history of indian music essay

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Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Essays

Musical instruments of the indian subcontinent.

A Lady Playing the Tanpura

Tanjore Tāmbūra (male)

Taūs (mayuri)

Pandharpuri Tambura

Ghanti (bell)

Murari Adhikari

Allen Roda Independent Scholar

The music of the Indian subcontinent is usually divided into two major traditions of classical music: Hindustani music of North India and Karnatak music of South India, although many regions of India also have their own musical traditions that are independent of these.

Both Hindustani and Karnatak music use the system of ragas—sets of pitches and small motives for melody construction—and tala for rhythm. Ragas form a set of rules and patterns around which a musician can create his or her unique performance. Likewise, tala is a system of rhythmic structures based on the combination of stressed and unstressed beats. Within these rhythmic structures, musicians ( 1996.100.1 ) can create their own rhythmic patterns building off the compositional styles of others.

One of the main differences between North Indian and South Indian music is the increased influence of Persian music and musical instruments in the north. From the late twelfth century through the rise of British occupation , North India was under the control of a Muslim minority that was never able to extend its sphere of influence to South India. During this time, the music of North India began to acquire and adapt to the presence of Persian language, music, and musical instruments, such as the setar, from which the sitar got its name; the kamanche ( 1998.72 ) and santur, which became popular in Kashmir; and the rabab (alternately known as rebab and rubab), which preceded the sarod. New instruments were introduced, including the tabla and sitar ( 1999.399 ), which soon became the most famous Indian musical instruments worldwide. Legend has it that the tabla was formed by splitting a pakhavaj drum in half, with the larger side becoming the bayan and the smaller side the dahini. The barrel-shaped pakhavaj drum, which was the ancestor of both the tabla and the mrdangam, has been depicted in countless paintings and prints. New genres of music were formed as well, such as khyal and qawwali , that combine elements of both Hindu and Muslim musical practice.

Hindustani classical music is known largely for its instrumentalists, while Karnatak classical music is renowned for its virtuosic singing practices. Instruments most commonly used in Hindustani classical music are the sitar, sarod, tambura, sahnai, sarangi, and tabla; while instruments commonly used in Karnatak classical music include the vina, mrdangam, kanjira, and violin . The use of bamboo flutes, such as the murali, is common to both traditions as well as many other genres of Indian music. In fact, many of these instruments are often used in both North and South India, and there are many clear relationships between the instruments of both regions. Furthermore, often instruments that are slightly different in construction will be identified by the same name in both the south and the north, though they might be used differently.

Throughout its history, the peoples of India have developed numerous systems for classifying musical instruments, many of which were based on morphological characteristics. The ancient Hindu system divided instruments into four categories: stretched (strings; 2008.141.2a,b ), covered (drums; 89.4.165 ), hollow (wind; 1986.12 ), and solid (bells; 89.4.154 ). This system is widely known to be the inspiration for the Western system of instrument classification put forth by Mahillon in 1880, which renames these groups—chordophones, membranophones, aerophones, and idiophones—basing the distinction on the way in which sound is created and not exclusively on construction.

A note on spelling : All terms used for Indian musical instruments and musical concepts are common transliterations of the original terms. Subsequently, there are numerous possible methods of rendering the same term in English and inevitable discrepancies in spelling. The spellings adopted here are the ones used by The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2001).

Kanjira (Khanjari) The kanjira is a frame drum of South India. It consists of a skin (usually iguana) stretched and pasted on a circular wooden frame. There are often three or four slots in the side of the frame, in which bell-metal jingle-disks are suspended from metal crossbars. The name kanjira is related to the khanjari and kanjani of North and East India and Nepal. The kanjira is tuned to various pitches by wetting the skin. It is held at the bottom of the frame by the left hand, which also varies the tension of the skin, and is beaten with the fingers of the right hand.

Kamanche The kamanche is one of the world’s earliest known bowed instruments. It has been altered and changed as it has traveled to other parts of the world ( 1998.72 ). Some argue that the kamanche is the predecessor of many other stringed instruments such as the rabab, the sarangi, and the Chinese erhu.

Mrdangam The mrdangam is an elongated barrel-shaped drum found predominantly in South India ( 1986.467.18 ). It is derived from the pakhavaj and is used as the primary rhythmic accompaniment in Karnatak music as well as in religious Kirtan music. In the east (Bengal, Odisha), this barrel-shaped drum is known as the khol.

Murali The murali is a transverse flute made of bamboo. It is used in a variety of musical genres and is often associated with the Hindu deity Krishna.

Pakhavaj The pakhavaj is a barrel-shaped drum with two heads, each of which contains tuning paste, or siyahi . The history of the pakhavaj is unknown, yet as the predecessor of both the Hindustani tabla drums and the mrdangam of Karnatak music, it served as the primary accompaniment for much of Indian classical music. It appears in the musical iconography of Hindu religious painting and in the artworks of the royal Muslim courts of the Mughal empire.

Rabab The rabab is a stringed instrument with a skin-covered resonator that can be bowed or plucked depending on performance tradition. It is found in various forms throughout North Africa, the Near East, South Asia, and Central Asia. Similar to the way the setar and the vina were adapted to eventually become what is known today as the sitar, the rabab was adapted to become the sarod. However, there are many musicians in India today who still play the rabab, and it is quite popular in several music genres.

Sahnai (Shenai) The sahnai is a double reed instrument of North India and Nepal. In South India, a double reed instrument called the nagasvaram is used. Both instruments have seven equidistant fingerholes and no thumbhole. Frequently, the instrument’s flared open end is made of metal while its body is made of wood or bamboo; however, they are not exclusively made in this fashion.

Sarangi A sarangi is a bowed stringed instrument with a skin-covered resonator ( 89.4.200 ). The typical sarangi is made by hand, usually from a single block of tun wood about 66 to 69 centimeters long ( 46.34.43 ). The three playing strings are made of goat gut, and the sympathetic strings (usually as many as thirty-six, though the number varies) of brass and/or steel. However, the design of sarangis varies from region to region ( 1982.143.2 ). For example, the Nepalese sarangi is generally much smaller than its Indian counterpart, and not all sarangis have sympathetic strings.

Sarod The sarod is a relatively new instrument to South Asia, having been around for less than 200 years. The sarod is a plucked stringed instrument with a skin-covered resonator and sympathetic strings. Like the sitar, it is primarily used in Hindustani music and is accompanied by the tabla.

Setar The word setar means “three strings.” Other instruments in this family include the two-stringed dutar and the single-stringed ektar. As Indian musicians adopted the setar, they added more and more strings. Early sitars, which evolved from the setar, have six strings, while more contemporary ones include six playing strings and thirteen sympathetic strings. A Persian setar in the Museum’s collection is a miniature that was made primarily for the purpose of decoration. Many such instruments exist in India.

Sitar The sitar is easily India’s most famous musical instrument overseas, having been popularized in the West by George Harrison of the Beatles, who studied with Ravi Shankar, one of the greatest sitarists of the twentieth century. The sitar has its roots in both the Persian setar as well as in the vina. Like many stringed instruments used in classical Indian music, the modern sitar ( 1999.399 ) has sympathetic strings that sound only when one of the primary strings is struck on the same note. These strings, which are never played by the performer, resound in sympathy with the playing strings, creating a polyphonic timber that many have come to associate with India through the popularity of this instrument. It is interesting to note, however, that the addition of the sympathetic strings is a relatively recent development in Indian music starting in the late nineteenth century ( 89.4.1586 ). The use of sympathetic strings is known to have existed in other parts of the world prior to their initial use in India.

Tabla The tabla is actually two drums played by the same performer. Both drums have compound skins onto which a tuning paste, or siyahi , is added to help generate the wide variety of tones these drums can produce. The bayan is the larger of the two drums and is generally made of metal or pottery. The siyahi on the bayan is off-center, which allows the performer to add variable pressure on the skin, changing the pitch of the instrument with the palm of his or her hand while striking it with the fingertips. The smaller drum is called the dahini, or sometimes referred to as the tabla. Dahini are usually made of heavy lathe-turned rosewood and provide much higher pitch sounds than does the bayan.

Tambura The tambura is a long, stringed instrument made of light hollow wood, with either a wooden or a gourd resonator. It is typically used in accompaniment with other instruments, providing a drone pitch. Some of the tamburas in the Museum’s collection are not full-sized instruments, but rather miniatures created for their aesthetic appearance. The artistic craftsmanship on the inlay in these objects is beautiful. India has a long history of creating musical instruments as decorative objects, and that tradition is represented in the Museum’s collection.

Vina Along with the pakhavaj, the vina is one of the most commonly depicted instruments in Indian iconography. The vina has taken many forms in both South and North India. In North India, it was called the bin or the rudravina, and was the predecessor of the sitar. It was often built of two large gourd resonators connected by a piece of bamboo, with frets held on with wax. Most of the vinas depicted in iconography are rudravinas. In the South, the vina—or saraswati vina—continues to be the most popular stringed instrument in classical music. In its basic shape, the vina is a hollow wooden stringed instrument with two gourd resonators (though there can often be more than two or sometimes only one gourd resonator). The gottuvadyam, or chitravina, is another important instrument in Karnatak music. Unlike the rudravina and the saraswati vina, the gottuvadyam has no frets and is played with a slide using a method similar to that of the Hawaiian slide guitar .

Roda, Allen. “Musical Instruments of the Indian Subcontinent.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/indi/hd_indi.htm (March 2009)

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The Music of India: And Its Role in Indian Dance

by NARAYANA MENON

INDIAN music is a very ancient art and has a three-thousand-year-old tradition behind it. This represents perhaps the longest unbroken record of any cultural tradition we know. Countries like China and Egypt have longer records of history and culture. The Catalogue Général des Antiquités Égyptiennes du Musée du Caire published recently by the Egyptian Government gives accurate descriptions and pictures of musical instruments 4000 years old, and indications of a musical notation which point to an art at a high stage of development. But somewhere in the history of Egypt, the link with this historic past is lost, and contemporary Egyptian music cannot be related to its past.

It is this continuity of growth that is the most remarkable thing about Indian music. Long before the Christian era it had developed not only definite laws of theory and practice, but even comprehensive theories of appreciation. The ancient pandits studied carefully the physical stimulants to aesthetic enjoyment. They analyzed the nature of emotion (Bhava); the conditions and the themes which produce the emotions (Vibhava); the visible signs and results of such emotion (Anubhava); and even the nature of the subconscious mind, the involuntary emotions (Satvabhava). Their methods were rational and, what is more, they put their conclusions to good practical use. The Greeks did this on a small scale. They realized, for instance, that the Doric mode was dignified and manly, and taught the Spartan boys nothing else. They were careful of the use of the Lydian mode which they thought voluptuous, licentious, and orgiastic. Strabo, the Greek philosopher, may have been thinking of this when he acknowledged the debt of Greek music to India.

The beginnings of Indian music are shrouded in mythology. We are told in the old legends that the seven notes of the scale and the primary rhythms were revealed by the god Vishnu himself, and it was believed that singing, playing, and dancing exemplified his various forms. Thus it was only natural that music should have grown and developed as an adjunct of religious worship and that India’s temples should have been her great conservatories. To this day the orthodox Hindu musician thinks of his music as devotional.

From the study of ancient treatises on music which have come down to us, such as Bharata’s fourth-century Natya Sastra and Sarangadeva’s thirteenth-century Sangita-Ratnakara, we know how little Indian classical music has changed since early times. To be sure, when the Muslims came down into India about the twelfth century they brought with them the subtle and highly developed melodic scales of the Persians, but this influence never became more than a superstructure on the robust body of Hindu music, and in South India, where the penetration of Islam was least, the traditional Dravidian forms retained their purity almost untouched.

Perhaps the most distinctive characteristic of Indian music — the quality that makes it at first sound so strange to the Western ear — is that it is purely melodic. By pure melody I mean melody that neither needs nor implies harmony. Harmony affects the structure of melody itself, and it has become almost impossible for the Westerner to conceive of melody without the implications, tacit or explicit, of a harmonic system.

In Western music, a melodic line is really the top or surface line of a carefully constructed harmonic structure. Thus in the building up of melody, the harmonic implications of substantive and passing notes, and the relationship of these, play an important part. Beyond this, Western melody has a tendency to develop round notes which are harmonically related to the tonic.

Indian melody, on the other hand, is made up of notes which are related purely by their continuity. If melody of this kind sounds exotic to the Western ear, it is probably because the West has lost the sense of pure melody and cannot take in melody neat, as it were. The Indian use of quarter tones is also relevant here. There is no such thing in Indian music as an exact quarter tone, such as those used by Alois Haba or Bloch. But Indian musicians do use in certain ragas sharps which are sharper than those of the diatonic scale and flats which are flatter. It is not the number of notes we use that is important. The important thing is how small an interval we can successfully employ.

The bases of Indian music are raga and tala. Perhaps the nearest English equivalent for raga is the term “ mode.” The Persian maqam is much the same thing. But our raga is a far more definite concept. In a raga not only are the notes used within the octave important but even the sequence in which they arc used. The result is great strictness within great variety. According to a classification which dates from the seventeenth century there are seventy-two fully septatonic ragas. In all these the fifth is constant. Thirty-six have true fourths, thirty-six augmented fourths.

Then there are a number of derivative ragas, some pentatonic, some hexatonic. Some of these use five notes going up, but six or seven coming down the scale and vice versa. Consider now that this music is seldom written. Indian musicians, handing down the tradition from generation to generation, have developed such extraordinary powers of memory that they carry several hundreds of these ragas in their heads.

Tala is the rhythm of Indian music. And like the raga it obeys strict laws of pattern. Tala is asymmetric as well as symmetric. Often a bar is made up of 4-2-2, as in the southern Adi Tala. Variations of talas can be in either geometric or arithmetic progression. A variation of the tala given above might be 5—2-2 or 3-2—2. There are accented and unaccented parts of a bar. Thus in the Adi Tala, the first, the fifth, and the seventh beats are strongly accented. All this is possible in Indian music because it is not forced to accept symmetries of rhythm which harmonic planning necessitates.

Within this well-defined framework, this fitting together of pitch and beat according to rigid laws, the Indian musician improvises. And it is the brilliance of his improvisation — what he can do by sheer virtuosity in spite of the restricting rules of the game — which is the glory of our great artists.

Is not the highest art extemporaneous? The art of improvising was current in Western music until recently and all the great masters such as Bach, Handel, and Beethoven, up to and including Liszt, were famous for their improvisations. The only corresponding musical activity in the West today is the improvisation of jazz. But here the improvisation develops along certain chord sequences, while in Indian music it is confined to the melodic line. Variations in rhythm, of course, are common to both.

Another of the key elements in Indian music is the dominant role of the voice. Indian music is sung music, even when played by instruments, because the music is basically vocal in conception. It is not that we lack instruments — in variety India probably has more than the West, and the best of them are capable of subtleties of intention and nuance beyond any I have heard anywhere in the world — but simply that the human voice is still the finest instrument there is for the kind of music we have.

IN THE pattern of Indian culture, music and the dance, the visual arts and poetry are all governed by the same attitudes. Indian music bears the same relationship to Western music as Indian dancing does to Western ballet, and for that matter much the same sort of relationship as Indian literature does to that of Europe or traditional Indian art to European art. In all these, the insistence, in India, is on emotional sincerity as against intellectual sincerity in the West; on the lyrical impulse rather than on the dramatic impulse; on intuition rather than on reason; on contemplation more than on action. The result is a subjectivism which is opposed to Western objectivism.

Many factors are at the root of such a development and it is perhaps beyond the scope of a short essay such as this to go into any detailed analysis of the reasons. But let me illustrate it from the dance. The fundamental difference between Indian dancing and Western ballet consists in the way in which a given idea is realized. In Indian dancing, the dancer (like the musician in Indian music) is the center, the figurehead of the idea, and the dance emanates from him. In European ballet the idea of the dance is projected on the dancers. It is an objective realization of the idea by the creator of the dance, the choreographer, who uses the dancers as a vehicle for the expression of his ideas.

This makes the Indian dancer, within a strictly traditional code, a creative artist in the fullest sense of the word; whereas in European ballet the dancer’s role is an interpretive one, to infuse and bring life to the choreographer’s conception. This also makes Indian dancing essentially a solo affair. Even when there is a group of dancers, as in the more dramatic forms of Indian dancing, like the Kathakali of Malabar, the dancing takes the form of a series of solo performances. Groupings are unimportant. There is no plastic relationship in the lines, which are related purely by their continuity. The wide, sweeping lines of the ballet are absent. Minute gestural effects become important.

Kathakali, the traditional dance-drama of South India, goes back two thousand years to the great religious epics which are the basis of Hindu culture. Dancers mime the stories of the ancient myths while singers chant the tale in verse, accompanied by gongs, bells, and drums.

Here a “good man” (perhaps one of the Pandava brothers, heroes in the Mahabharata) is conversing with his wife. Kathakali actors never speak, but use mudras, a sign language of the hands with a gesture for every Sanskrit word. Female roles are taken by boys.

On the left is Hanuman, the heroic “monkey god ” of the Ramayana epic, making obeisance to a Brahmin priest who is giving his benediction. The dancers’ startling make-ups of green, yellow, black, and browns take many hours to put on.

The sister of Ravana, the mythological demon-king of Ceylon, is shown here in all her grotesque horror. Kathakali is usually performed at night, often in the open with flaming torchlamps for illumination. Sometimes the performances go on until dawn.

Kathakali is at once sophisticated and barbaric, poetic yet violent. Here an evil mother drives herself to kill her own child. As the stories unfold the emotions of the audience rise to fever pitch.

These gestures, or mudras as they are called, are the essence of Indian dancing. They are a very comprehensive language and any story or incident or any shade of emotion can be satisfactorily expressed through them. Two well-trained dancers can carry on a conversation on any topic in everyday life by using these gestures. The eloquence of the mudras is the eloquence of poetry, not the realistic eloquence of prose. They suggest, but never imitate. They evoke a mood, but never state it.

In Western ballet conventional movements such as an arabesque or entrechat or pirouette are freely used by a choreographer to express certain ideas or types, not to mention the clever and dramatic use of the mime. Bnt does not convention often become an embarrassment, even an impediment ? Even in such a poetic ballet as Les Sylphides the male dancer looks slightly ridiculous. It is this hidebound convention which has led to new growths in the dance styles of the West—movements led by such dancers as Mary Wigman, Martha Graham, Kurt Jooss, who go completely outside the conventions of classical ballet to revitalize the new dance.

Since India is not simply one country but a whole subcontinent, it is only natural that her main tradition of the dance should have developed unevenly and become divided into distinct schools of varying individuality in different regions. The most important schools are: the Bharata-natyam of South India, the Kathak dances of Upper India, and the Kathakali of Malabar. Less famous perhaps, but significant, are the Manipuri school of the Northeast, of which Mr. Bowers writes in these pages, and the masked dances of Siraikela and the States of Orissa.

Bharata-natyam probably represents the purest and oldest form of the Indian tradition. It descends, of course, from temple dancing, but nowadays it is presented as a recital, with a program usually lasting about three hours. Bharata-natyam is always executed by one single dancer, usually a woman, and there is hardly any décor or change of costume. The music for it consists of a singer, or singers, and a group of drummers. The sung music functions like a commentary on the dance except when the nattuvanar, who directs the performance, calls out the bols of the rhythm which the dancer’s feet execute.

If the intricacies of rhythm in Indian music escape the uninitiated, the rhythms of Indian dance are even more subtle and difficult. In the Kathak school the role of the percussion is especially important. The drummer anticipates every step of the dancer and the result is like two musicians playing in unison, the bells on the dancer’s feet synchronizing with the beat of the drums. Facial expression — abhinaya — is also a highly developed element in the dance. The Kathak school shows strong Muslim influences. Its elegance and its sophistry were derived from the Mogul Court, but its complicated rhythms are of indigenous origin.

Kathakali, which literally means “story-play,” is the most dramatic form of Indian dancing. Here the gestures and technique of Bharata-natyam have taken on a more masculine vitality. Kathakali employs many dancers and many types, acting out themes drawn from the old Sanskrit epics. It is usually performed out of doors and the dancing is likely to last the whole night through. Kathakali is as violent and exciting as Bharata-natyam is subtle and lyrical.

THE relationship between music and dancing is nowhere closer than in the Indian tradition. This tradition must be understood in the context of Indian life and thought. Its present theory and practice are the logical development of a consistent process, a process which has been distinctive and which is an integral part of Indian history and culture. To listen to Indian music and judge it in terms of Western music or some other system will mean missing the point and reaching absurd conclusions. It will be like judging Beethoven or Brahms in terms of raga and tala. Questions of style, of interpretation, of finer and subtler points of execution cannot be discussed in any recognizable international terms. Aesthetics and attitudes can. Music is not an international language. All this talk of music being an international language is a myth. Of course it may be true of limited areas such as Europe or Southern India or the Middle East — areas which have a common musical system but different spoken languages. But I have heard too much of Egyptian, Javanese, and Chinese music — not to mention the various national styles of Europe — to believe that cosmopolitanism in music is possible.

And values differ so widely. Take the voice for instance. Most Europeans think that Indian voices sound artificial, harsh, strained, and nasal. Yet that is precisely what most Indians think of Western voices — artificially produced, strained, and nasal. What either of them will think of a Chinese operatic singer, I dare not say. Of course there are voices which can be appreciated the world over — Paul Robeson’s, for instance, or the late Ustad Faiyaz Khan’s. But the attributes of a voice will be determined by what the voice is expected to do. Only a fully trained Western soprano can sing the aria of the Queen of the Night from The Magic Flute and only an Indian musician can do the Viriboni Varna. Stress on particular values, too, is important.

The quality of the voice as such is comparatively unimportant in Indian music. In India the voice is no more an asset to a singer than, say, good handwriting is to a poet. What a musician sings is far more important than how he sings it. Every singer is a creative artist in the fullest sense of the word. In the West, a singer is a vehicle for the expression of the composer’s ideas, and very often — as in many operas — a voice is used just like any other instrument. In the course of a BBC discussion with Sir Steuart Wilson I said: “In Europe a young man decides to become a singer if he has a good voice; in India a young man decides to become a singer if he is musical.” Sir Steuart admitted it was perhaps an exaggeration, but only the exaggeration of a vital truth. How can one apply the same tests for such widely differing conceptions?

Music is the most abstract of all the arts. And it has the least verisimilitude to nature. Poetry has words which can be understood or translated, at least partly. Painting and sculpture (except in the most abstract modern works) have recognizable forms which approximate our visual experiences. But in music we have no such aid to apprehension. The knowledge of (or at least an awareness of) the system of which the music is a part is the only guide. One can come to grips with it only through constant hearing. One must listen and listen a great deal — with discrimination and with intelligence. Only then will subtleties of nuance and style begin to take shape in one’s mind.

If I lay stress on the necessity for what amounts to a total immersion in our music it is certainly not in an attempt to discourage Western music lovers from approaching it. There is much in our ragas which can give pleasure at first hearing, especially when the hearer is prepared to listen with his emotions — even to listen from his subconscious, if he must, forgetting for the moment all that he has been conditioned by Western music to expect. I have an American friend who could not hear enough of our music when he visited India and who told me that a Kathakali performance on the Malabar Coast moved him as profoundly as any dance he had experienced in the West. No, if I urge long listening, it is only because I know that the time will be well spent and the effort rewarded. Within its limits, Indian music is limitless. It offers riches to the ear, the mind, and the heart which are no less fabulous than the other storied treasures of the East.

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History of Indian/Bharatiya Music

2021, Itihas Sankalan: Articles on Indian History

[Book Chapter] This short article on Indian/Bharatiya music was originally delivered as a talk in the weekly online talk series organized by Bharatiya Itihas Sankalan Samity, Assam, India during the Covid lockdown period 2020. It is a short concise presentation of the basic contours of Bharatiya music. This will help readers to appreciate how Bharatiya music is different from western music. This talk and article was in Assamese and I have translated it to English. Later, this and other talks were converted to English articles and published in the form of an edited e-book titled Itihas Sankalan: Articles on Indian History and is available on Amazon (ASIN B09JKHTV2N). Print copy of this e-book is also available in Amazon USA (ISBN 979-8497253542).

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Daniel Neuman

It has been almost 50 years since Harold Powers published his important article on Indian music in the English language. Since that time there has been a vastly increased number of scholarly books and articles in English on various aspects of Indian music and its socio-cultural traditions, including more recently, many studies on non-classical forms. In this paper I begin with the issue of ethnomusicology in India, and following this with an overview of some of the important works published in North America and Europe. I organize these studies in terms of their major themes of history, ethnography, gender, regional and popular music traditions and some of the theoretical streams that now characterize them.

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2013. Unreferenced spoken-word draft of position paper given at the Cultural Musicology Conference, Amsterdam, 2014. "In my view, a truly ethnomusicological approach to the cultural history of music still has not yet emerged in the discipline. Firstly, I make a distinction here between the long established concerns of historical ethnomusicology, which are primarily musicological (admirably and crucially so), and the chrysalid cultural histories of those same art-music systems. The difference, as I see it, is that between a piece of carved jade and a clear glass prism – the study of music as a beautiful and important cultural object in and of itself, versus the study of music predominantly as a lens to illuminate the rest of the world. Both modes of historical study are critically important and frequently complementary, and there has not been anywhere near enough of the former in most cases to even start on the latter. But I do consider them to be substantively different kinds of enterprise. Secondly, the curious thing for me about the concerns of the new cultural histories of [Indian] music is how presentist they are. This is generally fair enough, I think, of history in ethnomusicology: a) because ethnomusicologists have rarely ventured earlier than the twentieth century in any case; and b) precisely because of the overwhelming concerns of the bulk of the discipline with the present and the impact on the present of the immediate past. With respect to India, much of the recent historical work I’ve noted has at its heart a valid and necessary desire to expose anti-colonial nationalists’ deliberate construction of North and South India’s contemporary classical traditions as “ancient, Hindu arts”, and to reposition them as colonial products to a lesser or greater degree. But historians of earlier soundworlds [and I include myself here] do not have such an excuse. Surely, as cultural historians seeking to illuminate the very different life-worlds of the past, we should at least recognise presentist concerns for what they are, and try to resist them where they are not relevant to our primary sources? Should we not approach the archives of the past as we do the living fields of the present: alive to difference, and its scholarly pleasures and dangers?"

Jane Harvey

Wim van der Meer

"My PhD on Hindustani vocal music. Not available in print anymore, though I have promised to publish a new edition with some additions and corrections. The book contains a lucid description of the workings of Hindustani music and the changes that took place over the century before its fabrication. The book owes much, nay everything, to my teacher, Pandit Dilip Chandra Vedi - himself disciple of stalwards like Uttam Singh, Bhaskar Rao Bakhle, Faiyaz Khan and Alladiya Khan. Yet, I hope I have critically linked his views to literature and other sources, although inevitably sometimes my stance is biased. Not ashamed!"

Music – Politics – Identity (Universitätsverlag Göttingen)

Ludwig Pesch

The “classical” music of South India is an amalgam of regional traditions and practices. Increasingly codified in the past five centuries, it is now known as Carnatic or Karnatak music. Like the Sanskrit term Karnâtaka Sangîtam, these Anglicisms denote “traditional” music besides distinguishing South Indian music from its northern (Hindustani) counterpart. Progressive scholars have long espoused the common goal of making teaching more effective for both idioms while safeguarding “authentity”. It may therefore seem odd that detailed notation has not been embraced by practitioners. This paper probes the resilience of oral transmission in the face of modernity. It looks into the concerns shared by musicians who, while belonging to different cultures and periods, have much in common as far as performing practice is concerned: close integration of vocal and instrumental music. The role of manuscripts in Minnesang, as described by McMahon, also applies to Carnatic music: “songs were handed down in an oral tradition [and] the manuscripts were not intended to be used by performers.” (The Music of Early Minnesang Columbia SC, 1990.) It will be argued that this fact is not just a question of some musicians’ conservatism, ignorance or irrationality; nor would it put the continuity of a living tradition at risk. On the contrary, Carnatic music reaches global audiences today while “ancient” roots are claimed even by those who cherish its association with musicians from other cultures throughout the 20th century.

Irfan Zuberi

William J Jackson

This is a draft of an essay which explores the history of philosophical thinking about music in India, from ancient times to more recent eras. It touches on many of the thinkers and practitioners of music in India over the centuries.

Panjab University Research Journal Arts (PURJA)

Barnashree Khasnobis

The Hindustani tradition of music is a result of assimilation of Perso-Arabic music genres with indigenous Indian music genres over a period of five centuries. Since the advent of Delhi Sultanate, there was a gradual cultural synthesis in arts and culture between Hindu and Muslim communities. This process of assimilation led to the creation of Parsi-u Hindavi tradition. It indicates that there was an evolution of composite culture during medieval India. There are certain genres of art forms in which the syncretic culture of Hindus and Muslims can be observed such as architecture, painting, literature, Hindustani music, etc. In the repertoire of Hindustani music, khayal is a brilliant example of syncretic culture. In this paper, the evolution of Hindustani music is discussed from historical perspective. This study will reveal different ways in which motifs of syncretic culture can be seen present in Hindustani tradition of music.

When Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) appealed to his contemporaries to abandon their ‘effete habits’ in 1931, he pursued innovation in the face of opposition from traditionalists and patriotic scholars, teachers and politicians. They revelled in their newly found pride in ‘ancient traditions’, while he embraced creativity as the way forward. Yet Tagore knew that innovation was prized among intellectuals and exponents of the arts and crafts even if rarely acknowledged by their patrons. He sought to reconcile two seemingly contradictory attitudes still prevalent all over In-

Samidha Vedabala

Any music origins in the society and develops with the changing realities of it. It accepts new and modified the existing in different periods of time. This process of acceptance and rejection makes any form of art exist for long. Similarly in various phases of transition Indian Classical music has embraced the elements which question its traits, especially in this highly technical world. The paper tries to point out those changes and analyse them in a legitimate manner.

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Essay on “Indian Music is as Diverse as Its Culture ” Complete Essay for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

Indian Music is as Diverse as Its Culture 

Just as there is no such language as Indian, but instead many hundreds of languages, with over a dozen considered major, so there is no single entity as Indian music. The range of musical styles and traditions in the subcontinent of South Asia, which comprises modern India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri – Lanka, is in proportion to the vastness of the geographical area and the density of population. This is most obviously the case with folk and tribal music. Given that India is predominantly rural, it could be claimed that such categories of music are those of the majority. The music of India is one of the oldest unspoken musical traditions in the world. The basis of Indian music is “sangeet.

Sangeet is a combination of two art forms: vocal music, instrumental music (Indian music). Indian music is based on the seven letter’s Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha and Ni. These seven letters are mathematically improvised to make thousands of tunes named Rages and cyclic rhythmic patterns known as Tales. The vocal tradition is especially strong in Indian music. It is understood that the song is probably the most ancient form of music. Vocal music occupies a considerable part of Natya Shastra (Indian music). The Sama veda is the oldest musical text in India. Most of the classical songs of north India are devotional in nature, but there are few genres, which are especially oriented toward religion. Most notable is the bhajan, dhun or kirtan for Hindus, the qawali for Muslims, and the shabad for Sikhs (Indian music). Not all the music is serious for, there are also many popular genres. The gazal is one style, which is known for it rich poetic, and romantic content. The Hindi gees which is basically just a song and undoubtedly the most popular is the film song (Indian music). Over the years they have become formalised into four major instrumental styles known as: alap, jor, gat and jhala (India, dance and music). The alap is a slow rhythm less elaboration upon the rag. The jor is a section that has rhythm but no developed rhythmic cycle (i.e., tal). The gat is the fully developed piece, while the jhala is a fast rhythmic interplay between the drone strings and the main playing strings (Indian music). The rag is the most important concept that any student of Indian music should understand. The Hindi/Urdu word “rag” is derived from the Sanskrit “raga” which means “colour or passion” (Indian music). It is linked to the Sanskrit word “ranj” which means, “to colour” (Indian music). There is also the jati. Jati is the number of notes used in the rag. There must also be the ascending and descending structure. This is called arohana/avarohana. Another characteristic is that the various notes do not have the same level of significance. Some are important and others less so. The important notes are called vadi and Sama vadi (Indian music). There are often characteristic movements to the rag. This is called either pakad (Indian music).

The Indian rhythm is known as tal. Tal means “clap”. The tabla (Indian drum instrument) has replaced the clap in the performance, but the term still reflects the origin. The basic concepts of tal are tali, khali, vibhag, matra, bol, theka, lay, sam, and avartan. There are many instruments in India. There is a traditional system for the classification of instruments. This system is based upon; non-membranous percussion (ghan), membranous percussion(avandhah), wind blow(sushir), plucked string (tat), blowed string (vitat) (Indian music). Some of the most famous Indian instruments are sitar and tabla. Sitar is perhaps the most well known of the Indian instruments. Artists such as Ravi Shankar have popularized this instrument around the world. Sitar is a long necked instrument with an interesting construction. Undoubtedly the most striking characteristic of the tabla is the large black spot on each of the playing surfaces. These black spots are a mixture of gum, soot, and iron filings. Their function is to create the bell-like timbre that is characteristic of the instrument.

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A history of indian music.

Author: Prajnanananda, Swami

Keywords: Music Music-India History and criticism

Publisher: Ramakrishna Vedanta Math, Calcutta

Description: v.1 Ancient period Includes index.

Source: Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi

Type: E-Book

Received From: Archaeological Survey of India

• Dublin Core View
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Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

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The Indian Culture Portal is a part of the National Virtual Library of India project, funded by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India. The portal has been created and developed by the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. Data has been provided by organisations of the Ministry of Culture.

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