he played the title
character. In the film clip, Devdas is seated under a tree
alone, singing of his beloved. She approaches from behind, and he does not see her until she tickles his ear
with a flower. He is embarrassed that she has heard him
singing. [To better follow this description, seek out the
YouTube link “Balam Aaye Baso More Man Mein Kundan Lal Saigal Devdas 1936” https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=_wDC6QHOcyY.]
A distinctive staccato melody introduces the song.
The ensemble includes the sarod, violins, and a flute. The
music director is Timir Baran, a sarod player and wellknown student of Allauddin Khan, Ali Akbar Khan’s
father. The sound is Western, or perhaps traceable to
theatrical style, in its lack of melisma and unison playing.
The refrain is accompanied by a tabla in an eight-beat
tala cycle called kaharva, well known in semi-classical
music. The melody is a version of Ragas Kafi and Pilu.
For listeners who know ragas, Kafi immediately evokes
the spring season and perhaps the playful festival of Holi
that celebrates love.
The words were composed by the lyricist and poet
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The legendary singer and
actor K. L. Saigal, who
played the title character in
the 1936 Hindi
film Devdas.
The playback singer Mukesh helped define
the male voice of classic Bollywood song.
Kidar Sharma. They are reminiscent of devotional poetry. The lyrics, the visuals, the melody, the instrumentation, all come together in this clip to create a love scene
that is contemporary while evoking sweet memories of
the past and shades of devotionalism.
Come my beloved and dwell in my heart
The spring has come, but you are still far
Without you, nothing pleases me
My heart sighs for you
I hear the cuckoo sing in the forest
After the 1940s, the Hindi film industry received increased financing from various sources and was transformed into a much larger corporate entity.22 Producers
followed standard blueprints to create hit songs, using
stars and formulaic plots that would be sure to appeal to
large audiences.
The standardized formulas of Indian film are well
recognized and enjoyed by film fans. Films are categorized as romance, social movies, action, or comedy.
Character types fulfill roles of hero, antagonist, heroine,
mother-in-law, jokester, and the like. Movies that bring
in various types of plot lines, mixing them all up for
mass audience appeal, have come to be called “masala”
(“spice”) films.
Social films commented on and critiqued contemporary urban life. Historical and religious films appealed to
traditionalist audiences. Romances featured melodrama
and fantasy against rich backdrops, where glamorous
My shoes, they’re Japanese, these pants are English,
on my head is a red Russian hat, nevertheless my
heart is Hindustani.
I set out on the open road, my chest held high. Where
I’m going and where I’ll stop, only god knows. We
forge ahead relentlessly like a river during a hurricane. On my head is a red Russian hat, nevertheless my heart is Hindustani.
Up and down, down and up, the waves of life
flow. Those who wait on the bank are naïve, asking the way home. To move is the story of life; to
stop is the mark of death. On my head is a red Russian hat, nevertheless my heart is Hindustani
I will become the prince of those with confused
hearts. I will sit on the throne whenever I want
to. My familiar face will be a surprise to the world.
On my head is a red Russian hat, nevertheless my
heart is Hindustani.23
In the film clip, Raj Kapoor skips along in the countryside with carefree smile. He passes smiling village
women and later joins a group of bearded turbaned men
on camelback. At the end of the clip, the scene fades to
an aerial view of a big city’s streets and apartment buildings and to a street crowded with cars, buses, and pedestrians.
An ensemble of violins, tablas, and various percussion instruments introduces a cheerful melody line. We
hear the prominent rhythmic jingling of a tambourine.
Mukesh’s voice is mellow and cheerful. The melody is
not a raga, but a catchy repeating tune.
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stars expressed the aspirations of a young India.
The 1955 film Shree 420 (“Mr. Cheat”) contained the
hit song “Mera juta hai jaapaani” (“My shoes, they’re
Japanese”). [If you can access it, watch this YouTube clip
of “Mera Joota Hai Jaapaani”: https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=TdQwPwmsUC0.] Let’s look at the people who
created this song. The playback singer is the star Mukesh (1923–76) who helped define the male voice of classic
Bollywood song. In this film Mukesh sings for the legendary actor Raj Kapoor. This acting star would leave a
family legacy in Hindi cinema. He is sometimes called
the “Charlie Chaplin of Indian cinema” for the part he
plays in this movie, that of a happy vagabond.
The melody was composed by Shankar Jaikishan, a
duo known for their “immortal” film songs of the 1950s
and 60s. The lyricist is Shailendra who often worked
with Raj Kapoor and Shankar Jaikishan. The movie and
the song are a gentle commentary on India in the postIndependence era.
“Mera juta hai jaapaani”
The ensemble plays interludes between the stanzas. The
ensemble phrases evoke a pleasantly exotic atmosphere,
while Mukesh’s sung lines sound modern or Western.
At different times the Indian “banjo,” a plucked electric
instrument played like a slide guitar, is featured. In later
interludes, a chorus of female singers adds an additional
layer to the orchestrated sounds. Mukesh’s melody lines
move higher in the register, and snatches of melody remind listeners of folk song. For a few phrases we may
hear raga Pilu. This is a wonderful example of how composers created music, text, and visuals out of both familiar and new material. They found a winning formula!
Two Bollywood Romance Songs of
1976 and 2004
The “Melody Queen” of Indian film song, Lata
Mangeshkar (b. 1929), is India’s single most famous
playback singer. When she began to record in the late
1940s, at least one producer was not enamored with her
high thin voice. But her distinctive sound, described as
innocent and girl-like, soon came to dominate Bollywood female vocal style. She has recorded for more than
a thousand Hindi films and for many in other languages.
She received the Indian government’s highest civilian
honor in 2001. Her sister, Asha Bhosle, is equally pro-
62
lific. In 2011, Guinness World Records awarded Asha
Bhosle the title for the most studio singles ever recorded,
up to 11,000.24
Listening Example 12:
“KABHI KABHI MERE DIL MEIN KHAYAL AATA
HAI,” LATA MANGESHKAR AND MUKESH
The film Kabhi Kabhi (“Sometimes”) of 1976 included a
song sung by Lata Mangeshkar. Let’s listen to it and find
out what made up a classic Bollywood romantic song. [You
can see the film clip here on YouTube: “Hindi Romantic Song | Kabhi kabhie mere dil mein khayal aata hay”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9DZ4m4wmSY.]
In the movie plot, the heroine has a past love, whom
her family has not permitted her to marry. The song begins with the hero singing to her when they were together some years before.
The playback singer for the opening line is Mukesh,
whose smooth, mellow voice, as we know, epitomizes the
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The Hindi film music composers Shankar Jaikishan were a duo known for their
“immortal” film songs of the 1950s and 60s.
classic Bollywood male vocal sound. The song continues
in Lata’s voice. The scene shifts to the present, set in a
bridal chamber, where the heroine sits after her wedding.
Her new husband caresses her with devotion as she sings
to herself with tears in her eyes, thinking of her past
love.
Sahir Ludhianvi (1921–80) was the poet and lyricist
for this song, and he uses a poetic but colloquial UrduHindi vocabulary that draws on familiar themes of pensive longing.
Sometimes, in my heart a feeling emerges...
Sometimes, in my heart a feeling emerges
That it’s like you have been created just for me.
Before, you dwelled among the stars somewhere
And now, you have been called down to the earth
just for me
Sometimes, in my heart a feeling emerges
That this body, these eyes, are mine to treasure
As if the shade beneath these tresses is meant for
me
And these lips and these arms are mine to treasure
Sometimes, in my heart a feeling emerges
That it seems like wedding instruments are trumpeting around us.
As if it’s our wedding night and I’m lifting your
veil
And you are shyly surrendering yourself in my
embrace.
Sometimes, in my heart a feeling emerges
That it’s like you will love me forever like this
That in my direction, this loving gaze will always
look up like this,
I know that you are not meant for me, but still,
just like this.
Sometimes, in my heart a feeling emerges...25
A bansuri flute enters playing a melody. The sound of
the flute evokes sweet associations of folk music in the
listener. Bongo drums, bells, and rhythmic shakers accompany it. The rhythm is the eight-beat lilting kaharva,
a standard tala for light and devotional music.
Lata’s signature voice is clear and high. Her quick orna-
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India’s most famous playback singer, Lata Mangeshkar, photographed during a
recording session early in her career.
“Main Yahan Hoon”
Let’s now consider a romantic song composed twenty-eight years after “Kabhi Kabhi Mere Dil Mein Khayal
Aata Hai.” “Main Yahan Hoon” (“I Am Here”) from the
2004 movie Veer-Zaara has had more than twenty-three
and a half million views on YouTube. [You can find this
song and the film clip here: “Main Yahaan Hoon-Veer
Zaara Song Full [HD]” [https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=3b47vUVAdWo.]
The hero is the superstar Shah Rukh Khan (b.1965),
who plays Veer. He plays a romantic hero here, but he
has done humorous and action roles as well and has a
huge fan base. Priety Zinta (b. 1975) is the lead female in
the role of Zaara. Priety played in several successful films
before this one. Veer-Zaara is a love drama that takes
place across the India-Pakistan divide and across social
classes. There are special appearances in the film by two
great stars of the past, Amitabh Bacchan and Hema Malini.
The song’s melody was composed by Madan Mohan
(1924–75), a beloved composer from the classic Bollywood era. The melody was retrieved from a family collection and recreated for this film by his son. The singer
is Udit Narayan (b. 1955), who has been well known
since the late 1980s and has recorded more than 25,000
songs in his career. The lyrics were composed by Javed
Akhtar (b.1945), a noted poet and script writer.
In the video, the hero appears in a fantasy to the
teary heroine who is dressed for her wedding celebra-
64
Madan Mohan, beloved composer from the
classic Bollywood era, with playback singer
Lata Mangeshkar.
tion to another. Bells and ethereal synthesized sounds set
a dream-like mood. As dancers celebrate the wedding,
the heroine appears detached and has only thoughts for
her past lover. As the wedding celebrations proceed, he
appears visible only to her. The main song begins. They
are surrounded by dancers, but she is unhappy and distant, seeing only him. Suddenly she is in her bedroom
and he appears to embrace her. Then she is seated on a
grand veranda overlooking a lavish Italian garden. She
emerges from a huge white mansion and runs down the
wide steps to embrace her lover by a fountain. Shots cut
to the wedding and then back to him. They embrace in
the pouring rain. She runs back inside to her room. She
awakens confused—it was all a fantasy.
The singer’s voice is whispery, and the melody is nonmetered. Then, we hear high-pitched violins and a synthesized symphonic melody. The song has a soft tone but
a catchy four-beat rhythm—perhaps a Latin-sounding
rhythm. The melody is simple and repeating. The intervals include a flat 3rd and flat 7th, giving it a wistful sound.
Guitar sounds seem to reinforce the vaguely Latin mood.
Instrumental interludes are quick and rhythmic during
the wedding scenes and more restrained during intimate
scenes. The voice and melody are soothing throughout.
The instrumentation is international, but the sentiments
are familiar and dramatic. Luxurious outdoor scenes and
orchestral music cut suddenly to softer instrumentation
and indoor intimacy. There is a ghazal-like intensity in
the Urdu-Hindi lyrics, which portray drama and sadness.
What elements of this song can you note that are
shared with the 1976 song “Kabhi Kabhi?” What ele-
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ments and slides are distinctive to Indian vocals, but the
melody line is clear, and the ornaments are not as profuse
as they would be in classical or semi-classical music. The
melody is based on Raga Yaman, the well-known raga,
which audiences know to be associated with romantic
love. The regular repetitions of the melody lines, the orchestrated interludes, and the distinctive voice production, are all marks of the Bollywood sound.
An ensemble of keyboards, flute, glockenspiel and
bells, Indian drums, and perhaps a bongo drum introduces the voices and accompanies them. A violin section
plays short fixed interludes in soft unison. The violin sections are particularly characteristic of Indian film sound.
A bansuri flute plays short melismatic snatches over the
orchestra. The double-reed shehnai is featured momentarily as it is mentioned in the song. The shehnai and its
sound are associated with wedding ceremonies.
The composer of the melody, Mohammed Zahur
“Khayyam” Hashmi, won three awards for this song in
1977. He managed to trigger listeners’ thoughts of classical or semi-classical romantic themes while at the same
time creating a novel and catchy contemporary
sound. The “Romantic” song has continued to
be the largest category of Indian film song.
Dearest behold, the distances between us have
gone
I am here
Beyond all borders and obstacles
I am here
I am the secret you can never hide
I am the gesture you can never forget
Why are you surprised at these vibrations
Because I am the sound of your heart
Listen if you can, to the rhythms of your heart
I am here
Beyond all borders and obstacles
I am here
I and only I am now in your thoughts
I am in all your questions and your answers
I am at the center of your dreams
I’m the light that shines from your eyes
You can see me wherever your vision goes
I am here
Dearest behold, the distances between us have
gone
I am here
Beyond all borders and obstacles
I am here26
Tamil Film and A. R. Rahman
Less than a year after the release of Alam Ara in Mumbai in 1931, the first sound film produced by the Tamillanguage industry was shown in Chennai. The industry
is centered in Chennai, but films are produced in other
centers as well, serving the Tamil-speaking population
of India, Sri Lanka, and the diaspora. Tamil films also
have a wide following. Some have been dubbed and others produced in collaboration with Hindi and other language films. Like Bollywood, Tamil film style is derived
from theater and dance traditions and is generally characterized by high drama and spectacle. Tamil film music
fans, like Bollywood fans, categorize films by era and
style. [To get a sense of some older sounds, you might
browse YouTube for “Tamil old songs.” To see some new
examples, take a look at two recent hit comedy songs:
A. R. Rahman is a star composer of Tamil
film music and is India’s most celebrated
film music composer today.
“Why this Kolavari di” from the 2012 movie 3. https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DK-ZWyxZ8k; and “Pistah” from the 2013 film Neram. https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=SuuypjzzqRw.]
A. R. Rahman (b. 1967) is a star composer of Tamil film music and is India’s most celebrated film music
composer today. Tracks produced in his state-of-the-art
recording studio in Chennai have come to define the
modern sound of Indian film music, and indeed contemporary Indian music outside of film.
Rahman’s father was a composer for Malayalam and
Tamil films. The young Rahman, born as A. S. Dileep
Kumar, worked with various rock and fusion musicians,
and produced scores for TV and radio. He is a multiinstrumentalist and has a diploma in music from Trinity
College London. Beginning in the early 1990s, his film
scores for Tamil films won him many awards, and he has
gone on to work in various language films and outside
the industry. He is particularly known for his use of Indian classical, regional, and Sufi-inspired music, around
which he layers electronic sounds and eclectic world music in a highly sophisticated mix.
Listening Example 13:
“ENNA SOLLA POGIRAI,” Performed by
Shankar Mahadevan, Music by A.R.
RAHMAN, FROM KANDUKONDAIN
KANDUKONDAIN
Let’s consider one of A. R. Rahman’s songs. “Enna
Solla Pogirai” from the 2000 film Kandukondain Kandukondain (“I Have Seen It”). Playback singer Shankar Mahadevan won a national award for singing it.
Listen to the track, then watch the video if you can,
or visualize the actions and scenes as described below [“Enna solla pogirai”: https://www.youtube.com/
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ments differ? You might notice that with the more recent
song, the studio orchestra ensemble has been replaced
by a wider palette of electronic sounds. However, while
the deep echo and sound mix of highs and lows are done
with contemporary studio digital technology, many elements of the music are shared. Orchestral interludes featuring different solo instruments alternate with vocals.
The Latin-like rhythm and guitar riffs give it an international quality. The soaring violin sounds are those that
have been used in Bollywood for decades. The formula
for hit songs consists of a complicated and layered mix of
familiar and contemporary.
“Main Yahan Hoon”
Lyricist Vairamuthu (b. 1953) is a Tamil
poet and a frequent collaborator with
A.R. Rahman.
watch?v=Kl3I65a1AR8.]
The video opens inside a car, with the hero singing to
the girl. As the song begins, the scene changes. A group
of village women are walking on train tracks in a broad
desert. The heroine is among them. The hero begins the
song, one of a separate group of rural men, who dance a
short distance away. The heroine stops to watch the hero
who dances close to her. Her father and other women
run up from behind and knock the hero unconscious.
Suddenly, the boy and girl are alone in the desert. She
awakens him with a bucket of water, and they are in the
ruins of a desert palace. Pyramids and sphinxes are in
the background. Camel riders and a circle of rural drummers make an appearance. The lovers move playfully
among the columns and walls of the ruins. They clasp
hands, but the girl’s family reappears. She breaks away to
rejoin them. They drive away in a horse-drawn carriage.
Synthesized sounds and bells back Shankar Mahadevan’s smooth voice, and he sings a soft unmetered melody.
A harmonium-like keyboard enters with quick repetitive
runs, perhaps an echo of a moving train. A mid-tempo
rural-sounding beat starts. We hear what may be dholaks
as well as cymbals and clappers. A fantasy ensues as the
song begins.
The male voice is full-throated, reminiscent of rural
professional style. The melody is intense and sincere, and
the melody lines are immediately engaging. During the
singing, the instrumental background is minimal. Some
instrumental interludes are rich, synthesized orchestral
sounds. At certain points we hear the “soaring” sound of
a violin section, so familiar in Indian film music. Other
interludes feature a particular instrument. At one point
we hear a bansuri bamboo flute, playing in ornate Carnatic style. Percussive melody riffs echo the theme as they
usher in each song stanza. At the end of the song, a male
66
It just takes a moment to say “No”
To actually come to terms with it
I need another birth
So what are you going to say?
Isn’t it unfair of the windows to punish the breeze
that carries the fragrance of sandalwood?
Is silence the reply of the eyes to my question of
love?
My love, it would just take a moment to express
my love
But to actually prove it, I need a lifetime.
The heart is a mirror
Your image fell on it
“She is the one for you!”, said my heart!
To tie that image
There is no rope available
The image is therefore swaying in the glass swing
Just utter one word, my girl!
Or just wait and kill me!
My entire life is hanging by the edges of your eyes
Don’t drive me away, my life would remain
unfulfilled!
Even after it has dawned
Which is the night that is yet to dawn?
Your tresses that carry the fragrance of flowers
Even after the world is plunged in darkness
Which is the part that is still bright?
Your radiant eyes of course!
Several great beauties could come together
And painstakingly wash your feet
My young blossom, why hesitate still?
Haven’t you yet understood me? Is this life or
death?27
The Bollywood sound has influenced all film music,
but regional film songs show some stylistic preferences.
Some songs may have distinctive local instrumentation.
Vocal ornaments might also be reflective of a region’s
styles. Plots, character types, language, and costumes
may all carry various degrees of inflections that identify
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chorus softly backs up the main voice. A.R. Rahman has
managed to evoke rural music, classical music, old Bollywood, and Western orchestration, and present it all with
a contemporary world music feel, while matching it to
the film’s story line.
Lyricist Vairamuthu (b. 1953) is a Tamil poet and a
frequent collaborator with A.R. Rahman. He has drawn
on poetic and devotional imagery from Sanskrit (“fragrance of sandalwood”), Persian (“Is silence the reply of
the eyes to my question of love”), and Tamil (“the world
is plunged in darkness”) literature.
“Enna Solla Pogirai”
Indian Popular Music Outside of
Film—Rock
Indian rock bands from the 1960s to the 1990s
worked largely outside the popular mainstream, receiving
relatively small-scale financing and distribution. Indian
bands from those decades followed world rock trends,
but created their own identities through topical songs in
English or regional languages. Many hard and alternative rock bands stayed away from using traditional Indian instruments, considering their use to be “clichéd.”28
More recently, fusion and especially Sufi rock bands have
used a mix of rock and traditional instruments. You will
read about Sufi rock in the final section below.
One successful band in India in the 1980s and 90s was
Rock Machine, which was considered to be the face of
rock and roll in India during their time. Later renamed
Indus Creed, the band released the music video, “Pretty
Child,” which won the best Asian music video award in
1993. It has a folk-rock sound, with soft instrumentation. The sound of a tabla is heard in parts of the song.
Otherwise, there is no obvious Indian sound. Jazz riffs
are used at points. The lyrics, in English, speak with intense emotion to a child living on the street. [See, Indus Creed, “Pretty Child”: https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=bIsCvwowifQ.]
“Pretty Child”
Pretty child
They’re cheering away
as you ride through your kingdom of sand
lovely child
you’re a hero today
you’re a magical mystery man
like a bird on the wing
you soar through your dreams
let your fantasies sweep the skies
but you know it’s unreal
the pain is so clear
like the tears in a baby’s eyes
holy child
you fly through the night
on your faithful and glorious steed
lonely child
Members of the Indian rock band
Indus Creed.
wake up to the light
get back to your tatters, your home on the street
like a bird on the wing
you soar through your dreams
let your fantasies sweep the skies
but you know it’s unreal
the pain is so clear
like the tears in a baby’s eyes
tears in a baby’s eyes29
After about 2000, international rock bands began to
tour India more frequently, and Indian bands had the
opportunity to perform as opening acts in large stadium
venues.
Parikrama (“circumambulation”) is a successful
touring band at this time. Their song “But it Rained”
is about political kidnappings in the state of Kashmir,
whose border is disputed between India and Pakistan.
[See “Parikrama – But It Rained”: https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=hnL3vh0-0wo.] Indian Kashmir is the
site of violent confrontations. Murders, kidnappings,
and police actions against people suspected of supporting separatist causes have been frequent.
In the opening, the synthesized orchestration and
mountainous setting remind the viewer of Bollywood.
This is an ironic reminder that classic Bollywood videos
often featured heroes and heroines dancing in the beautiful Kashmir hills, which are now racked by violence.
One can hear the occasional sound of a tabla. A violin is
heard, and the video shows a band member playing an
electric violin. The violin melody is ornate, a brief reference to classical Indian music.
“But It Rained”
Wrapped in a polythene tucked away safe in my
mind
A little goodbye maybe or just a passing smile
The clouds are all beside me to see me through all
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a region. [For a sample of songs from other regions, here
are links to examples from recent Bengali, Gujarati, and
Punjabi-language films: Bengali “Bela Boye Jae” from
the movie Buno Haansh (2014) – https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=UfS5IgDxjpQ ; Gujarati – “Anhkon Maa
Tu” from Janmdaataa (2010) https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=EzrQzCh2Gws; and Punjabi “Kharku” from
Back to Basics (2012) – https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=mA1CCXzO7MM.]
the good times
Maybe he’ll come back again, make up for the
forsaken time
The birds fly away to the southern sky searching
for a home
A bunch of paper flowers or a little boy left all
alone
Can somebody hear me, I’m screaming from so far
away
Morning who will calm you now, the evening is
eclipsed again
Well does life get any better
More yesterday than today
How I thought the sun would shine tomorrow
But it rained . . .
They justified the cause for which Daddy might
give up his life
It’s been so long, so long a time, but still I miss
Daddy at night
The ache is long gone but the never keeps staring
along
The waters in the seas are high
and all the sand castles have drowned
Well does life get any better
More yesterday than today
How I thought the sun would shine tomorrow
But it rained . . .30
Live rock and other genres have a healthy life in India,
if nowhere near the scale and mass distribution of film
music. Music clubs in Mumbai and other big cities are
venues for jazz, rock, Sufi pop, electronica, indie, metal,
and world genres. In a 2012 article for The Guardian,
Amit Gurbaxani, who writes for Rolling Stone India, reviewed ten of the best venues for live music in Mumbai.
68
Listening Example 14:
“FREEDOM,” SHAA’IR + FUNC,
FROM RE:COVER
Listen to “Freedom” from the 2014 album Re:cover,
which is this year’s final selected listening example. An
electronic and a harmonium-like sound is the backdrop
for the duo vocals, which alternate with sung and spoken
word and with echoing electronic and syncopated patterns. The music of Shaa’ir + Func is characterized by “a
heavy dose of experimentation within the popular and
cutting edge genres of dance/funk/electronic/and rock
music.”32
The electronic sounds and rhythms increase in volume and intensity. A sound of tabla-like drums is heard
briefly at the end. Otherwise, there are no obvious uses
of Indian instrumentation or style. New musicians like
this in India are participating in and experimenting with
music across borders.
“Ignorance is out of fashion…our weapons are
loud; our weapon is sound…”
—from “Freedom” Shaa’ir + Func. re:cover
Sufi Rock
The band Junoon, formed in 1990 and based in Lahore,
Pakistan, is credited with pioneering the genre “Sufi
rock.” Founded by singer Salman Ahmad, who returned
to Pakistan after living in New York during the 1970s,
the band built a reputation through the mid 1990s in
Pakistan. It toured more widely in the late 1990s and became known as one of South Asia’s most successful rock
acts. The band is celebrated for its stance against political
corruption and social injustice and for its Sufi-inspired
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The band Parikrama performs live.
Blue Frog is at the top of the list. A club for live performances and a consulting organization, it helps promote
independent bands. Since it opened in 2007, Blue Frog
has “revolutionized the live music scene in Mumbai.” It
now has branches in Delhi and Pune. “Indeed, almost
all of the country’s biggest indie and electronica acts
frequently perform here, from electro-pop duo Shaai’ir
+ Func and blues rockers Soulmate to electronica duo
Midival Punditz.”31
The duo Shaa’ir + Func exemplifies the boundarycrossing nature of contemporary rock and alternative music in India. The founder and lead singer, Monica Dogra,
was born in Baltimore and graduated from NYU with a
degree in music. Now based in Mumbai, she works with
guitarist and producer Randolph Correia. The duo has
released three albums and has been noted as an important up-and-coming band in India.
The duo Shaa’ir + Func exemplifies the
boundary-crossing nature of contemporary
rock and alternative music in India.
lyrics. The song “Sayonee” became a phenomenal hit in
1997. [See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nKXsUdEbE.]
“Sayonee”
Oh my friend
no peace for a moment
and there is no solution
Oh my friend
who will turn the gold coin
No jeweler to do it
no peace for a moment
and there is no solution
Oh my friend
what is man’s worth
here today, tomorrow gone
no peace for a moment
and there is no solution
Oh my friend
Let’s not talk about my mistake
you at least are not mad
no peace for a moment 33
The 2013 song “Naya Pakistan” (“A New Pakistan”)
by Salman Ahmad is a plea for change in Pakistan. It
is generating some discussion, as it is seen as a patriotic
song but also as a nod to the Pakistani opposition leader,
Imran Khan, who is campaigning for a change in government leadership. [See “Inshallah – Naya Pakistan”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLM9SQ2NgmQ.]
May the voice of justice rise, and the walls of injustice fall; may truth overcome falseness. Raise
your hands and pray. God willing, a new Pakistan. May our dream come true, and become the
falcon’s flight. God willing, a new Pakistan.
—(transl. Mustafa Menai, personal communication)
Sufi rock has become a prominent part of India’s urban music scene. A 2012 Times of India article reported
that it was becoming more popular than even Bollywood
music in Delhi’s nightclubs.
More Dilliwallahs [Delhi people] are choosing to
attend Sufi nights at nightclubs over grooving to
hip-hop, house and even Bollywood music. You
think of clubbing in the city, and the thumping
beats of house, rock and trance music pop up in
your head.
However, a fun night out with friends isn’t synonymous with all that headbanging and grooving
to the dhik-chak music anymore. With Sufi music
slowly becoming the popular choice among the Delhi partygoers, more and more Sufi music events are
being organised at clubs and lounges in the city.
Says Sagar Bhatia, lead singer of The Soul band,
“Aaj-kal Bollywood ka craze nahi hai.” [“There’s
not the craze for Bollywood these days.”] Today
Sufi rock music is popular in the nightclubs. There
is a sudden demand of listening to good soulful
music. It’s refreshing to see that various clubs and
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Sufi rock singer Salman Ahmad.
What will the next trend in Indian and South Asian
pop be? We will leave you to explore and discover that on
your own. Surely it will be a style that draws on some of
the region’s rich resources of traditional sounds and sentiments. But it will just as surely reflect the global nature
of popular music and indeed the internationally connected nature of urban India and cosmopolitan South Asia.
Section IV Summary
oF
ilm songs, especially the Hindi-language songs of
Bollywood, constitute India’s mainstream popular
music. Other language film industries also produce
film music.
o I ndian popular music outside of film includes a
range of genres, including Indian rock.
o I ndian sound films date to the film Alam Ara from
1931.
o Th
e language of film songs is a mix of Hindi and
Urdu. This reflects colloquial speech in North India as well as the vocabulary of Urdu poetry.
oF
eature films contain five to seven song sequences.
Long traditions of musical theater are seen as the
source of the “spectacle” character of film style.
oP
layback singers record film songs, and actors lipsync them.
70
o Chords, harmony, and instrumentation are inspired
in part by Western sources, but the style of use is
not entirely Western.
o K.L. Saigal, a legendary singer and actor, sang
and acted in an early film song style, using mainly
traditional instruments in a theatrical or modern
style.
o Film music after the 1940s used large studio ensembles. Standardized formulas for music and plots
came to be used for mass appeal. Films are categorized by plots types—social, romance, etc.
o Mukesh was a legendary playback singer of the
“classic Bollywood” era. Songs involved collaboration among the composer, lyricist, playback singer,
and actor.
o Lata Mangeshkar is a famous female playback
singer.
o The “Romance song” category is perhaps the largest
of song categories. Composers across the decades
drew on a winning formula of lyrics, male and female voice, instrumentation, and catchy setting of
melody lines, which balance familiar sounds with
novel ones.
o A.R. Rahman is a leading composer of Tamil film
music and contemporary Indian music. He uses a
sophisticated mix of classical, regional, and popular music.
o Indian rock bands have performed and recorded
outside the mainstream since the 1960s.
o Indus Creed and Parikrama are two noted rock
bands. They use very little traditional Indian instrumentation. Some of their songs send messages
of social critique.
o Blue Frog is an organization and venue based in
Mumbai that supports alternative and non-film
music.
o Sufi rock is a current popular genre.
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lounges in Delhi have introduced special Sufi musical nights to attract people who love to listen to
this kind of music. When I started my own Sufi
rock band, people would ask me what kind of music we play and who would actually enjoy listening
to our kind of music. Now, all of a sudden, Delhi’s
crowd is getting inclined to listening to Sufi music
and I guess that has helped us do what we wanted
to.” 34
As we think back over all the terrain covered in this
resource guide, let’s recall some main points. India’s music genres have specific contexts in which they are performed, and many of them revolve around language, region, and rural or urban setting. South Asia is intensely
multi-lingual. The broadest language grouping in India
is that of North and South. Language is at the core of an
individual’s identity.
Rural musics are very diverse—from amateur group
singers to the highly specialized music of professionals
from hereditary family lines. We listened to non-specialist women’s group song from the Hindi-language area of
North India, the music of Langa and Manganiar professionals of Western Rajasthan, and Chenda temple drumming from Kerala in South India. Each genre exemplifies aspects of life unique to that specific region.
Devotional songs, called bhajans, are sung in a range
of styles and express bhakti, love and longing for various
personal divinities. Qawwali is a type of Islamic devotional song largely sung in Sufi shrines. Sufi poetry also
speaks of longing for a divine Beloved and thus sometimes borrows from bhakti imagery. Much of the devotional poetry of both bhakti and Sufism was composed by
celebrated saintly figures of pre-modern India. Members
of the Baul sect, from Bengal in Eastern India, compose ecstatic songs of their own, drawing from Hindu,
Islamic, and Bengali regional sources.
Classical music in India is set to melodies and rhythms
called raga and tala. Theories of pitch, scale, and ornamentation were formulated in the early centuries bce and
have changed dramatically over the centuries. Most recently, they were standardized for classroom teaching in
the early twentieth century. Dhrupad, khyal, and thumri
are important vocal genres in Hindustani music, the
classical system of North India. A distinct instrumental
genre was developed for North Indian instruments such
as the sitar. Kriti and ragam-tanam-pallavi are important
genres in Carnatic music, the classical system of South
India. A main soloist or two perform these sophisticated
classical genres in composed and improvised sections
accompanied by a small ensemble. Classical music carries the history of India’s high art, as it was cultivated in
temples and courts.
Film songs, especially those of Bollywood, dominate
popular music in India. The Bollywood sound consists of
an inventive mix of Indian and globally inspired musical
material. The composers, poets, singers, and actors involved in creating a film song are often stars in their own
right. Film industries other than Bollywood produce
songs in various languages, often with some regional flavor or instrumentation. A. R. Rahman is a prominent
contemporary composer from South India. His sound is
a skilled blend of classical, regional, popular, and international styles. Indian rock in Mumbai and other large
cities has a life of its own, though it generally does not
draw on indigenous sounds. A genre called Sufi pop,
which self-consciously borrows sounds and poetic conventions from qawwali, is thriving today.
We hope that this resource guide has been an entertaining and challenging introduction to music in contemporary India. If it inspires you to seek out more music
from this part of the world and to listen with an informed, open, and curious mind, then it will have served
its purpose.
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Conclusion
Guide to Pronunciation
a as in “about;” ā as in “farm”
i as in “bit;” ī as in “ravine”
u as in “put;” ū as in “blue”
music in Mumbai
Bollywood – the Hindi-language film industry,
largely based in Mumbai
Carnatic – (Carnātic} the classical music system of
South India
Aditala – [Āditāla] a prominent Carnatic tala with Chautal – [Chautāl] a fourteen-beat tala cycle of
eight beats in the cycle
Hindustani music, used in the dhrupad genre
Alap – [Ālāp] in Hindustani music, the first sec- Chenda – a drum of Kerala, played in groups in
tion of an instrumental and a dhrupad perfortemple and processional contexts
mance; it is non-composed and performed in Chitravina – [Chitravīna] a concert instrument of
free rhythm.
Carnatic music; a fretless plucked instrument
Anga – in Carnatic music, the term for groupings of
played like a slide guitar
beats in a tala cycle, which are marked by hand Chordophones, aerophones, membranophones,
actions
idiophones – categories of string, wind, drums,
Avartana (or Avartan)– [Āvartana] a complete cyand solid percussion instruments respectively,
cle of a tala
according to the Sachs and Hornbostel classification system
Barrel-drum – the most common drum type in
South Asia; see dholak, dhol, and mridangam.
Dhamal – [Dhamāl] a rhythm played on the dhol
and performed in Sufi ritual contexts
Baul – a sect centered in Bengal that draws from
bhakti and Sufi thought; Bauls practice a unique Dhol – a large barrel-drum usually played with
genre of ecstatic song and dance.
sticks, especially associated with Punjab; see
Dhamal.
Bhajan – a Hindu devotional song; see bhakti.
Bhakti – Hindu devotion, expressed in poetry, song, Dholak – the most common drum of rural North
India, also used pan-regionally; a small barrel
and ritual as love, longing, and suffering in sepdrum held horizontally and played with both
aration from the divine
hands
Bhangra – [Bhāngra] a dance and music genre that
originated in rural Punjab; it later developed in Dhrupad – a genre of Hindustani classical music
traceable to the sixteenth century
the diaspora as an expression of South Asian
youth culture.
Dotara – [Dotāra] a plucked, fretless string instrument played by Baul musicians
Blue Frog – a performance venue and promotional
organization for Indian rock and alternative
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Dravidian – the dominant language family of
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Glossary
Khyal – [Khyāl] the predominant vocal genre of
Hindustani music today
Kirtan – [Kīrtan] “praising,” a term for Hindu devotional songs or chants
Kollywood – the Tamil-language film industry,
named after a neighborhood in Chennai
Kriti – a major genre of the Carnatic concert repertoire, many of which were composed by the
“Trinity” of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century composers; a kriti has a three-part structure:
pallavi, anupallavi, charanam.
Langa – a hereditary group of music professionals
of Western Rajasthan
Mahabharata – [Mahābhārata] Sanskrit epic of
ancient India; the main story of a great war includes many sub-stories which are told and retold in theater, dance, and song.
Manganiar – [Mānganiār] a hereditary group of
music professionals of Western Rajasthan
Masala – [Masālā] “spicy,” refers to films in which
various types of plots are mixed for mass appeal
Matra – [Mātrā] the term for a beat in the tala system
Mehfil – Urdu for “gathering”; a session or assembly
for listening to music or poetry
Melisma – melody in which a number of pitches are
sounded over a single syllable or instrumental
stroke
Microtones – pitch intervals smaller than halfsteps; see shruti.
Mridangam – the preeminent drum of Carnatic
concert music
Mukhra – [Mukhrā] in Hindustani music, “face”—
the phrase that begins the composition; it serves
as an anchor between variations
Natyashastra – [Nātyashāstra] a Sanskrit text on
theater, dance, and music, dating from as early
as the first century bce
Nirgun bhakti – devotion to a deity who is “without
characteristics,” beyond description
Pakhavaj – [Pakhāvaj] a barrel-drum used in the
dhrupad genre of Hindustani music; it pre-dates
the tabla.
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South India; includes Tamil, Telugu, Kannada,
and Malayalam
Drone – a tone sounding continually as a background to a performance
Ektar – [Ektār] a single-stringed drone instrument
of rural music
Gamaka – ornaments, such as slides and turns, used
throughout a performance of a raga; also, one
particular ornament in Hindustani music
Gat – in Hindustani music, the composed section of
an instrumental performance
Gharana – [Gharānā] in Hindustani music,
“household”—the stylistic lineage in which one
has learned
Ghazal – a genre of metered, rhyming poetry composed in a series of couplets; ghazal became an
important genre of Urdu poetry; it is composed
in other languages as well.
Guru-shishya – teacher and disciple, from the Sanskrit language
Harmonium – a small hand-pumped organ used
throughout South Asia and the diaspora
Hindustani – [Hindustānī] the classical music system of North India
Idakka – an hour-glass-shaped “pressure drum”
played by specialists in Kerala, especially in
temple contexts
Indo-Aryan – the dominant language family of
the northern regions of South Asia; a branch
of Indo-European languages; includes Hindi,
Bengali, Punjabi, and other North Indian languages
Janaka, janya – in Carnatic music, janaka are the
seventy-two “parent” ragas; they are comprised
of seven notes and are permutations of the
twelve svaras in the Carnatic system; there are
an unlimited number of janya, “derived” ragas.
Kamaicha – a bowed instrument associated with
Manganiar musicians of Western Rajasthan
Kanjira – [Kanjīrā] in Carnatic music, a small frame
drum, like a tambourine, held in the left hand
and played with the right
Kartal – [Kartāl] rod-shaped metal clappers common in rural music in South Asia
74
She’r – from Urdu, a couplet, a poem of two rhyming lines; a sequence of she’rs makes up a ghazal.
Shruti – in Indian music theory, microtonal divisions of the scale; in practical application, subtle
nuance of a pitch, or the tonic pitch
Sikhism – a religion founded in Punjab in the fifteenth century
Sindhi sarangi – [Sindhī sārangī] a bowed instrument associated with Langa musicians of Western Rajasthan
Sitar – [Sitār] a prominent concert instrument of
Hindustani music; a plucked string instrument
with a long fretted neck and gourd resonating
body
Solfege – a method to teach pitch, in which the syllables “Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti” are spoken as
their pitches are sung; see sargam and svara.
Sthai, antara – [Sthāī, antara] in Hindustani music,
the two sections of a formal composition
Sufism – Islamic mysticism; Sufi orders practice
various techniques for attaining closeness to
God; the Chishti order is known for using sama’,
listening to music, as a ritual technique.
Svara – pitch; musical tone in Indian classical music; the seven svaras, are similar to the solfege,
in that they are sung with syllables; the seven
svaras are “Sa Re Ga Ma P Dha Ni.”
Tabla – the predominant drum of North Indian
classical music; a two-piece hand drum, it is
used in various genres.
Tala – [Tāla] rhythmic cycles and the system of
rhythmic cycles in Indian classical music
Tambura – [Tambūra] the string drone instrument
of classical Indian music
Tan – [Tān] in Hindustani music, fast running improvisations, especially in khyal and instrumental music
Theka – [Thekā] in Hindustani music, the fixed sequence of drum strokes that express a tala cycle;
the strokes are spoken as syllables.
Thumri – [Thumrī] in Hindustani music, a genre of
the “semi-classical” type; the poetry is in Hindi
and is about love.
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Pallavi, anupallavi, charanam – in Carnatic music,
the three sections of a kriti composition
Pandit – an honorific term or title from the Sanskrit
language, denoting scholar or master
Playback singer – a singer who records a film song
in the studio, which is lip-synced by the actor
Qaida – [Qāida] an item of the tabla repertoire,
meaning “foundation”; it is a pattern with a
fixed set of strokes on which the player builds
variations.
Qawwali – [Qawwālī] a genre of music performed
by hereditary specialists, originally in Sufi ritual
contexts; now, qawwali is performed in concert
halls and is internationally known.
Raga – [Rāga] the melodies and the melodic system
of Indian classical music
Ragam-tanam-pallavi (RTP) – [Rāgam-tānampallavī] in Carnatic music, a long improvised
genre in a raga performance
Sam – in Hindustani music, the first beat of the tala
cycle and a central focal point of melodic lines
Sama’ – music performed in a Sufi ritual context;
a ceremony of listening to music for attaining
states of spiritual ecstasy; the Chishti Sufi order
uses sama’ rituals
Sangita shastra – [Sangīt shāstra] “music technical
works”; the field of Indian music theory, especially as preserved in Sanskrit texts
Sangitaratnakara – [Sangītaaratnākara] a fourteenth-century Sanskrit music theory text, the
premier text of the medieval period
Sanskrit – an Indo-Aryan language of scholarship,
literature, and liturgy
Sant – a person honored as knowing the spiritual
truth, especially a spiritual teacher and composer of bhakti devotional poetry
Saptaka – “consisting of seven,” an octave
Sarangi – [Sārangī] a bowed instrument of North
India
Sargam – in Hindustani music, the term for singing
while using the svara names
Sarod – a prominent concert instrument of Hindustani music; a plucked string instrument, it has
a wide neck without frets and a skin-covered
body.
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Tihai – [Tihāī] in Hindustani music, a phrase reIndia; it became a language of poetry as well as
peated three times with a gap of equal duration
daily speech.
between each repetition; it marks the end of a Ustad-shagird – [Ustād-shāgird] teacher or massection or piece.
ter and disciple in Urdu, from the Persian lanTintal – [Tīntāl] a prominent Hindustani tala with
guage
sixteen beats in the cycle
Vedas – the oldest scriptures of Hinduism; four caTonic – the pitch from which a scale is built; in Innonical texts, composed during the Vedic pedian classical music, Sa
riod in an ancient form of Sanskrit
Trinity – three celebrated composers of Carnatic Verse-chorus – a form in which verses are sung almusic who lived between about 1750 and 1850:
ternating with a repetitive chorus or refrain
Tyagaraja, Mutthuswami Dikshitar, and Shya- Vibhag – [Vibhāg] in Hindustani music, the term
ma Shastri
for groupings of beats in a tala cycle, marked by
Tumbi – [Tumbī] a single-stringed instrument ashand actions
sociated with bhangra music
Vistar – [Vistār] in Hindustani music, “expansion,”
Urdu – [Urdū] the national language of Pakistan
a flowing style of improvisation
and spoken across South Asia, especially in the Yaman – a famous evening raga in Hindustani muNorth; it developed as Persian and Arabic insic
termingled with the local languages of North
A.R. Rahman (b. 1967) – composer
A.S. Dileep Kumar – birth name of A.R.
Rahman
Abida Parveen (b.1954) – singer of Sufi poetry
Akbar (1542–1605) – Mughal Emperor
Ali Akbar Khan (1922–2009) – sarod player
Allauddin Khan (c.1862–1972) – father and teacher of Ali Akbar Khan; teacher of Ravi Shankar
Amir Khusrau (1253–1325) – poet and disciple of
Nizamuddin Auliya
Asha Bhosle (b. 1933) – playback singer
Bulleh Shah (1680–1757) – Sufi saint and poet
Debdas Baul – Baul mystic and singer
Fred Gaisberg (1873–1951) – recording engineer
for the Gramophone Company
Ghulam Ali (b. 1940) – ghazal singer
Girija Devi (b.1929) – singer of thumri and khyal
Gundecha Brothers – dhrupad singers
Javed Akhtar (b.1945) – poet and film script
writer
K. L. Saigal (1904–47) – film singer and actor
Kabir (d.1518) – [Kabīr] a celebrated fifteenth-century sant and composer of nirgun bhakti poetry
Kidar Sharma (1910–99) – film lyricist and poet
Lata Mangeshkar (b. 1929) – playback singer
Madan Mohan (1924–75) – film music composer
Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) – prominent in India’s independence movement
Mame Khan – Manganiar singer
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Mira (1498–1557) – [Mīrā] a celebrated late-sixteenth century female bhakti sant and poet
Mohammed Zahur “Khayyam” Hashmi (b.1927)
– composer
Monica Dogra (b.1982) – founder and lead singer
of the band Shaa’ir + Func
Mukesh (1923–76) – playback singer
Mutthuswami Diksitar (1775–1835) – Carnatic
composer, one of the “Trinity”
Nikhil Banerjee (1931–86) – sitar player
Nizamuddin Auliya (1238–1325) – Sufi saint of
the Chishti order
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (1948–1997) – qawwali
singer
Pankaj Udhas of Gujarat (b. 1951) – ghazal singer
Pappu Sain – Sufi dhol drummer
Priety Zinta (b. 1975) – film actress
Purandara Dasa (1484–1564) – Carnatic music
composer
Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) – Bengali writer, artist, and intellectual
Rahat Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (b.1973) – qawwali
and film singer, nephew of Nusrat Fateh Ali
Khan
Raj Kapoor (1924–1988) – film actor
Randolph Correia – guitarist and producer, Shaa’ir
+ Func
Ravi Shankar (1920–2012) – sitar player
Ravikiran (Chitravina N. Ravikiran) (b.1967) –
chitravina player
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Glossary of Names
Tyagaraja (1767–1847) – Carnatic composer, one of
the “Trinity”
Udit Narayan (b. 1955) – playback singer
Unni Krishnan (b.1964) – Carnatic vocalist
Vairamuthu (b. 1953) – Tamil poet and lyricist
Veena Sahasrabuddhe (b.1948) – Hindustani vocalist
Venkatamakhin (seventeenth century) – music
theorist and composer of Carnatic music
Vishnu Digambar Paluskar (1872–1931) – theorist
and vocalist of Hindustani music
Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande (1860–1936) – theorist of Hindustani music
Warsi Brothers – a qawwali group
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Sahir Ludhianvi (1921–80) – poet and film lyricist
Salman Ahmad (b.1963) – founder and singer of
Sufi rock band Junoon
Sanjay Subrahmanyan (b.1968) – Carnatic vocalist
Satyajit Ray (1921–92) – filmmaker of Bengal
Shah Rukh Khan (b.1965) – film actor
Shailendra (1923–66) – film lyricist
Shankar Jaikishan – duo known for film songs of
the 1950s and 60s
Shankar Mahadevan (b.1967) – composer and
playback singer
Surdas (1478–1573) – bhakti sant poet
Syama Sastri (1762–1827) – Carnatic composer,
one of the “Trinity”
Tansen (c.1506–89) – musician of the Mughal
court
Timir Baran (1904–1987) – sarod player and film
music composer
c.800
Brihaddeshi, Sanskrit text on music, includes a discussion of raga
1173
Muhammad of Ghor conquers Ghazni in present-day Afghanistan, marking the beginning of the
Indo-Persian culture period.
1236
Death of Moinuddin Chishti, founder of the Chishti Sufi order in South Asia
c.1250
Composition of the Sangitaratnakara, the premier Sanskrit music theory text of the medieval
period
c.1325
Death of Amir Khusrau, poet and musician
1486
The dhrupad genre begins to flourish under Man Singh Tomar, king of Gwalior
c.1518
Death of Kabir, nirgun bhakti sant
1526
1550
The first battle of Panipat marks the establishment of the Mughal Empire, a center for IndoPersian court culture in North India
Composition of Svara-Mela-Kalanidhi, which rearranges the tonal schema of the
Sangitaratnakara (the premier theory text of the medieval period) into the system now used in
Carnatic music
c.1557
Death of Mira, bhakti sant, in Rajasthan
c.1589
Death of Tansen, musician in the Mughal court in Delhi and Agra
1707
Death of Aurangzeb, emperor under whom the Mughal Empire reached its greatest extent
1757
The Battle of Plassey—considered the beginning of political rule by the British East India
Company
1827–59
1857
78
approximate date of composition of the Natyashastra, Sanskrit theory text on theater, dance, and
music
Deaths of Shyama Shastri, Muthuswami Dikshitar, Tyagaraja, the “Trinity” of Carnatic
composers
Widespread uprising against the British East India Company
USAD Music Resource Guide • 2015-2016
Klein ISD-Advanced Academics - Spring, TX
1st century
bce
Music of India: Timeline
British government commences to formally rule India.
1859
Death of Baluswamy Dikshitar, who is credited with introducing the violin in Carnatic music
c.1875
Dwarkin & Son, a seller of Western and Indian instruments, is founded in Kolkata and begins
manufacturing the Indian harmonium.
1901
Vishnu Digambar Paluskar founds the first branch of his music school (Gandharva
Mahavidyalaya) in Lahore.
1902
Fred Gaisberg records musicians for the British Gramophone Company in Kolkata.
1925
78rpm vinyl record technology is standardized.
1926
V. N. Bhatkhande founds a Music College in Lucknow.
1928
The Madras Music Academy is founded in Chennai.
1931
Alam Ara, the first Bollywood and Indian sound film, premieres.
1932
First regular broadcasts by All India Radio
1947
Indian Independence and Partition (15 August)
1950s
Home record-playing capacity grows, in 78- and 33 1/3-speed formats.
1965
India’s government TV begins daily broadcasts.
1980s
Cassette technology allows for the expansion of regional music studios and mass marketing.
1991
Economic liberalization policies are enacted in India, inviting international investment as a
strategy for economic growth.
1992
Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian award, goes to Bengali-language filmmaker Satyajit Ray.
1995
VSNL (later Tata Communications) launches internet services in India.
1998
Bharat Ratna award goes to Carnatic singer M. S. Subbulakshmi.
1999
Bharat Ratna award goes to Hindustani sitar player Ravi Shankar.
2000
India’s billionth official birth
2001
Bharat Ratna awards go to playback singer Lata Mangeshkar and Hindustani shehnai player
Bismillah Khan.
2009
Bharat Ratna award goes to Hindustani singer Bhimsen Joshi.
USAD Music Resource Guide • 2015-2016
Klein ISD-Advanced Academics - Spring, TX
1858
79
1. Rukmini Shrinivasan, “200 million
Indians Have No TV, Phone or Radio.”
Times of India, 14 March 2012 <http://
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/200million-Indians-have-no-TV-phone-or-radio/
articleshow/12253614.cms>.
2. A
smita Agarwal, “Internet Users in India
Cross 200 Mn Mark in Oct 2013 : IAMAI,”
15 Nov. 2013 <http://www.iamwire.
com/2013/11/internet-users-india-cross200-mn-mark-oct-2013-iamai/; http://
qz.com/66146/why-only-3-of-india-hashome-internet-access/>.
3. Mekhala Devi Natavar, “Rajasthan.” In The
Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. South
Asia. Vol. 5, The Indian Subcontinent (New
York and London: Garland Publishing, 2000)
641–2.
4. R
olf Groesbeck and Joseph Palackal, “Kerala,”
In The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music.
South Asia. Vol. 5, The Indian Subcontinent
(New York and London: Garland Publishing,
2000) 933.
5. G
ibb Schreffler, “It’s Our Culture: Dynamics
of the Revival and Reemergence of Punjabi
Jhummar.” In Asian Music, Vol. 45 No.1,
45–6.
6. A
. K. Ramanujan, Rao Velcheru Narayana
and David Shulman, When God is a Customer:
Telugu Courtesan Songs and Others (Berkeley.
Los Angeles, London: University of
California Press, 1994) 10.
80
7. Rupert Snell, The Hindi Classical Tradition:
A Braj Bhasa Reader (London: School of
Oriental and African Studies, University of
London, 1991) 103.
8. Snell, 105.
9. Kabir, The Bijak of Kabir, Translated by Linda
Hess and Shukdev Singh (San Francisco:
North Point Press, 1983) 85.
10. Based on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Vaishnava_Jana_To.
11. Adapted from poem by Amir Khusro,
“Har Qaum Raast Raahay,” World Poetry
Movement, trans. A Schimmel, accessed
January 8, 2013, <http://bit.ly/WJbUOp>.
12. English version by Mahmood Jamal.
Original Language Punjabi <http://
www.poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/B/
BullehShah/HeWhoisStric/index.html>
Accessed 12 August 2014.
13. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swara.
14. Consonance is the agreeable or pleasant
quality of an interval. A dissonant interval
creates an unsettled feeling.
15. http://swarsaptak.com/files/swarsaptak/
images/raghvendra/kafi-sthayi.png.
16. http://aawmjournal.com/examples/2010a/
Morris_AAWM_ex_10.jpg.
17. http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/poeticform-ghazal.
USAD Music Resource Guide • 2015-2016
Klein ISD-Advanced Academics - Spring, TX
Notes
19. David Paul Nelson, “Karnatak Tala,”
Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. Vol. 7,
South Asia, 156.
20. http://www.shivkumar.org/music/
sadhinchane-new.htm.
21. Peter Manuel, Popular Musics of the NonWestern World: An Introductory Survey (New
York, Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1988) 168.
22. Manuel, 163.
23. http://mrandmrs55.com/2014/08/15/merajoota-hai-japani-lyrics-and-translation-letslearn-urdu-hindi/.
24. http://www.dnaindia.com/entertainment/
report-it-s-a-world-record-for-ashabhosle-1601969.
25. http://indiansongtranslations.blogspot.
com/2008/07/english-translation-of-kabhikabhi-mere.html.
26. http://www.indianmusiclyrics.
com/index.php?option=com_
content&view=article&id=162:main-yahanhoon&catid=35.
27. http://arr-songs-translated.blogspot.
com/2007/05/enna-solla-pogirai.html.
28. Rocumentary, Part 2: https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=L_Jnq384AQY.
29. http://www.justsomelyrics.com/478049/
indus-creed-pretty-child-lyrics.html.
30. http://www.allthelyrics.com/lyrics/
parikrama/but_it_rained-lyrics-471957.html.
31. http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2012/
mar/01/10-best-live-music-venues-mumbai.
32. http://www.last.fm/music/
Shaa’ir+%252B+Func/+wiki.
33. http://www.hindilyrics.net/translationJunoon/Sayyoni.html.
34. h
ttp://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/
entertainment/hindi/music/news/Delhidemands-Sufi-rock/articleshow/12981954.
cms.
USAD Music Resource Guide • 2015-2016
81
Klein ISD-Advanced Academics - Spring, TX
18. http://www.shivkumar.org/music/
sadhinchane-new.htm.
Groesbeck, Rolf and Palackal, Joseph. “Kerala.”
In The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music.
South Asia. Vol. 5, The Indian Subcontinent. New
York and London: Garland Publishing, 2000.
929–51.
Kabir, The Bijak of Kabir. Translated by Linda Hess
and Shukdev Singh. San Francisco: North
Point Press, 1983.
Khusro, Amir. “Har Qaum Raast Raahay.”
World Poetry Movement. Trans. A Schimmel. Accessed 8 January 2013 <http://bit.ly/
WJbUOp>.
Manuel, Peter. Popular Musics of the Non-Western
World: An Introductory Survey. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Natavar, Mekhala Devi. “Rajasthan.” In The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. South Asia.
Vol. 5, The Indian Subcontinent. New York and
London: Garland Publishing, 2000. 639–49.
Nayyar, Adam. “Punjab.” In The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. South Asia. Vol. 5, The
Indian Subcontinent. New York and London:
Garland Publishing, 2000, 762–72.
Nelson, David Paul. “Karnatak Tala.” In The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. South Asia.
Vol. 5, The Indian Subcontinent. New York and
London: Garland Publishing, 2000, 138–61.
Ramanujan, A.K., Velcheru Narayana Rao, and
David Shulman. When God is a Customer:
Telugu Courtesan Songs and Others. Berkeley.
Los Angeles, London: University of California
Press, 1994.
Rocumentary, Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=L_Jnq384AQY.
Schreffler, Gibb. “It’s Our Culture: Dynamics
of the Revival and Reemergence of Punjabi
Jhummar.” In Asian Music, Vol. 45 No.1,
34–76.
Snell, Rupert. The Hindi Classical Tradition: A Braj
Bhasa Reader. London: School of Oriental and
African Studies, University of London, 1991.
82
USAD Music Resource Guide • 2015-2016
Klein ISD-Advanced Academics - Spring, TX
Bibliography