Pallavi Music
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A.R. Rahman
Introduction
How to apply
Email: Please email to pallavilaxman@gmail.com a MP3 voice clip with your music/songs. You can get these MP3 clips made at any studio.
Internet: You can send us a link to your site or blog where you have uploaded your music/songs. You can upload your video (made on a phone or home camera) on to Youtube or Google Video.
In all cases you will have to submit your resume with MP3 clips and atleast 3 photographs, some full-length.
If you are shortlisted we will inform you in a week. Please dont send a reminder.
Once selected, you will be listed on our site and visible to the industry. We will contact you if we have any assignments suitable for your consideration.
Band needed for Dubai
nadiaalsadek@hotmail.com
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Music
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Music is an art form consisting of sound and silence expressed through time. Elements of sound as used in music are pitch (including melody and harmony), rhythm (including tempo and meter), structure, and sonic qualities of timbre, articulation, dynamics, and texture.
The creation, performance, significance and even the definition of music, vary according to culture and social context. Music ranges from strictly organized compositions and performances to improvisational or aleatoric forms. For purposes of discussion and exploration of the topic, music is divided into genres and sub-genres, although the dividing lines and relationships between music genres are often unclear and/or controversial. Within "the arts", music can be classified as a performing art, a fine art, or an auditory art form.
Music may also involve generative forms in time through the construction of patterns and combinations of natural stimuli, principally sound. Music may be used for artistic or aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, ceremonial or religious purposes and by many composers purely as an academic instrument for study.
Lucky Ali
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Ancient Music
Ancient
- Main article: Ancient music
The human voice is possibly the oldest musical instrument. A range of paleolithic sites have yielded bones in which lateral holes have been pierced: these are usually considered to be flutes[1], blown at the end like the Japanese shakuhachi. The earliest written records of musical expression are to be found in the Sama Veda of India and in 4,000 year old cuneiform from Ur. Instruments, such as the seven-holed flute and various types of stringed instruments have been recovered from the Indus valley civilization archaeological sites.[2] The Indian music is one of the oldest musical traditions in the world, and Indian classical music (marga) can be found from the scriptures of the Hindu tradition, the Vedas. Chinese classical music, the traditional art or court music of China has a history stretching for more than three thousand years. Music was an important part of cultural and social life in Ancient Greece. In ancient Greece, mixed-gender choruses performed for entertainment, celebration and spiritual ceremonies, and musicians and singers had an important role in Greek theater. Music was part of children's basic education in ancient Greece.
Al-Farabi (872-950) wrote a notable book on music titled Kitab al-Musiqa (The Book of Music). He played and invented a varied number of musical instruments and his pure Arabian tone system is still used in Arabic music today.[3]
Performance
Performance is the execution of music. While music cannot technically exist without performance, we generally think of performance as being the exhibition of a musical work before an audience. A musical work is performed once its structure and instrumentation are satisfactory to its creators; however, as it gets performed more and more over time, it can evolve and change in any number of ways.
A performance can either be rehearsed or improvised. Improvisation is a musical idea created on the spot (such as a guitar solo or a drum solo), with no prior premeditation, while rehearsal is vigorous repetition of an idea until it has achieved cohesion. Musicians will generally add improvisation to a well-rehearsed idea to create a unique performance. Many cultures include strong traditions of solo and performance, such as in Indian classical music, and in the Western Art music tradition. Other cultures, such as in Bali, include strong traditions of group performance. All cultures include a mixture of both, and performance may range from improvised solo playing for one's enjoyment to highly planned and organised performance rituals such as the modern classical concert, religious processions, music festivals or music competitions.
Chamber music, which is music for a small ensemble with only a few of each type of instrument, is often seen as more intimate than symphonic works. A performer may be referred to as a musician.
Asha Bhosle
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Theory
Aural tradition
Many types of music, such as traditional blues and folk were originally preserved in the memory of performers, and the songs were handed down orally, or aurally ("by ear"). When the composer of music is no longer known, this music is often classified as "traditional". Different musical traditions have different attitudes towards how and where to make changes to the original source material, from quite strict, to those which demand improvisation or modification to the music. History is also passed by ear through song- for example in African societies.
Ornamentation
- Main article: Ornament (music)
The detail included explicitly in the music notation varies between genres and historical periods. In general, art music notation from the 17th through to the 19th century required performers to have a great deal of contextual knowledge about performing styles.
For example, in the 17th and 18th century, music notated for solo performers typically indicated a simple, unornamented melody. However, it was expected that performers would know how to add stylistically-appropriate ornaments such as trills and turns. In the 19th century, art music for solo performers may give a general instruction such as to perform the music expressively, without describing in detail how the performer should do this. It was expected that the performer would know how to use tempo changes, accentuation, and pauses (among other devices) to obtain this "expressive" performance style. In the 20th century, art music notation often became more explicit, and used a range of markings and annotations to indicate to performers how they should play or sing the piece.
In popular music and jazz, music notation almost always indicates only the basic framework of the melody, harmony, or performance approach; musicians and singers are expected to know the performance conventions and styles associated with specific genres and pieces. For example, the "lead sheet" for a jazz tune may only indicate the melody and the chord changes. The performers in the jazz ensemble are expected to know how to "flesh out" this basic structure by adding ornaments, improvised music, and chordal accompaniment.
Production
- Main article: Music production
Music is composed and performed for many purposes, ranging from aesthetic pleasure, religious or ceremonial purposes, or as an entertainment product for the marketplace. Amateur musicians compose and perform music for their own pleasure, and they do not attempt to derive their income from music. Professional musicians are employed by a range of institutions and organisations, including armed forces, churches and synagogues, symphony orchestras, broadcasting or film production companies, and music schools. As well, professional musicians work as freelancers, seeking contracts and engagements in a variety of settings.
Although amateur musicians differ from professional musicians in that amateur musicians have a non-musical source of income, there are often many links between amateur and professional musicians. Beginning amateur musicians take lessons with professional musicians. In community settings, advanced amateur musicians perform with professional musicians in a variety of ensembles and orchestras. In some rare cases, amateur musicians attain a professional level of competence, and they are able to perform in professional performance settings.
A distinction is often made between music performed for the benefit of a live audience and music that is performed for the purpose of being recorded and distributed through the music retail system or the broadcasting system. However, there are also many cases where a live performance in front of an audience is recorded and distributed (or broadcast).
Composition
- Main article: Musical composition
Composition is the act of creating music, either on paper or in sound. Most cultures use at least part of the concept of preconceiving musical material, or composition, as held in western classical music. Even when music is notated precisely, there are still many decisions that a performer has to make. The process of a performer deciding how to perform music that has been previously composed and notated is termed interpretation.
Different performers' interpretations of the same music can vary widely. Composers and song writers who present their own music are interpreting, just as much as those who perform the music of others or folk music. The standard body of choices and techniques present at a given time and a given place is referred to as performance practice, where as interpretation is generally used to mean either individual choices of a performer, or an aspect of music which is not clear, and therefore has a "standard" interpretation.
In some musical genres, such as jazz and blues, even more freedom is given to the performer to engage in improvisation on a basic melodic, harmonic, or rhythmic framework. The greatest latitude is given to the performer in a style of performing called free improvisation, which is material that is spontaneously "thought of" (imagined) while being performed, not preconceived. According to the analysis of Georgiana Costescu, improvised music usually follows stylistic or genre conventions and even "fully composed" includes some freely chosen material (see precompositional). Composition does not always mean the use of notation, or the known sole authorship of one individual.
Music can also be determined by describing a "process" which may create musical sounds, examples of this range from wind chimes, through computer programs which select sounds. Music which contains elements selected by chance is called Aleatoric music, and is associated with such composers as John Cage, Morton Feldman, and Witold Lutosławski.
Musical composition is a term that describes the composition of a piece of music. Methods of composition vary widely from one composer to another, however in analysing music all forms -- spontaneous, trained, or untrained -- are built from elements comprising a musical piece. Music can be composed for repeated performance or it can be improvised; composed on the spot. The music can be performed entirely from memory, from a written system of musical notation, or some combination of both. Study of composition has traditionally been dominated by examination of methods and practice of Western classical music, but the definition of composition is broad enough to include spontaneously improvised works like those of free jazz performers and African drummers.
What is important in understanding the composition of a piece is singling out its elements. An understanding of music's formal elements can be helpful in deciphering exactly how a piece is constructed. A universal element of music is how sounds occur in time, which is referred to as the rhythm of a piece of music.
When a piece appears to have a changing time-feel, it is considered to be in rubato time, an Italian expression that indicates that the tempo of the piece changes to suit the expressive intent of the performer. Even random placement of random sounds, which occurs in musical montage, occurs within some kind of time, and thus employs time as a musical element.
Notation
- Main article: Musical notation
Notation is the written expression of music notes and rhythms on paper using symbols. When music is written down, the pitches and rhythm of the music is notated, along with instructions on how to perform the music. This is referred to as musical notation, and the study of how to read notation involves music theory, harmony, the study of performance practice, and in some cases an understanding of historical performance methods.
Written notation varies with style and period of music. In Western Art music, the most common types of written notation are scores, which include all the music parts of an ensemble piece, and parts, which are the music notation for the individual performers or singers. In popular music, jazz, and blues, the standard musical notation is the lead sheet, which notates the melody, chords, lyrics (if it is a vocal piece), and structure of the music. Nonetheless, scores and parts are also used in popular music and jazz, particularly in large ensembles such as jazz "big bands."
In popular music, guitarists and electric bass players often read music notated in tablature, which indicates the location of the notes to be played on the instrument using a diagram of the guitar or bass fingerboard. Tabulature was also used in the Baroque era to notate music for the lute, a stringed, fretted instrument.
Notated music is produced as sheet music for the performers to read from. To perform music from notation requires an understanding of both the musical style and the performance practice that is associated with a piece of music or genre.
Improvisation
- Main article: Musical improvisation
Improvisation is the creation of spontaneous music. Improvisation is often considered an act of instantaneous composition by composers, where compositional techniques are employed with or without preparation.
Theory
- Main article: Music Theory
Music theory encompasses the nature and mechanics of music. It often involves identifying patterns that govern composers' techniques. In a more detailed sense, music theory (in the western system) also distills and analyzes the elements of music – rhythm, harmony (harmonic function), melody, structure, and texture. People who study these properties are known as music theorists.
Sociology
Music is experienced by individuals in a range of social settings ranging from being alone to attending a large concert. Musical performances take different forms in different cultures and socioeconomic milieus. In Europe and North America, there is often a divide between what types of music are viewed as a "high culture" and "low culture." "High culture" types of music typically include Western art music such as Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and modern-era symphonies, concertos, and solo works, and are typically heard in formal concerts in concert halls and churches, with the audience sitting quietly in seats.
On the other hand, other types of music such as jazz, blues, soul, and country are often performed in bars, nightclubs, and theatres, where the audience may be able to drink, dance, and express themselves by cheering. Until the later 20th century, the division between "high" and "low" musical forms was widely accepted as a valid distinction that separated out better quality, more advanced "art music" from the popular styles of music heard in bars and dance halls.
However, in the 1980s and 1990s, musicologists studying this perceived divide between "high" and "low" musical genres argued that this distinction is not based on the musical value or quality of the different types of music.[citation needed] Rather, they argued that this distinction was based largely on the socioeconomic standing or social class of the performers or audience of the different types of music.[citation needed] For example, whereas the audience for Classical symphony concerts typically have above-average incomes, the audience for a hip-hop concert in an inner-city area may have below-average incomes. Even though the performers, audience, or venue where non-"art" music is performed may have a lower socioeconomic status, the music that is performed, such as blues, hip-hop, punk, funk, or ska may be very complex and sophisticated.
When composers introduce styles of music which break with convention, there can be a strong resistance from academic music experts and popular culture. Late-period Beethoven string quartets, Stravinsky ballet scores, serialism, bebop-era jazz, hip hop, punk rock, and electronica have all been considered non-music by some critics when they were first introduced.[citation needed]
Media and Technology
- Further information: Computer music
The music that composers make can be heard through several media; the most traditional way is to hear it live, in the presence, or as one of the musicians. Live music can also be broadcast over the radio, television or the internet. Some musical styles focus on producing a sound for a performance, while others focus on producing a recording which mixes together sounds which were never played "live". Recording, even of styles which are essentially live, often uses the ability to edit and splice to produce recordings which are considered better than the actual performance.
As talking pictures emerged in the early 20th century, with their prerecorded musical tracks, an increasing number of moviehouse orchestra musicians found themselves out of work.[5] During the 1920s live musical performances by orchestras, pianists, and theater organists were common at first-run theaters[6] With the coming of the talking motion pictures, those featured performances were largely eliminated. The American Federation of Musicians took out newspaper advertisements protesting the replacement of live musicians with mechanical playing devices. One 1929 ad that appeared in the Pittsburgh Press features an image of a can labeled "Canned Music / Big Noise Brand / Guaranteed to Produce No Intellectual or Emotional Reaction Whatever" [7]
Since legislation introduced to help protect performers, composers, publishers and producers, including the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 in the United States, and the 1979 revised Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works in the United Kingdom, recordings and live performances have also become more accessible through computers, devices and internet in a form that is commonly known as music-on-demand.
In many cultures, there is less distinction between performing and listening to music, as virtually everyone is involved in some sort of musical activity, often communal. In industrialised countries, listening to music through a recorded form, such as sound recording or watching a music video, became more common than experiencing live performance, roughly in the middle of the 20th century.
Sometimes, live performances incorporate prerecorded sounds. For example, a DJ uses disc records for scratching, and some 20th-century works have a solo for an instrument or voice that is performed along with music that is prerecorded onto a tape. Computers and many keyboards can be programmed to produce and play MIDI music. Audiences can also become performers by participating in Karaoke, an activity of Japanese origin which centres around a device that plays voice-eliminated versions of well-known songs. Most karaoke machines also have video screens that show lyrics to songs being performed; performers can follow the lyrics as they sing over the instrumental tracks.
Business
- Main article: Music industry
The music industry refers to the business industry connected with the creation and sale of music. It consists of record companies, labels and publishers that distribute recorded music products internationally and that often control the rights to those products. Some music labels are "independent," while others are subsidiaries of larger corporate entities or international media groups.
Education
Primary
- Main article: Music education
The incorporation of music training from preschool to post secondary education is common in North America and Europe, because involvement in music is thought to teach basic skills such as concentration, counting, listening, and cooperation while also promoting understanding of language, improving the ability to recall information, and creating an environment more conducive to learning in other areas. [8] In elementary schools, children often learn to play instruments such as the recorder, sing in small choirs, and learn about the history of Western art music. In secondary schools students may have the opportunity to perform some type of musical ensembles, such as choirs, marching bands, concert bands, jazz bands, or orchestras, and in some school systems, music classes may be available. Some students also take private music lessons with a teacher. Amateur musicians typically take lessons to learn musical rudiments and beginner- to intermediate-level musical techniques.
At the university level, students in most arts and humanities programs can receive credit for taking music courses, which typically take the form of an overview course on the history of music, or a music appreciation course that focuses on listening to music and learning about different musical styles. In addition, most North American and European universities have some type of musical ensembles that non-music students are able to participate in, such as choirs, marching bands, or orchestras. The study of Western art music is increasingly common outside of North America and Europe, such as STSI in Bali, or the Classical music programs that are available in Asian countries such as South Korea, Japan, and China. At the same time, Western universities and colleges are widening their curriculum to include music of non-Western cultures, such as the music of Africa or Bali (e.g. Gamelan music).
Academia
- Main article: Musicology
Musicology is the study of the subject of music. The earliest definitions defined three sub-disciplines: systematic musicology, historical musicology, and comparative musicology. In contemporary scholarship, one is more likely to encounter a division of the discipline into music theory, music history, and ethnomusicology. Research in musicology has often been enriched by cross-disciplinary work, for example in the field of psychoacoustics. The study of music of non-western cultures, and the cultural study of music, is called ethnomusicology.
Graduates of undergraduate music programs can go on to further study in music graduate programs. Graduate degrees include the Master of Music, the Master of Arts, the PhD (e.g., in musicology or music theory), and more recently, the Doctor of Musical Arts, or DMA. The Master of Music degree, which takes one to two years to complete, is typically awarded to students studying the performance of an instrument, education, voice or composition. The Master of Arts degree, which takes one to two years to complete and often requires a thesis, is typically awarded to students studying musicology, music history, or music theory. Undergraduate university degrees in music, including the Bachelor of Music, the Bachelor of Music Education, and the Bachelor of Arts (with a major in music) typically take three to five years to complete. These degrees provide students with a grounding in music theory and music history, and many students also study an instrument or learn singing technique as part of their program.
The PhD, which is required for students who want to work as university professors in musicology, music history, or music theory, takes three to five years of study after the Master's degree, during which time the student will complete advanced courses and undertake research for a dissertation. The Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) is a relatively new degree that was created to provide a credential for professional performers or composers that want to work as university professors in musical performance or composition. The DMA takes three to five years after a Master's degree, and includes advanced courses, projects, and performances. In Medieval times, the study of music was one of the Quadrivium of the seven Liberal Arts and considered vital to higher learning. Within the quantitative Quadrivium, music, or more accurately harmonics, was the study of rational proportions.
Zoomusicology is the study of the music of non-human animals, or the musical aspects of sounds produced by non-human animals. As George Herzog (1941) asked, "do animals have music?" François-Bernard Mâche's Musique, mythe, nature, ou les Dauphins d'Arion (1983), a study of "ornitho-musicology" using a technique of Ruwet's Language, musique, poésie (1972) paradigmatic segmentation analysis, shows that bird songs are organised according to a repetition-transformation principle. Jean-Jacques Nattiez (1990), argues that "in the last analysis, it is a human being who decides what is and is not musical, even when the sound is not of human origin. If we acknowledge that sound is not organised and conceptualised (that is, made to form music) merely by its producer, but by the mind that perceives it, then music is uniquely human."
Music theory is the study of music, generally in a highly technical manner outside of other disciplines. More broadly it refers to any study of music, usually related in some form with compositional concerns, and may include mathematics, physics, and anthropology. What is most commonly taught in beginning music theory classes are guidelines to write in the style of the common practice period, or tonal music. Theory, even that which studies music of the common practice period, may take many other forms. Musical set theory is the application of mathematical set theory to music, first applied to atonal music. Speculative music theory, contrasted with analytic music theory, is devoted to the analysis and synthesis of music materials, for example tuning systems, generally as preparation for composition.
Ethnomusicology
- Main article: Ethnomusicology
In the West, much of the history of music that is taught deals with the Western civilization's art music. The history of music in other cultures ("world music" or the field of "ethnomusicology") is also taught in Western universities. This includes the documented classical traditions of Asian countries outside the influence of Western Europe, as well as the folk or indigenous music of various other cultures.
Popular styles of music varied widely from culture to culture, and from period to period. Different cultures emphasised different instruments, or techniques, or uses for music. Music has been used not only for entertainment, for ceremonies, and for practical and artistic communication, but also for propaganda in totalitarian countries.
There is a host of music classifications, many of which are caught up in the argument over the definition of music. Among the largest of these is the division between classical music (or "art" music), and popular music (or commercial music - including rock and roll, country music, and pop music). Some genres don't fit neatly into one of these "big two" classifications, (such as folk music, world music, or jazz music).
As world cultures have come into greater contact, their indigenous musical styles have often merged into new styles. For example, the United States bluegrass style contains elements from Anglo-Irish, Scottish, Irish, German and African instrumental and vocal traditions, which were able to fuse in the United States' multi-ethnic society. Genres of music are determined as much by tradition and presentation as by the actual music. While most classical music is acoustic and meant to be performed by individuals or groups, many works described as "classical" include samples or tape, or are mechanical.[original research?] Some works, like Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, are claimed by both jazz and classical music. Many current music festivals celebrate a particular musical genre.
Indian music, for example, is one of the oldest and longest living types of music, and is still widely heard and performed in South Asia, as well as internationally (especially since the 1960s). Indian music has mainly 3 forms of Classical music, Hindustani, Carnatic, and Dhrupad styles. It has also a large repertoire of styles, which involve only Percussion music such as the Tala-vadya performances famous in South India.
Sonu Nigam
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Music history of India
The origins of Indian classical music (marga), the classical music of India, can be found from the oldest of scriptures, part of the Hindu tradition, the Vedas. Samaveda, one of the four vedas describes music at length.
The two main streams of Indian classical music are Hindustani music, from North India, and Carnatic music from South India.
Music of India: Topics | |||||||||
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| |||||||||
Timeline and Samples | |||||||||
Genres | Classical (Carnatic and Hindustani) - Folk - Rock - Pop - Hip hop | ||||||||
Awards | Bollywood Music Awards - Punjabi Music Awards | ||||||||
Charts | |||||||||
Festivals | Sangeet Natak Akademi – Thyagaraja Aradhana – Cleveland Thyagaraja Aradhana | ||||||||
Media | Sruti, The Music Magazine | ||||||||
National anthem | "Jana Gana Mana", also national song "Vande Mataram" | ||||||||
Music of the states | |||||||||
Andaman and Nicobar Islands - Andhra Pradesh – Arunachal Pradesh – Assam – Bihar – Chhattisgarh – Goa – Gujarat – Haryana – Himachal Pradesh – Jammu – Jharkhand – Karnataka – Kashmir – Kerala – Madhya Pradesh – Maharashtra – Manipur – Meghalaya – Mizoram – Nagaland – Orissa – Punjab – Rajasthan – Sikkim – Tamil Nadu – Tripura – Uttar Pradesh – Uttaranchal – West Bengal |
Hindustani music
Hindustani music is predominantly more than its south Indian counterpart. The prime themes of Hindustani music are Rasa Lila (Hindu devotionals) of Krishna and Nature in all its splendour. Bhimsen Joshi, Ravi Shankar, Hariprasad Chaurasia and Zakir Hussain are the arts' most popular living performers. Carnatic music is similar to Hindustani music in that it is mostly improvised, but it is much more theoretical with stricter rules. It emphasizes more on the expertise of the voice rather than on the instruments. Primary themes include Devi worship, Rama worship, descriptions of temples and patriotic songs. Among the most popular living performers are Mangalampalli Balamuralikrishna, T V Sankaranarayanan, Madurai T N Seshagopalan and K J Yesudas.
Indian classical music is monophonic, and based around a single melody line. The performance of a composition, based melodically on one particular raga and rhythmically on one tala, begins with the performers coming out in a ritualized order -- drone instruments, then the soloist, then accompanists and percussionists. The musicians begin by tuning their instruments; this process often blends imperceptibly into the beginning of the music. Indian musical instruments used in classical music include veena, mridangam, tabla, kanjira, tambura, flute, sitar, gottuvadyam, violin and sarangi.
Carnatic music
Carnatic music or Karnatak music (Sanskrit कर्णाटक सङ्गीतं, Telugu కర్నాటక సంగీతం) is the classical music of South India, as opposed to the classical music of North India, called Hindustani music.
Carnatic music is largely devotional; most of the songs are addressed to the Hindu deities. There are a lot of songs emphasising love and other social issues.
As with all Indian music, the two main components of Carnatic music are raga, a melodic pattern and tala, a rhythmic pattern. (One might want to read these pages before proceeding.)
Carnatic music, whose foundation lies as far back as 2000 BC, began as a spiritual ritual of early Hinduism. It grew, along with Hindustani music, out of the Sama Veda tradition, until the Islamic invasions of North India in the late 12th century and early 13th century. From the 13th century onwards, there was a divergence in the forms of Indian music — the northern style being influenced by Arabic music (yet there are both Hindu and Muslim songs in Hindustani music.)
Carnatic music is named after the Southern region of the Indian subcontinent named by western colonists as Carnatic. This name was used to refer to the region between the Eastern Ghats and the Coromandel Coast encompassing much of what is called today as South India. Thus the term carnatic music was used to denote South Indian music.
See: Carnatic (region)
See also: Carnatic classical music
Alka Yagnik
![Alka Yagnik](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_F2dLIRhrzPw/RyQuhbRu2hI/AAAAAAAAAA4/jKIWi78iKCk/S658/216902_F.jpg)
Music of India
Music of India: Topics | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||||
Timeline and Samples | |||||||||
Genres | Classical (Carnatic and Hindustani) - Folk - Rock - Pop - Hip hop | ||||||||
Awards | Bollywood Music Awards - Punjabi Music Awards | ||||||||
Charts | |||||||||
Festivals | Sangeet Natak Akademi – Thyagaraja Aradhana – Cleveland Thyagaraja Aradhana | ||||||||
Media | Sruti, The Music Magazine | ||||||||
National anthem | "Jana Gana Mana", also national song "Vande Mataram" | ||||||||
Music of the states | |||||||||
Andaman and Nicobar Islands - Andhra Pradesh – Arunachal Pradesh – Assam – Bihar – Chhattisgarh – Goa – Gujarat – Haryana – Himachal Pradesh – Jammu – Jharkhand – Karnataka – Kashmir – Kerala – Madhya Pradesh – Maharashtra – Manipur – Meghalaya – Mizoram – Nagaland – Orissa – Punjab – Rajasthan – Sikkim – Tamil Nadu – Tripura – Uttar Pradesh – Uttaranchal – West Bengal |
The music of India includes multiple varieties of folk, popular, pop, and classical music. India's classical music tradition, including Carnatic and Hindustani music, has a history spanning millennia and, developed over several eras, remains fundamental to the lives of Indians today as sources of religious inspiration, cultural expression and pure entertainment. India is made up of several dozen ethnic groups, speaking their own languages and dialects.
Contents[hide] |
[edit] Pop music
- Main article: Indian pop
The biggest form of Indian pop music is filmi, or songs from Indian musical films. The Film industry of India supported music by according reverence to classical music while utilizing the western orchestration to support Indian melodies. Music composers like C. Ramchandra, Salil Chowdhary, S.D. Burman, Vasant Desai, Shankar Jaikishan emplyed the principles of harmony while retaining classical and folk flavor. Reputed names in the domain of Indian classical music like Pt. Ravishankar, Ustad Vilayat Khan, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan and Pt. Ramnarayan have also composed music for films. Independent pop acts such as Asha Bhosle, Alisha Chinai, Shaan, Sonu Nigam, Sukhwinder Singh, KK, Kunal Ganjawala, Sunidhi Chauhan, Alka Yagnik, Shreya Ghoshal and rock bands like Indus Creed, Indian Ocean[[1]], and Euphoria[[2]] exist and have gained mass appeal with the advent of cable music television.
Western fusions
In the late 1970s and early 1980s,people went crazy rock and roll fusions with Indian music were well-known throughout Europe and North America. Ali Akbar Khan's 1955 performance in the United States was perhaps the beginning of this trend, which was soon centred around Ravi Shankar.
In 1962, Shankar and Bud Shank, a jazz musician, released Improvisations and Theme From Pather Pachali and began fusing jazz with Indian traditions. Other jazz pioneers such as John Coltrane—who recorded a composition entitled 'India' during the November 1961 sessions for his album Live At The Village Vanguard (the track was not released until 1963 on Coltrane's album Impressions)—also embraced this fusion. George Harrison (of the Beatles) played the sitar on the song "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" in 1965, which sparked interest from Shankar, who subsequently took Harrison as his apprentice. Jazz innovator Miles Davis recorded and performed with musicians like Khalil Balakrishna, Bihari Sharma, and Badal Roy in his post-1968 electric ensembles. Other Western artists like the Grateful Dead, Incredible String Band, the Rolling Stones, the Move and Traffic soon incorporated Indian influences and instruments, and added Indian performers.
Guitarist (and former Miles Davis associate) John McLaughlin experimented with Indian music elements in his electric jazz-rock fusion group The Mahavishnu Orchestra, and pursued this with greater authenticity in the mid-1970s when he collaborated with L. Shankar, Zakir Hussain and others in the acoustic ensemble Shakti. The sole successful blending of classical music with western music was achieved by Ananda Shankar, son of Pt. Uday Shankar. The limits of such a fusion are narrow because the scales of western and Indian music differ.
Though the Indian music craze soon died down among mainstream audiences, diehard fans and immigrants continued the fusion. In the late 1980s, Indian-British artists fused Indian and Western traditions to make the Asian Underground.
In the new millennium, American hip-hop has featured Indian Filmi and Bhangra. Mainstream hip-hop artists have sampled songs from Jollywood movies and have collaborated with Indian artists. Examples include Timbaland's "Indian Flute", Erick Sermon and Redman's "React", Slum Village's "Disco", and Truth Hurts' hit song "Addictive", which sampled a Lata Mangeshkar song, and the Black Eyed Peas sampled Asha Bhosle's song "Yeh Mera Dil" in their hit single "Don't Phunk With My Heart". In 1997, the British band Cornershop paid tribute to Asha Bhosle with their song Brimful of Asha, which became an international hit. British-born Indian artist Panjabi MC also had a Bhangra hit in the U.S. with "Mundian To Bach Ke" which featured rapper Jay-Z. Asian Dub Foundation are not huge mainstream stars, but their politically-charged rap and punk rock influenced sound has a multi-racial audience in their native UK.
Rock & Metal music
- Main article: Indian rock
The rock music "scene" in India is extremely small when compared to filmi or fusion music "scenes" but has of recent years come into its own, achieving a cult status of sorts. Rock music in India has its origins in 1960s and 70's when international stars such as The Beatles visited India and brought their music with them. These artistes' collaboration with Indian musicians such as Ravi Shankar and Zakir Hussain have led to the development of Raga Rock. However Indian Rock Bands began to gain prominence only much later, around the late 1980s. It was around this time that the rock band Indus Creed formerly known as The Rock Machine got itself noticed on the international stage with hits like Rock N Roll Renegade. Other bands quickly followed. As of now, the rock music scene in India is quietly growing day by day and gathering more support. With the introduction of MTV in the early 1990s, Indians began to be exposed to various forms of rock such as grunge and speed metal. This influence can be clearly seen in many Indian bands today. The cities of Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore have emerged as major melting pots for rock and metal enthusiasts. Some prominent bands include Parikrama, Pentagram, Thermal and a Quarter, Zero, Half step down and Nexus. The future looks encouraging thanks to entities such as DogmaTone Records, that are dedicated to promoting and supporting Indian Rock.
Folk music
- Main article: Indian folk music
Maharashtra. This genre may be called by different names in other languages. Kannada Bhavageete draws from the poetry of modern, including Kuvempu, D.R. Bendre, Gopalakrishna Adiga , K.S. Narasimhaswamy, G.S. Shivarudrappa, K. S. Nissar Ahmed, N S Lakshminarayana Bhatta etc. Notable Bhavageete performers include P. Kalinga Rao, Mysore Ananthaswamy, C. Aswath, Shimoga Subbanna, Archana Udupa, Raju Ananthaswamy etc.
Brass bands
Brass bands Bhangra is a form of dance-oriented folk music that has become a pop sensation in the United Kingdom and North America. The present musical style is derived from the traditional musical accompaniment to the folk dance of Punjab called by the same name, bhangra.
Lavani
- Main article: Lavani
Lavani is a popular folk form of Maharashtra. Traditionally, the songs are sung by female artistes, but male artistes may occasionally sing Lavanis. The dance format associated with Lavani is known as Tamasha.
Dandiya
- Main article: Dandiya
Dandiya is a form of dance-oriented folk music that has also been adapted for pop music worldwide. The present musical style is derived from the traditional musical accompaniment to the folk dance of Dandiya called by the same name, dandiya. (DANDIYA means small sticks and are used in place of swords to train and practice martial art in form of dance by tribal in interior Gujarat in India. it is believed to be in practice since the days when Lord Krishna migrated from Mathura to Dwaraka.)
Rajasthan
Rajasthani has a very diverse cultural collection of musician castes, including Langas, Sapera, Bhopa, Jogi and Manganiyar. Rajasthan Diary quotes it as a soulful, full-throated music with Harmonious diversity. The haunting melody of Rajasthan evokes from a variety of delightfully primitive looking instruments. The stringed variety include the Sarangi, Rawanhattha, Kamayacha, Morsing and Ektara.Percussion instruments come in all shapes and sizes from the huge Nagaras and Dhols to the tiny Damrus. The Daf and Chang are a big favourite of the Holi (the festival of colours) revellers. Flutes and bagpipers come in local flavours such as Shehnai, Poongi, Algoza, Tarpi, Been and Bankia.
The essence of Rajasthani Music is derived from the creative symphony of string instruments, percussion instruments and wind instruments accompanied by melodious renditions of folk singers. It enjoys a respectable presence in Jollywood(Indian Film Fratenity) Music as well.
Bauls
The Bauls of Bengal were a mystical order of musicians in 18th, 19th and early 20th century India who played a form of music using a khamak, ektara and dotara. The word Baul comes from Sanskrit batul meaning divinely inspired insanity. They are a group of mystic minstrels. They are thought to have been influenced greatly by the Hindu tantric sect of the Kartabhajas as well as by Sufi sects. Bauls travel in search of the internal ideal, Maner Manush (Man of the Heart).
Classical music
- Main article: Indian classical music
The two main traditions of classical music have been Carnatic music, found predominantly in the peninsular regions and Hindustani music, found in the northern and central parts. While both traditions claim Vedic origin, history indicates that the two traditions diverged from a common musical root since c. 13th century. For more, see Indian classical music, Hindustani music and Carnatic music.
Hindustani music
Hindustani music is an Indian classical music tradition that took shape in northern India circa the 13th and 14th centuries AD from existing religious, folk, and theatrical performance practices. The practice of singing based on notes was popular even from the Vedic times where the hymns in Sama Veda, a sacred text, was sung as Samagana and not chanted. Developing a strong and diverse tradition over several centuries, it has contemporary traditions established primarily in India but also in Pakistan and Bangladesh. In contrast to Carnatic music, the other main Indian classical music tradition originating from the South, Hindustani music was not only influenced by ancient Hindu musical traditions, Vedic philosophy and native Indian sounds but also by the Persian performance practices of the Mughals.
Carnatic music
The present form of Carnatic music is based on historical developments that can be traced to the 15th - 16th centuries CE and thereafter. From the ancient Sanskrit works available, and the several epigraphical inscriptional evidences, the history of classical musical traditions can be traced back to about 2500 years.
Carnatic music is completely melodic, with improvised variations. The main emphasis is on vocal music; most compositions are written to be sung, and even when played on instruments, they are meant to be performed in a singing style (known as gāyaki). Like Hindustani music, Carnatic music rests on two main elements: rāga, the modes or melodic formulæ, and tāḷa, the rhythmic cycles.
Rabindra Sangeet
A towering figure of Indian music was Rabindranath Tagore. Writing in Bengali, he created a library of over 2,000 songs now known by Bengalis as rabindra sangeet whose form is primarily influenced by Hindustani classical thumri style. Many singers in West Bengal proudly base their entire careers on the singing of Tagore musical masterpieces.
Qawwali
- Main article: Qawwali
Qawwali is a Sufi form of devotional music based on the principles of Hindustani classical. It is performed with one or two lead singers, several chorus singers, harmonium, tabla, and dholak.
Further reading
- Killius, Rolf. Ritual Music and Hindu Rituals of Kerala. New Delhi: B.R. Rhythms, 2006..
- Manuel, Peter.. Thumri in Historical and Stylistic Perspectives. New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1989..
- Manuel, Peter.. Cassette Culture: Popular Music and Technology in North India. University of Chicago Press, 1993. ISBN 0-226-50401-8.
- Maycock, Robert and Hunt, Ken. "How to Listen - a Routemap of India". 2000. In Broughton, Simon and Ellingham, Mark with McConnachie, James and Duane, Orla (Ed.), World Music, Vol. 2: Latin & North America, Caribbean, India, Asia and Pacific, pp 63-69. Rough Guides Ltd, Penguin Books. ISBN 1-85828-636-0
- Hunt, Ken. "Ragas and Riches". 2000. In Broughton, Simon and Ellingham, Mark with McConnachie, James and Duane, Orla (Ed.), World Music, Vol. 2: Latin & North America, Caribbean, India, Asia and Pacific, pp 70-78. Rough Guides Ltd, Penguin Books. ISBN 1-85828-636-0.
- Raga-Rupanjali. Ratna Publications: Varanasi. 2007. A collection of Compositions of Sangeetendu Dr. Lalmani Misra by Dr. Pushpa Basu.
See also
References
External links
- AnsariMusic
- Online radio for Indian music: PopIndiaRadio
- Database of Indian Music [3]
- Indian Music Information [4]
- Vidushi Sumitra Guha [5]
- Filmi music
- www.sangeetonline.org Indian Classical Music Society
- From the University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections – Ethnomusicology Collection:
- Musical Instruments from India This page contains photographs of musical instruments from various regions in India as part of the Ethnomusicology Department’s international artists program.
Udit Narayan
![Udit Narayan](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_F2dLIRhrzPw/RyQvxrRu2iI/AAAAAAAAABA/ZGJnjS65BmM/S658/july05_uditnarayanshow.jpg)
Indian classical music
Indian Music | |
---|---|
Indian classical music | |
Hindustani music | |
Carnatic music | |
List of Carnatic composers | |
List of Carnatic singers | |
Concepts | |
Raga ·Thaat ·Melakarta · Katapayadi sankhya | |
Śruti · Swara · Saptak | |
Tala · Mudra ·Gharana |
The origins of Indian classical music can be found from the oldest of scriptures, part of the Hindu tradition, the Vedas. Samaveda, one of the four Vedas, describes music at length. Indian classical music has its origins as a meditation tool for attaining self realization. All different forms of these melodies (Ragas) are believed to affect various "chakras" (energy centers, or "moods") in the path of the "Kundalini". However, there is little mention of these esoteric beliefs in Bharat's Natyashastra, the first treatise laying down the fundamental principles of drama, dance and music. The Samaveda, one of the four Vedas, created out of Riga-Veda so that its hymns could be sung as Samagana established its first principles. Hindustani classical music has its origin as a form of meditation, though available mainly to an elite audience.
Indian classical music has one of the most complex and complete musical systems ever developed. Like Western classical music, it divides the octave into 12 semitones of which the 7 basic notes are Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni Sa, in order, replacing Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do. However, it uses the just intonation tuning.
Indian classical music is monophonic in nature and based around a single melody line which is played over a fixed drone. The performance is based melodically on particular ragas and rhythmically on talas.
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Shreya Ghoshal
![Shreya Ghoshal](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_F2dLIRhrzPw/RyQwwrRu2jI/AAAAAAAAABI/1q3O_obHb_I/S658/214088_F.jpg)
Rāga
This article does not cite any references or sources. (November 2006) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. |
Rāga (in Sanskrit "Raga" is literally "colour" or "mood") and (rāgam Carnatic music) refers to melodic modes used in Indian classical music.[1] In Indian music, a series of five or more musical notes upon which a melody is founded. In the Indian musical tradition, ragas are held in different times of the day. Indian classical music is always set in raga. Non-classical music such as popular Indian film songs sometimes use ragas in their compositions.
A ragini is an archaic term for the 'feminine' counterpart to raga.
Raga also is the ancient name of an Iranian city, nowadays called Shahr Ray.
Contents[hide] |
Nature of Raga
- योऽसौ ध्वनिविशेषस्तु स्वरवर्णविभूषितः ।
- रञ्जको जनचित्तानां स च राग उदाहृतः ।।
- "That which is a special dhvani, is bedecked with swara and varna and is colorful or delightful to the minds of the people, is said to be raga" - Matanga in the Brihaddesi.
Raga describes a generalised form of melodic practice. It also prescribes a set of rules for building the melody. It specifies the rules for movements up (aahroh [आरोहणम्]) and down (aavroh [अवरोहणम्]) the scale, which Swara (notes) should figure more and which notes should be used more sparingly, which notes may be sung with gamaka, phrases to be used, phrases to be avoided, and so on. The result is a framework that can be used to compose or improvise melodies, allowing for endless variation within the set of notes.
The basic mode of reference is that which is equivalent to the Western Ionian mode (this is called Bilawal thaat in Hindustani music and Shankarabharanam in Carnatic music). All relationships between pitches follow from this basic arrangement of intervals. In any given seven-tone mode, the second, third, sixth, and seventh notes can be natural (shuddha, lit. 'pure') or flat (komal, 'soft') but never sharpened, and the fourth note can be natural or sharp (tivra) but never flattened, making up the twelve notes in the Western equal tempered chromatic scale (but without Western pitch equivalences like, for example, A# and Bb). A Western-style C scale could therefore theoretically have the notes C, Db, D, Eb, E, F, F#, G, Ab, A, Bb, B. Ragas can also specify microtonal changes to this scale: a flatter second, a sharper seventh, and so forth. Treatises from the first millennium report that the octave used to be divided theoretically into 22 microtones ("shrutis"), but by the 16th century, this practice seems to have died out. Furthermore, individual performers treat pitches quite differently, and the precise intonation of a given note depends on melodic context. There is no absolute pitch (such as the modern western standard A = 440 Hz); instead, each performance simply picks a ground note, which also serves as the drone, and the other scale degrees follow relative to the ground note.
Ragas and their seasons
Some Hindustani (North Indian) ragas are prescribed a time of day or a season. During the monsoon, for example, many of the Malhar group of ragas --associated with the monsoon-- are performed. However these prescriptions are not strictly followed. There has also been a growing tendency over the last century for North Indian musicians to adopt South Indian Ragas. These do not come with any particular time attached to them. The result of these various influences is that there is increasing flexibility as to when ragas may be performed.
Notations
Although notes are an important part of raga practice, they alone do not make the raga. A raga is more than a scale. Many ragas share the same scale. The underlying scale may have five, six or seven tones made up of swaras. Ragas that have five swaras are called audava (औडव) ragas; those with six, shaadava (षाडव); and with seven, sampoorna (संपूर्ण) (Sanskrit for 'complete'). Those ragas that do not follow the strict ascending or descending order of swaras are called vakra (वक्र) ('crooked') ragas.
Northern and Southern differences
The two streams of Indian classical music, Carnatic music and Hindustani music, have independent sets of ragas. There is some overlap, but more "false friendship" (where raga names overlap, but raga form does not). In north India, the ragas have recently been categorised into ten thaats or parent scales (by Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande, 1860-1936); South India uses a somewhat older, more systematic classification scheme called the melakarta classification, with 72 parent (melakarta) ragas. Overall there is a greater identification of raga with scale in the south than in the north, where such an identification is impossible.
As ragas were transmitted orally from teacher to student, some ragas can vary greatly across regions, traditions and styles. There have been efforts to codify and standardize raga performance in theory from their first mention in Matanga's Brhaddesi (c. tenth century).
Carnatic Raga
In Carnatic music ragas are classified as Janaka ragas and Janya ragas. Janaka ragas are the ragas from which the Janya ragas are created. Janaka ragas are grouped together using a scheme called Katapayadi sutra and are organised as Melakarta ragas. A Melakarta Raga is one which has all seven notes in both the ārōhanam (ascending scale) and avarōhanam (descending scale). Some Melakarta Ragas are Sankarabharanam, Maaya Malava Gowla, Kalyani etc. Janya ragas are derived from the Janaka ragas using a combination of the swarams in the parent raga.
Each raga has a definite collection and orders of Swaras (the basic notes). In Carnatic music, there are 7 basic notes of which there are 12 varieties. The seven basic swarams of carnatic music are: Sa, Ri, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni.
The Rare Ones
Various schools known in the past as Gharana-s have exhibited a penchant for some special Raga-s. They worked on these Raga-s so that a particular Raga attained a height hitherto unachieved. These special Raga-s would be taught to a capable pupil alone, often the maestro's son or nephew. Because of this several of such Raga-s though liked by audience were not chosen by the artistes as they required precision to handle the complexity. These Raga-s gradually fell out of use and were known as Aprachalit Raga-s.
Notes
- ^ "Raag" is the modern Hindi pronunciation used by Hindustani musicians;
[edit] References
External links
- Musical Nirvana --includes some introductory material, raga descriptions, artist biographies and discographies, and a glossary; information on both Hindustani and Carnatic music.
- ITC Sangeet Research Academy --scholarly organization devoted to the promotion of Hindustani classical music; includes information on artists past and present, Hindustani sangeet (theory), and current events in the Indian classical world.
- Raga Ranjani School of Music --a non-profit organization to promote Indian classical music in Southern California, thorough workshops, classes, and concerts.
- Krsna Kirtana Songs Ragamala --an informative database with over ninety ragas (audio clips coming soon), tutorial on the North Indian notation system, raga classification, and explanation of how ragas work.
See also
Melody type, Maqam, makam, echos, muqam, and musical mode.
- Raga, a documentary about the life and music of Ravi Shankar
- Sitar
- Raga-rang
- Raga-Rupanjali. Ratna Publications: Varanasi. 2007. A collection of Compositions of Sangeetendu Dr. Lalmani Misra by Dr. Pushpa Basu.
Hindustani classical music
Indian Music | |
---|---|
Indian classical music | |
Hindustani music | |
Carnatic music | |
List of Carnatic composers | |
List of Carnatic singers | |
Concepts | |
Raga ·Thaat ·Melakarta · Katapayadi sankhya | |
Śruti · Swara · Saptak | |
Tala · Mudra ·Gharana |
Hindustani Classical Music is a North Indian classical music tradition that has been evolving from the 12th centuries AD onwards, in what is now northern India and Pakistan, and also Bangladesh, Nepal and Afghanistan. The tradition was born out of a cultural synthesis from several musical streams: the vedic chant tradition dating back to approx. one millenia BCE[1], the equally ancient Persian tradition of Musiqi-e assil, and also existant folk traditions prevalent in the region. The terms North Indian Classical Music or Shāstriya Sangeet are also occasionally used.
Around the 12th century, Hindustani classical music diverged from the principle which eventually came to be identified as Carnatic classical music. The central notions in both these systems is that of a melodic mode or raga, sung to a rhythmic cycle or tala. The tradition dates back to the ancient Samaveda, (lit. sāma=ritual chant), which deals with the norms for chanting of srutis or hymns such as the Rig Veda. These principles were refined in the Natyashastra by Bharata (2nd-3d c. CE) and the Dattilam (probably 3d-4th c. AD)[2]. In medieval times, many of the melodic systems were fused with ideas from Persian music, particularly through the influence of sufi composers like Amir Khusro, and later in the Moghul courts. Noted composers such as Tansen flourished, along with religious groups like the Vaishnavites. After the 16th century, the singing styles diversifed into different gharanas patronized in different princely courts. Around 1900, Pandit Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande consolidated the musical structures of Hindustani Classical music into a number of thaats. In the 20th century, Hindustani classical music has become popular across the world through the influence of artistes like Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan and many others.
Indian classical music has 7 basic notes (Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni), with five interspersed half-notes, resulting in a 12-note scale. Unlike the 12-note scale in Western music, the base frequency of the scale is not fixed, and intertonal gaps (temper) may also vary; however with the gradual replacement of the sarangi by the harmonium, an equal tempered scale is increasingly used. The performance is set to a melodic pattern (raga or raag) characterized in part by specific ascent (Arohana) and descent (Avarohana sequences, which may not be identical. Other characteristics include King (Vadi) and Queen (Samvadi) notes and a unique note phrase (Pakad). In addition each raga has its natural register (Ambit) and glissando (Meend) rules, as well as features specific to different styles and compositions within the raga structure. Performances are usually marked by considerable improvision within these norms.
It is traditional for performers who have reached a distinguished level of achievement, to be awarded titles of respect; Hindus are usually referred to as Pandit and Muslims as Ustad. An interesting aspect of hindustani music going back to sufi times, is the tradition of religious neutrality: muslim ustads singing hindu bhajans, or the opposite, is quite common.
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History
Music was first formalized in India in connection with preserving the sruti texts, primarily the four vedas, which are seen as apaurasheya (lit. un-created by man). Not only was the text important, but also the manner in which they had been enunciated by the immortals. Prosody and chanting were thus of great importance, and were ensrhined in the two vedangas (bodies of knowledge) called Shiksha (pronunciation, chants) and Chhandas (prosody); these remained a key part of the the brahminic educational system till modern times. The formal aspects of the chant are delineated in the Samaveda, with certain aspects, e.g. the relation of chanting to meditation, elaborated in the Chandogya Upanishad (ca. 8th c. BC). Priests involved in these ritual chants were called Samans and a number of ancient musical instruments such as conch (shankh), lute (veena), flute (bansuri), trumptets and horns were associated with this and latter practices of ritual singing.
Sanskritic Tradition
The Samaveda outlined the ritual chants for singing the verses of the Rig veda, particularly for offerings of Soma. proposed a tonal structure consisting of seven notes, which were named, in descending order, as Krusht, Pratham, Dwitiya, Tritiya, Chaturth, Mandra and Atiswār. These refer to the notes of a flute, which was the only fixed frequency instrument. This is why the second note is called pratham (lit. first, i.e. note when only first hole is closed).
Music is dealt with extensively in the Valmiki Ramayana; Narada is an accomplished musician, as is Ravana; Saraswati with her veena is the goddess of music. In the Mahabharata, music is more secular; the gandharvas are presented as spirits who are musical masters, and the gandharva style looks to music primarily for pleasure, accompanied by the soma rasa. In the Vishnudharmottara Purana, the Naga king Ashvatara asks to know the svaras from Saraswati.
The most important text on music in the ancient canon is Bharata's Natya Shastra, composed around the 3d c. CE. The Natya Shastra deals with the different modes of music, dance, and drama, and also the emotional responses (rasa) they are expected to evoke. The scale is described in terms of 22 micro-tones, which can be combined in clusters of 4, 3, or two to form an octave.
While the term raga is articulated in the Natya Shastra (where it's meaning is more literal, colour, as in the mood), it finds a clearer expression in what is called jati in the Dattilam, a text composed shortly after or around the same time as Natya Shastra. The Dattilam is focused on gandharva music, and discusses scales (swara), defining a tonal framework called grama in terms of 22 micro-tonal intervals (sruti[3]) comprising one ocave. It also discusses various arrangements of the notes (murchhana), the permutations and combinations of note-sequences (tanas), and alankara or elaboration. Dattilam categorizes melodic structure into 18 groups called jati, which are the fundamental melodic structures similar to the raga. The names of the jatis reflect regional origins, e.g. andhri, oudichya.
Music also finds mention in a number of texts from the Gupta period; Kalidasa mentions several kinds of veena (Parivadini, Vipanchi), as well as percussion instruments (Mridang), the flute (Vamshi) and conch (Shankha). Music also finds mention in Buddhist and Jaina texts from the earliest periods of the Christian era.
Narada's Sangita Makarandha treatise circa 1100 CE is the earliest text where rules similar to the current Hindustani classical music can be found. Narada actually names and classifies the system in its earlier form before the advent of changes as a result of Persian influences. Jayadeva's Gita Govinda from the 12th century was perhaps the earliest musical composition presently known sung in the classical tradition called Ashtapadi music.
In the 13th century, Sharngadeva composed the Sangita Ratnakara, which has names such as the turushka todi (Turkish todi), revealing an influx of ideas from the Islamic influx. This text is the last to be mentioned by both the Carnatic and the Hindustani traditions, and is often thought to date the divergence between the two.
Medieval Period: Persian influence
The advent of Islamic rule under the Delhi Sultanate and later the Mughal Empire over northern India caused considerable cultural interchange. Increasingly, musicians received patronage in the courts of the new rulers, who in their turn, started taking increasing interest in local music forms. The initial generations may have been rooted in a cultural traditions outside India, gradually, they adopted many aspects from their kingdoms which retained the traditional Hindu culture. This helped spur the fusion of Hindu and Muslim ideas to bring forth new forms of musical synthesis like qawwali and khayal.
The most influential musician from the Delhi Sultanate period was Amir Khusrau (1253-1325), sometimes called the father of Hindustani classical music[4]. A prolific composer in Persian, Turkish, Arabic, as well as Braj Bhasha, he is credited with systematizing many aspects of Hindustani music, and also introducing the ragas Zeelaf and Sarparda. He created the genre of the qawwali, which fuses Persian melody and beat on a dhrupad like structure. A number of instruments (such as the sitar) were also introduced in his time.
Amir Khusrau is sometimes credited with the origins of the khayal form, but the record of his compositions do not appear to support this. It is possible that the word khayal was a corruption of qawwali, but it is more likely that it has a separate etymolgy (the Arabic word khyal means mood or capriciousness). The compositions by the court musician Niyamat Khan (Sadarang) in the court of Muhammad Shah 'Rangiley' bear a closer affinity to the modern khyal, and suggests that 'Sadarang' may have been the father of modern day 'Khayal'.
Much of the musical forms innovated by these pioneers merged with the Hindu tradition, composed in the popular language of the people (as opposed to Sanskrit) in the work of composers like Kabir or Nanak. This can be seen as part of a larger Bhakti tradition, (strongly related to the Vaishnavite movement) which remained influential across several centuries; notable figures include Jayadeva (11th century), Vidyapati (1375 AD), Chandidas (14th-15th century), and Meerabai (1555-1603 AD).
As the Mughal Empire came into closer contact with Hindus, especially under Jalal ud-Din Akbar, music and dance also flourished. Particularly, the legendary musician Tansen is recognized as having introduced a number of innovations, ragas as well as particular compositions. Legend has it that upon his rendition of a night-time raga in the morning, the entire city fell under a hush and clouds gathered in the sky, or that he could light fires by singing raga Deepak, which is supposed to be composed of notes in high octaves.
At the royal house of Gwalior, Raja Mansingh Tomar (1486-1516 AD) also participated in the shift from Sanskrit to the local idiom (Hindi) as the language for classical songs. He himself penned several volumes of compositions on religious and secular themes, and was also responsible for the major compilation, the Mankutuhal (book of curiosity), which outlined the major forms of music prevalent at the time. In particular, the musical form known as dhrupad saw considerable development in his court and remained a strong point of the Gwalior gharana for many centuries.
After the dissolution of the Mughal empire, the patronage of music continued in smaller princely kingdoms like Lucknow, Patiala, Banaras, giving rise to the diversity of styles that is today known as gharanas. Many musician families obtained large grants of land which made them self sufficient, at least for a few generations (e.g. the Sham Chaurasia gharana). Meanwhile the Bhakti and Sufi traditions continued to develop, and interact with the different gharanas and groups.
Modern era
In the 20th century, the power of the maharajahs and nawabs declined, and so did their patronage. With the expulsion of Wajid Ali Shah to [[Calcutta] after 1857, the Lucknavi musical tradition came to influence the music of renaissance Bengal, giving rise to the tradition of Ragpradhan gan around the turn of the century.
In the early 20th century, Pandit Vishnu Digambar Paluskar emerged as an extremely talented musician and organizer (despite having been blinded at age 12). His books on music, as well as the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya music school that he opened in Lahore in 1901 helped foster a movement away from the closed gharana system.
Paluskar's contemporary (and occasional rival) 'Chaturpandit' Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande recognized the many rifts that had appeared in the structure of Indian classical music. He undertook extensive research visits to a large number of gharanas, Hindustani as well as Carnatic, collecting and comparing compositions. Between 1909 and 1932, he brought out the monumental Hindustani Sangeetha Padhathi (4 vols)[5], which suggested a transcription for Indian music and described the many traditions in this notation. Finally, it consolidated the many musical forms of Hindustani Classical music into a number of thaats, a system that had been proposed in the Carnatic tradition in the 17th century. The Ragas as we know them today were consolidated in this landmark work.
In modern times, the government-run All India Radio and Radio Pakistan helped to bring the artistes in front of the public, countering the loss of the patronage system. The first star was Gauhar Jan, whose career was born out of Fred Gaisberg's first recordings of Indian music in 1902. With the advance of films and other public media, musicians started to make their living through public performances. With exposure to Western music, some of these melodies also started merging with classical forms, especially in the stream of popular music. A number of gurukuls, such as that of Alauddin Khan at Maihar, flourished. In more modern times, corporate support has also been forthcoming (e.g. the ITC Sangeet Research Academy).
Vocal music
Hindustani classical music is primarily vocal-centric, insofar as the musical forms were designed primarily for vocal performance, and many instruments were designed and evaluated as to how well they emulate the human voice.
Types of compositions
The major vocal forms-cum-styles associated with Hindustani classical music are dhrupad, khayal, and thumri. Other forms include the dhamar, tarana, trivat, chaiti, kajari, tappa, tapkhayal, ashtapadi, ghazal and bhajan. Of these, some forms fall within the crossover to folk or semi-classical ('light' classical) music, as they often do not adhere to the rigorous rules and regulations of 'pure' classical music.
[edit] Dhrupad
Dhrupad is the Hindu sacred style of singing, traditionally performed by male singers. It is performed with a tanpura and a pakhawaj as instrumental accompaniments. The lyrics, which were in Sanskrit centuries ago, are presently sung in Brajbhasha, a medieval form of Hindi that was spoken in Mathura. The Rudra Veena, an ancient string instrument, is used in instrumental music in the style of Dhrupad.
Dhrupad music is primarily devotional in theme and content. It contains recitals in praise of particular deities. Dhrupad compositions begin with a relatively long and acyclic Alap, where the syllables of the mantra "Om Anant tam Taran Tarini Twam Hari Om Narayan, Anant Hari Om Narayan" is recited. The alap gradually unfolds into a more rhythmic Jod and Jhala sections. This is followed by a rendition of Bandish, with the pakhawaj as an accompaniment. The greatest of Indian musicians, Tansen sung in the Dhrupad style. A lighter form of Dhrupad, called Dhamar, is sung primarily during the festival of Holi.
Dhrupad was the main form of northern Indian classical music until two centuries ago, but has since then given way to the somewhat less austere, khyal, a more free-form style of singing. Since losing its main patrons among the royalty in Indian princely states, Dhrupad ran the risk of becoming extinct in the first half of the twentieth century. Fortunately, the efforts by a few proponents from the Dagar family have led to its revival and eventual popularization in India and in the West.
Some of the best known vocalists who sing in the Dhrupad style are the members of the Dagar lineage, including the late Senior Dagar brothers, i.e. Us. Nasir Moinuddin Dagar and Us. Nasir Aminuddin Dagar, the late Junior Dagar brothers, i.e. Us. Nasir Zahiruddin and Us. Nasir Faiyazuddin Dagar, Us. Wasifuddin Dagar, Us. Fariduddin Dagar, Us. Sayeeduddin Dagar. Other leading exponents include Dr. Ritwik Sanyal, Pt. Uday Bhawalkar, and the Gundecha brothers, i.e. Ramakant and Umakant Gundecha, who have received training from some of the Dagars. Leading vocalists outside the Dagar lineage include the Mallik family.
Khyal
A form of vocal music, khayal is almost entirely improvised and very emotional in nature. A khyal consists of around 4-8 lines of lyrics set to a tune. The singer then uses these few lines as the basis for improvisation. Though its origins are shrouded in mystery, the 15th century rule of Hussain Shah Sharqi and was popular by the 18th century rule of Mohammed Shah. The best-known composer of the period was Sadarang, a pen name for Niamat KhanAdarang,Manrang and kadar bakhsha,Nisar Hussain Khan Gwalior wale..
Later performers include Ustad Alladiya Khan, Abdul Karim Khan, Pt.Dattatreya Vishnu Paluskar, Faiyaz Khan, Pt.Vinayak Rao Patwardhan, Pt. Shankar Rao Vyas, Pt.Narain Rao Vyas, Ut.Nazakat Ali And Ut. Salamat Ali Khan, Pt.Eknath Sarolkar, Pt.Kashinath Pant Marathe, Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Kesarbai Kerkar, Mogubai Kurdikar, Krishnarao Shankar Pandit, Amir Khan, Pt. Gajananrao Joashi, Pt. Ram Marathe, Pt. Ratnakar Pai, Kumar Gandharva, Jitendra Abhisheki, Pt. A. Kanan and Mallikarjun Mansur.
Some of the present day vocalists are Bhimsen Joshi, Gangubai Hangal, Pt. Yeshwantbua Joshi, Girija Devi, Kishori Amonkar, Pandit Jasraj, Satyasheel Deshpande, Ustad Iqbal Ahmad Khan, Dr. Rajshekhar Mansur, Pt Ulhas Kashalkar, Pt. Arun Bhaduri, Malini Rajurkar, Prabakar Karekar, Rashid Khan, Aslam Khan, Sanjeev Abhyankar, Shruti Sadolikar, Ashwini Bhide, Ajay Pohankar, Chandrashekar Swami, Pt. Venkatesh Kumar, Mashkoor Ali Khan,Vidushi Subhra Guha,Pt. Parameshwar Hegde, Indrani Choudhury, Pt. Ganapathi Bhat.
Tarana
Another vocal form, Tarana are songs that are used to convey a mood of elation and are usually performed towards the end of a concert. They consist of a few lines of rhythmic sounds or bols set to a tune. The singer uses these few lines as a basis for very fast improvisation. It can be compared to the Tillana of Carnatic music.
Thumri
Thumri is a semiclassical vocal form said to have begun with the court of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, 1847-1856. There are three types of thumri: Punjabi, Lucknavi and poorab ang thumri. The lyrics are typically in a proto-Hindi language called Braj bhasha and are usually romantic.
Ghazal
Ghazal is an originally Persian form of poetry. In the Indian sub-continent, Ghazal became the most common form of poetry in the Urdu language and was popularized by classical poets like Mir Taqi Mir, Ghalib, Zauq and Sauda amongst the North Indian literary elite. Vocal music set to this mode of poetry is popular with multiple variations across Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia, Turkey, India and Pakistan. Ghazal exists in multiple variations, including folk and pop forms but its greatest exponents sing it in a semi-classical style..
Instrumental music
Although Hindustani music clearly is focused on the vocal performance, instrumental forms have existed since ancient times. In fact, in recent decades, especially outside South Asia, instrumental Hindustani music is arguably more popular than vocal music, perhaps because the lyrics in the latter are not comprehensible.
A number of musical instruments are associated with Hindustani classical music. The veena, a string instrument, was traditionally regarded as the most important, but few play it today and it has largely been superseded by its cousins the sitar and the sarod, both of which owe their origin to Persian influences. Other plucked/struck string instruments include the surbahar, sursringar, santoor and various versions of the slide guitar. Among bowed instruments, the sarangi, esraj (or dilruba) and violin are popular. The bansuri (bamboo flute), shehnai and harmonium are important wind instruments. In the percussion ensemble, the tabla and the pakhavaj are the most popular. Various other instruments (including the banjo and the piano) have also been used in varying degrees.
Some representative performers (these lists are by no means comprehensive nor are intended to be):
- Veena: Dabir Khann, Birendra Kishore Roy Chowdhury, Zia Mohiuddin Dagar, Bahauddin Dagar, Asad Ali Khan, Suvir Misra, Jeff Lewis
- Vichitra Veena: Dr. Lalmani Misra, Pt. Gopal Krishna, Dr. Gopal Shankar Misra,Mrs.Radhika Budhkar
- Sitar: Imdad Khan, Enayet Khan, Wahid Khan, Mushtaq Ali Khan Ravi Shankar, Vilayat Khan, Nikhil Banerjee,Manilal Nag, Purnendu Shekhar Sengupta(Kanu Babu), Rais Khan, Abdul Halim Jaffer Khan, Imrat Khan, Shahid Parvez, Indranil Bhattacharya, Santosh Banerjee, Kalyani Roy, Budhaditya Mukherjee, Sanjoy Bandopadhyay, Kartik Seshadri, Shriram umdekar Purbayan Chatterjee
- Sarod: Allauddin Khan, Brij Narayan, Hafiz Ali Khan, Radhika Mohan Moitra, Timir Baran, Ali Akbar Khan, Jatin Bhattacharya, Buddhadev Das Gupta, Vasant Rai, Sharan Rani, Dhyanesh Khan, Aashish Khan, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan,Mukesh Sharma
- Surbahar: Imdad Khan, Wahid Khan, Enayet Khan, Annapurna Devi, Imrat Khan
- Shehnai: Bismillah Khan, Ali Ahmed Khan
- Bansuri: Pannalal Ghosh, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Raghunath Seth, Bari Siddiqui
- Santoor: Shivkumar Sharma,Tarun Bhattachrya, Bhajan Sopori, Omprakash Chaurasiya
- Sarangi: Ram Narayan, Bundu Khan, Ustad Sultan Khan, Abdul Latif Khan
- Esraj: Ashesh Bandopadhyay, Ranadhir Roy
- Violin: Parur Sundaram Iyer,V. G. Jog, Gajananrao Joshi, N. Rajam, Allaudin Khan, L. Shankar, L. Subramaniam, Kala Ramnath, Sisir Kana Dhar Choudhury
- Harmonium: Pt. Gyan Prakash Gosh,Pt. Manohar Chimote,Ustad Zamir Ahmed Khan,Ustad Bhure Khan
- Tabla: Gyan Prokash Ghosh,Shankar Ghosh,Ahmed Jan Thirakwa, Anindo Chaterjee, Chatur Lal, Shamta Prasad, Kanthe Maharaj, Alla Rakha, Arup Chattopadhyay, Anokhelal Misra, Keramatullah Khan, Kishen Maharaj, Zakir Hussain, Aban E. Mistry, Yogmaya Shukla,Shubhankar Banerjee, Subrata Bhattacharya, Debashis Choudhury.
- Guitar, slide (modified): Brij Bhushan Kabra, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Debashish Bhattacharya
Principles of Hindustani music
The rhythmic organization is based on rhythmic patterns called tala. The melodic foundations are "melodic modes" called thaats, thats are part of "musical personalities" called ragas. Thaat and Raga are often mixed and confused. See the early 20th century musicological research of Bhatkhande for further details.
Thaats - and so Ragas - may consist of up to seven scale degrees, or swara. Hindustani musicians name these pitches using a system called sargam, the equivalent of Western movable do solfege:
sa = do
re = re
ga = mi
ma = fa
pa = sol
dha= la
ni = ti
sa = do
Both systems repeat at the octave. The difference between sargam and solfege is that re, ga, ma, dha, and ni can refer to either "pure" (shuddh) or altered--"flat/soft" (komal) or "sharp" (tivra)--versions of their respective scale degrees. As with movable do solfege, the notes are heard relative to an arbitrary tonic that varies from performance to performance, rather than to fixed frequencies, as on a xylophone.
The fine intonational differences between different instances of the same swara are sometimes called śruti. The three primary registers of Indian classical music are Mandra, Madhya and Tara. Since the octave location is not fixed, it is also possible to use provenances in mid-register (such as Madra-Madhya or Madhya-Tara) for certain ragas. A typical rendition of Hindustani raga involves 2 stages:
Alap - a rhythmically free improvising to the rules for the raag in order to give life to the raga, shape out its characteristics, further divisible into alap, jod and jhala.
Bandeesh/Gat: a fixed composition set in a specific raga, performed with rhythmic accompaniment by a tabla or pakhavaj. There are different ways of systematizing the parts of a composition, either:
1.sthay,
2.antara,
3.samcari,
4.abhog.
or lets say:
A slow composition
B variations of the composition
C fast composition
D variations on the fast interpretation
E speeding up, excelling more and more in performance til end
See also
External links
- ITC Sangeet Research Academy
- Imagination Concept in Indian Classical Music
- Patiala Gharana Classical Music Academy of Pakistan
- Pt. Vishawanath Rao Ringe "tanarang"
- Indian Classical Music for the Subtle system or the chakras
- Patrick Moutal Indian Music Page
- [http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~mrahaim/ Online Tanpura Recordings (Very good tanpura recordings that are long in length. I have checked the tuning of the tanpura recordings with the program Finale Notepad. I found that the C# sa-pa is out of tune, but everything else is fine. I recommend using the Sa-Pa versions for better practice. Sa-Ma tunings are good for Ragas without a Pa or where the Ma is a important note. There is also a link on this page to more tanpura recordings. On the linked page, all the tanpura recordings starting with the name Shruti are out of tune according to Finale Notepad. All the ones that say 1 min or 8 min are in tune. All the recordings on this website are Sa-Pa.)
- Indian Music Research Material by Scholars
- Rajan Parrikar's Indian Music Articles
- Chandra and David Courtney's Indian Music Info Site
- Omenad, A website for Online Indian Music Education
- Musical Nirvana, A Site with biographies of musicians. Also info about instruments, Ragas and much more.
- Biswabrata Chakrabarti, a wonderful sitar player with a beautiful website
- Music India Online, a site to listen to Indian music and read articles
- SwarGanga, Indian classical music site. Has a raga and tala database with other interesting features
- A Dhrupad Site, giving information about Dhrupad and the Gundecha Brothers
- [http://sarangi.info/ Sarangi, A site with Indian music clippings. The clippings are of Vocal or Sarangi. The Site has also articles, videos, and a gallery.
- Films Division, A site with Indian music documentaries. Search under the category "Music of India" and will get a listing of many videos to watch
- Ragapedia, an online music notation editor for Sargam notation which also will create high quality western notation and midi from Sargam
- Raga-Rupanjali. Ratna Publications: Varanasi. 2007. A collection of Compositions of Sangeetendu Dr. Lalmani Misra by Dr. Pushpa Basu.
Video
- MehfilTube (Hindustani classical and semi-classical videos)
- BeenkarTube (Dhrupad, Dhamar and Veena videos)
Lata Mangeshkar
![Lata Mangeshkar](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_F2dLIRhrzPw/RySij7Ru2nI/AAAAAAAAABo/4JGOqr0YEao/S658/MANTDBL510.jpg)
Carnatic music
This article contains Indic text. Without rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes or other symbols instead of Indic characters; or irregular vowel positioning and a lack of conjuncts. |
Carnatic music, also known as karṇāṭaka sangītam is one of the two styles of Indian classical music, the other being Hindustani music. The present form of Carnatic music is based on historical developments that can be traced to the 15th - 16th centuries CE and thereafter. From the several epigraphical inscriptional evidences and other ancient works[1], the history of classical musical traditions can be traced back about 2500 years.
Carnatic music is completely melodic, with improvised variations. The main emphasis is on vocal music; most compositions are written to be sung, and even when played on instruments, they are meant to be performed in a singing style (known as gāyaki).[2]
Like Hindustani music, Carnatic music rests on two main elements: rāga, the modes or melodic formulæ, and tāḷa, the rhythmic cycles.[3]
Carnatic music | |
---|---|
IAST | karṇāṭaka sangītam |
IPA | kʌrˈnɑːʈʌkʌ ˌsʌŋˈgiːt̪ʌ |
Sanskrit | कर्णाटक सङ्गीतं |
Kannada | ಕರ್ನಾಟಕ ಸಂಗೀತ |
Malayalam | കര്ണാടക സംഗീതം |
Tamil | கருநாடக இசை |
Telugu | కర్నాటక సంగీతం |
Topics | |
Timeline | |
Instruments | Veena - Mridangam - Ghatam - Morsing - Kanjira - Violin |
Awards | Sangeetha Kalanidhi - Sangeetha Choodamani |
Events | |
Festivals | Purandaradasa Aradhane – Kanakadasa Aradhane – Hampi Sangeetotsava – Sangeet Natak Akademi – Thyagaraja Aradhana – Cleveland Thyagaraja Aradhana |
Media | Sruti, The Music Magazine |
Compositions | Varnam - Kriti - Geetham - Swarajati - Ragam Thanam Pallavi - Thillana - Padam - Javali - Mangalam |
Famous Carnatic Musicians | |
Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar • Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavatar • Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer • D. K. Pattammal • M. S. Subbulakshmi • Maharajapuram Viswanatha Iyer • Lalgudi Jayaraman • M.S.Gopalakrishnan • T.N.Krishnan • M.D.Ramanathan • M.Balamuralikrishna • M. L. Vasanthakumari • K. J. Yesudas |
Contents[hide] |
Origins and history
- See also: List of Carnatic music treaties
Like all art forms in Indian culture, Carnatic Music is believed to have a divine origin - it is believed to have originated from the Devas and Devis.[4] However, it is also generally accepted that the natural origins of music were an important factor in the development of Carnatic music. [4] Ancient treatises describe the connection of the origin of swaras to the sounds of animals and birds, and man’s keen sense of observation and perception that tried simulating these sounds - after hearing and distinguishing between the different sounds that emanated from bamboo reed when air passes through its hollows, man designed the first flute. In this way, music is venerated as an aspect of the supreme (nāda brāhmam)[5]. Folk music is also said to have been a natural origin of Carnatic music, with many folk tunes corresponding to certain Carnatic ragas (discussed later).[4]
The Vedas are generally accepted as the main probable source of Indian music. The Sama Veda is said to have laid the foundation for Indian music, and consists mainly of hymns of Rigveda, set to musical tunes which would be sung using three to seven musical notes during Vedic sacrifices.[4] The Yajur-Veda, which mainly consists of sacrificial formulae, mentions the veena as an accompaniment to vocal recitations during the sacrifices.[6]
References to Indian classical music are made in many ancient religious texts, including epics like the Ramayana and Mahabharata. The Yajnavalkya Smriti mentions "Veena vadhana tathvangna sruti, jathi, visartha talanjaaprayasena moksha margam niyachathi" ("The one who is well versed in veena, one who has the knowledge of srutis and one who is adept in tala, attains salvation without doubt.")[7] Carnatic music is based on music concepts mentioned in Bharata's Natya Shastra.[8]. The Natya Shastra mentions many musical concepts (including swara and tala) that continue to be relevant to Carnatic music today.[4]
According to some scholars,[4] Carnatic music shares certain classical music concepts with ancient Tamil music. The concept of Pann is related to Ragas used in Carnatic music.[9]. The rhythmic meters found in several musical forms (such as the Tiruppugazh) and other ancient literature, resemble the talas that are in use today[10][11]
Both Carnatic and Hindustani music shared a common history. Since the late 12th and early 13th centuries, as a result of the increasing Persian influence (and as a result of the Islamic conquest) in North India, Hindustani Music started evolving as a separate genre, while Carnatic music was relatively unaffected by these Arabic and Iranian influences.[12] In Carnatic Music (which was based in South India), the pan-Indian bhakti movement laid a substantial basis as far as the use of religious themes are concerned, while major developments post 13th century also contributed to its divergence from Hindustani music.[13]
Carnatic music saw renewed growth during the Vijayanagar Empire by the Kannada Haridasa movement of Vyasaraja, Purandara Dasa, Kanakadasa and others.[14] Purandara Dasa who is known as the Sangeeta Pitamaha (the grandfather of Carnatic music) laid out the fundamental tenets and framework for teaching Carnatic music.[15][4]. Venkatamakhin is credited with the classification of ragas in the Melakarta System and wrote his most important work; Chaturdandi Prakasika (c.1635 CE) in Sanskrit. Govindacharya expanded the Melakarta Scheme into the Sampoorna raga system, which is the system in common use today.
Even though the earlier writers Matanga, Sarangadeva and others also were from Karnataka, the music tradition was formally named Karnataka Sangeetha for the first time only in the 13th Century when the Vijayanagara empire was founded.[16]
A unique development in the art of instrumental carnatic music took shape under the patronage of the kings of the Kingdom of Mysore in the 18th through 20th centuries. The composers used to play their compositions on instruments such as the veena, rudra veena, violin, tambura, ghata, flute, mridangam, nagaswara, swarabhat. Some instruments such as harmonium, sitar and jaltarang, though uncommon to the southern region came into use and the English influence popularised the saxophone and piano. Even royalty of this dynasty were noted composers and proficient in playing musical instruments, solo or in concert with others.[17] Some famous instrumentalists were Veena Sheshanna(1852-1926)[18], Veena Subbanna (1861-1939),[19] T. Chowdiah[20]and others.
Nature of Carnatic music
Carnatic music is practised and presented today by musicians in concerts or recordings, either vocally or through instruments. Carnatic music itself developed around musical works or compositions of phenomenal composers (see below).
Compositions
In contrast to Hindustani Music of the northern part of India, Carnatic music is taught and learned through compositions, which encode many intricate musical details, also providing scope for free improvization. Nearly every rendition of a Carnatic music composition is different and unique as it embodies elements of the composers vision, as well as the musician's interpretation.
A Carnatic composition really has two elements, one being the musical element, the other being what is conveyed in the composition. It is probably because of this fact that most Carnatic music compositions are composed for singing. In addition to the rich musical experience, each composition brings out the knowledge and personality of the composer, and hence the words are as important as the musical element itself. This poses a special challenge for the musicians because rendering this music does not involve just playing or singing the correct musical notes; the musicians are expected to understand what was conveyed by the composer in various languages, and sing musical phrases that act to create the effect that was intended by the composer in his/her composition.
There are many types/forms of compositions. Geethams and Swarajatis (which have their own peculiar composition structures) are principally meant to serve as basic learning exercises, and while there are many other types/forms of compositions (including Padam, Javali and Thillana), the most common forms are the Varnam, and most importantly, the Kriti (or Keerthanam), which are discussed below.
Varnam
- Main article: Varnam
This is a special item which highlights everything important about a raga; not just the scale, but also which notes to stress, how to approach a certain note, classical and characteristic phrases, etc. Though there are a few different types of varnams, in essence, they all have a pallavi, an anupallavi, muktayi swaras, a charana, and chittaswaras. They are sung in multiple speeds, and are very good for practice. In concerts, varnams are often sung at the beginning as they are fast and grab the audience's attention.[21]
Kriti
- Main article: Kriti
Carnatic songs (kritis) are varied in structure and style, but generally consist of three units:
- Pallavi. This is the equivalent of a refrain in Western music. One or two lines.
- Anupallavi. The second verse. Also two lines.
- Charana. The final (and longest) verse that wraps up the song. The Charanam usually borrows patterns from the Anupallavi. There can be multiple charanas.
This kind of song is called a keerthanam or a Kriti. There are other possible structures for a Kriti, which may in addition include swara passages named chittaswara. Chittaswara consists only of notes, and has no words. Still others, have a verse at the end of the charana, called the madhyamakāla. It is sung immediately after the charana, but at double speed.
Prominent composers
There are many composers in Carnatic music.
- See also: List of Carnatic composers
Purandara Dasa (1480 - 1564) is known as the father (Pitamaha) of Carnatic music due to his pioneering contributions to Carnatic music. Purandara Dasa is renowned for formulating the basic lessons of Carnatic music. He structured graded exercises known as Swaravalis and Alankaras, and at the same time, introduced the Raga Mayamalavagowla as the first scale to be learnt by beginners. He also composed Gitas (simple songs) for novice students. Although only a fraction of his other compositions still exist, he is said to have composed around 475,000 compositions in total.[22]
The contemporaries Tyagaraja (1759? - 1847), Muthuswami Dikshitar, (1776 - 1827) and Syama Sastri, (1762 - 1827) are regarded as the Trinity of Carnatic music due to the quality of Syama Sastri's compositions, the varieties of compositions of Muthuswami Dikshitar and Tyagaraja's prolific output in composing kritis.[23] [24]
Prominent composers prior to the Trinity of Carnatic music include Annamacharya, Narayana Theertha, Bhadrachala Ramadas, Sadasiva Brahmendra and Oottukkadu Venkata Kavi. Other prominent composers are Swathi Thirunal, Gopalakrishna Bharathi, Neelakanta Sivan, Patnam Subramania Iyer, Mysore Vasudevachar, Koteeswara Iyer, Muthiah Bhagavathar, Subramania Bharathiyar and Papanasam Sivan. The compositions of these composers are rendered frequently by prominent artists of today.
Composers of Carnatic music were often inspired by religious devotion and were usually scholars proficient in one or more of the following languages Kannada, Sanskrit, Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu. They usually included a signature, called a mudra, in their compositions. For example, all songs by Tyagaraja (who composed in Telugu) have the word Thyagaraja in them, all songs by Muthuswami Dikshitar (who composed in Sanskrit) have the words Guruguha in them, songs by Syama Sastri (who composed in Telugu) have the words Syama Krishna in them while Purandaradasa, who composed in Kannada, used the signature Purandara Vittala. Gopalakrishna Bharathi used the signature Gopalakrishnan and composed in Tamil. Papanasam Sivan, who has been hailed as the Tamil Thyagaraja of Carnatic music[25], also composed in this language, as well as Sanskrit[26], and used the signature Ramadasan.
Important elements of Carnatic music
Śruti
- Main article: Śruti (music)
Śruti commonly refers to musical pitch.[27] It is the approximate equivalent of a tonic (or less precisely a key) in Western music; it is the note from which all the others are derived. It is also used in the sense of graded pitches in an octave. While there are an infinite number of sounds falling within a scale (or raga) in Carnatic music, the number that can be distinguished by auditory perception is twenty-two (although over the years, several of them have converged). In this sense, while shruti is determined by auditory perception, it is also an expression in the listener's mind.[28]
Swara
- Main article: Swara
Swara refers to a type of musical sound that is a single note, which defines a relative (higher or lower) position of a note, rather than a defined frequency.[29] Swaras also refer to the solfege of Carnatic music, which consist of seven notes, "sa-ri-ga-ma-pa-da-ni" (compare with the Hindustani sargam: sa-re-ga-ma-pa-dha-ni or Western do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti). These names are abbreviations of the longer names shadja, rishabha, gandhara. madhyama, panchama, dhaivata and nishada. Unlike other music systems, every member of the solfege (called a swara) has three variants. The exceptions are the drone notes, shadja and panchama (also known as the tonic and the dominant), which have only one form; and madhyama (the subdominant), which has two forms. A 7th century stone inscription in Kudumiyan Malai[30] in Tamil Nadu shows vowel changes to solfege symbols with ra, ri, ru etc. to denote the higher quarter-tones. In one scale, or ragam, there is usually only one variant of each note present. The exceptions exist in "light" ragas, in which, for artistic effect, there may be two, one ascending (in the arohanam) and another descending (in the avarohanam).
Raga system
- Main article: Raga
A raga in Carnatic music prescribes a set of rules for building a melody - very similar to the Western concept of mode.[31] It specifies rules for movements up (aarohanam) and down (avarohanam), the scale of which notes should figure more and which notes should be used more sparingly, which notes may be sung with gamaka, which phrases should be used, phrases should be avoided, and so on.
In Carnatic music, the sampoorna ragas (those with all seven notes in their scales) are classified into a system called the melakarta, which groups them according to the kinds of notes that they have. There are seventy-two melakarta ragas, thirty six of whose madhyama (subdominant) is sadharana (perfect fourth from the tonic), the remaining thirty-six of whose madhyama (subdominant) is prati (an augmented fourth from the tonic). The ragas are grouped into sets of six, called chakras ("wheels", though actually segments in the conventional representation) grouped according to the supertonic and mediant scale degrees. There is a system known as the 'Katapayadi sankhya to determine the names of Melakarta Ragas.
Ragas may be divided into two classes: janaka ragas (i.e melakarta or parent ragas) and janyaragas (descendant ragas of a particular janaka raga). Janya ragas are subclassified into various categories themselves.
There are potentially hundreds and thousands of ragas, with over 5000 that have been used.[32]
Tala system
- Main article: tala (music)
Tala refers to the beat set for a particular composition (a measure of time). Talas have cycles of a defined number of beats and rarely change within a song. They have specific components, which in combinations can give rise to the variety to exist (over 108), allowing different compositions to have different rhythms.[33]
Carnatic music singers usually keep the beat by moving their hands up and down in specified patterns, and using their fingers simultaneously to keep time. Tala is formed with three basic parts (called angas) which are laghu, dhrtam, and anudhrtam, though complex talas may have other parts like plutam, guru and kaakapaadam. There are seven basic tala groups which can be formed from the laghu, dhrtam, and anudhrtam:
A laghu has five variants (called jaathis) based on the counting pattern. Five jaathis times seven tala groups gives thirty-five basic talas, although use of other angas results in a total of 108 talas.
Improvisation
There are four main types of improvisation in Carnatic music, but in every type, adhering to the scale and phrases of the raga is required.
Raga Alapana
- Main article: Alapana
This is the exposition of the ragam of the song that is being planned to be performed. A performer will explore the ragam first by singing lower octaves then moving up to higher ones and touching various aspects of the ragam while giving a hint of the song to be performed. It is a slow improvisation with no rhythm.[34]
Theoretically, this ought to be the easiest type of improvisation, since the rules are so few, but in fact, it takes much skill to sing a pleasing, comprehensive (in the sense of giving a "feel for the ragam") and, most importantly, original ragam.
Niraval
- Main article: Niraval
This is usually performed by the more advanced concert artists and consists of singing one or two lines of a song repeatedly, but with improvised elaborations.
Kalpanaswaram
- Main article: Kalpanaswaram
The most elementary type of improvisation, usually taught before any other form of improvisation. It consists of singing a pattern of notes which finishes on the beat and the note just before the beat and the note on which the song starts. The swara pattern should adhere to the original raga's swara pattern, which is called as aarohanam-avarohanam
Thanam
This form of improvisation was originally developed for the veena and consists of expanding the raga with syllables like tha, nam, thom, aa, nom, na, etc
Ragam Thanam Pallavi
- Main article: Ragam Thanam Pallavi
This is a composite form of improvisation. As the name suggests, it consists of Raga Alapana, Thanam, and a pallavi line. The pallavi line is sung twice, and Niraval follows. After Niraval, the pallavi line is sung again, twice in normal speed, then sung once at half the speed, then twice at regular speed, then four times at twice the speed. Kalpanaswarams follow.
Learning Carnatic music
Carnatic music is traditionally taught according to the system formulated by Purandara Dasa. This involves swaravalis (graded exercises), alankaras (exercises based on the seven talas), Geethams or simple songs, and Swarajatis. After the student has reached a certain standard, Varnams are taught, and later, the student learns Kritis. It typically takes several years of learning before a student is adept enough to perform at a concert.
The learning texts and exercises are more or less uniform across all the South Indian states. The learning structure is arranged in the increasing order of the complexity. The lessons start with the learning of the sarali varisai (solfege set to a particular raga).
Carnatic music was traditionally taught in the gurukula system, where the student lived with and learnt the art from his guru (perceptor). From the late 20th century onwards, with changes in lifestyles and need for young music aspirants to simultaneously manoeuvre a parallel academic career, this system has found few takers.
Musicians often take great pride in letting people know about their Guru Parampara, or the hierarchy of disciples from some prominent ancient musician or composer, to which they belong. People whose disciple-hierarchies are often referred to are Thyagaraja, Muthuswami Dikshitar, Syama Sastri, Swathi Thirunal, Papanasam Sivan among others.
In modern times, it is often common for students to visit their gurus daily or weekly to learn music. Though new technology has made learning easier with the availability of quick-learn media such as learning exercises recorded on audio cassettes and CDs, these are discouraged by most gurus who emphasize that face-to-face learning is best for students.
Notations
Notation is not a new concept in Indian music. However, Carnatic music continued to be transmitted orally for centuries without being written down. The disadvantage with this system was that if one wanted to learn about a Kriti composed, for example, by Purandara Dasa, it involved the difficult task of finding a person from Purandara Dasa's lineage of students.
Written notation of Carnatic music was revived in the late 17th century and early 18th century, which coincided with rule of Shahaji II in Tanjore. Copies of Shahaji's musical manuscripts are still available at the Saraswathi Mahal Library in Tanjore and they give us an idea of the music and its form. They contain snippets of solfege to be used when performing the mentioned ragas.
Melody
Unlike Western music, Carnatic music is notated almost exclusively in tonic solfa notation using either a Roman or Indic script to represent the solfa names. Past attempts to use the staff notation have mostly failed. Indian music makes use of hundreds of ragas, many more than the church modes in Western music. It becomes difficult to write Carnatic music using the staff notation without the use of too many accidentals. Furthermore, the staff notation requires that the song be played in a certain key. The notions of key and absolute pitch are deeply rooted in Western music, whereas the Carnatic notation does not specify the key and prefers to use scale degrees (relative pitch) to denote notes. The singer is free to choose actual pitch of the tonic note. In the more precise forms of Carnatic notation, there are symbols placed above the notes indicating how the notes should be played or sung; however, informally this practice is not followed.
To show the length of a note, several devices are used. If the duration of note is to be doubled, the letter is either capitalized (if using Roman script) or lengthened by a diacritic (in Indian languages). For a duration of three, the letter is capitalized (or diacriticized) and followed by a comma. For a length of four, the letter is capitalized (or diacriticized) and then followed by a semicolon. In this way any duration can be indicated using a series of semicolons and commas.
However, a simpler notation has evolved which does not use semicolons and capitalization, but rather indicates all extensions of notes using a corresponding number of commas. Thus, Sā quadrupled in length would be denoted as "S,,,".
Rhythm
The notation is divided into columns, depending on the structure of the tāḷaṃ. The division between a laghu and a dhrutam is indicated by a ।, called a ḍaṇḍā, and so is the division between two dhrutams or a dhrutam and an anudhrutam. The end of a cycle is marked by a ॥, called a double ḍaṇḍā, and looks like a caesura.
Concerts
Carnatic music concerts are usually performed by a small ensemble of musicians who sit on a slightly elevated stage. Carnatic music concerts can be vocal recitals, accompanied by supporting instruments, or purely instrumental concerts, but irrespective of whether it is a vocal or purely instrumental concert, what is featured in a typical concert are compositions which form the core of this music. The lead-musician must also choose a signature octave based on his/her (vocal) range of comfort. However, it is expected that a musician maintains that same pitch once it is selected, and so to help all the performers maintain the selected pitch, the tambura is the traditional drone instrument used in concerts. However, tamburas are increasingly being replaced by śruti boxes, and now more commonly, the "Electronic tambura"
In a vocal recital, a concert team may have one or more vocalists, accompanied by instrumentalists. Other instruments such as the veena and/or flute can be found to occasionally accompany a lead vocalist, but usually a vocalist is supported by a violin player (who sits on his/her left), and a few percussion players including at least a mridangam (who usually sits on the other side of the vocalist, facing the instrumentalist). Other percussion instruments that are also used include the ghatam, kanjira and morsing, which also accompany the main percussion instrument and play almost in a contrapuntal fashion along with the beats. The objective of the accompanying instruments is far more than following the melody and keeping the beats. The accompaniments form an integral part of every composition presented, and they closely follow and augment the melodic phrases outlines by the lead singer. The vocalist and the violinist take turns while elaborating or while exhibiting creativity in sections like raga, niraval and kalpanaswaram. Unlike Hindustani music concerts, where an accompanying tabla player can keep beats without following the musical phrases at times, in carnatic music, the accompaniments have to know follow intricacies of the composition since there are percussion elements such as eduppu, in several compositions. Some of the best concerts feature a good bit of interaction with the lead musicians and the accompaniments exchanging notes, and accompanying musicians predicting the lead singer musical phrases.
- See also: Indian musical instruments
Content
A contemporary Carnatic concert ((called a kutcheri) usually lasts about three hours, and usually comprises a number of varied compositions. Carnatic songs are composed in a particular raga, which means that they do not deviate from the notes in the raga. Each composition is set with specific notes and beats, but performers improvise extensively. Improvisation occurs in the melody of the composition as well as in using the notes to expound the beauty of the raga.
Concerts usually begin with a varnam or an invocatory item which will act as the opening piece. The varnam is composed with an emphasis on swaras of the raga, but will also have lyrics, the saahityam. It is lively and fast to get the audience's attention. An invocatory item, may alternatively, follow the varnam.
After the varnam and/or invocatory item, the artist sings longer compositions called kirtanas (commonly referred to as kritis). Each kriti sticks to one specific raga, although some are composed with more than one ragas; these are known as ragamalika (a garland of ragas).
After singing the opening kriti, usually, the performer sings the kalpanaswaram of the raga to the beat. The performer must improvise a string of swaras in any octave according to the rules of the raga and return to beginning of the cycle of beats smoothly, joining the swaras with a phrase selected from the kriti. The violin performs these alternately with the main performer. In very long strings of swara, the performers must calculate their notes accurately to ensure that they stick to the raga, have no awkward pauses and lapses in the beat of the song, and create a complex pattern of notes that an experienced audience can follow.
Performers then begin the main compositions with a section called raga alapana exploring the raga. In this, they use the sounds aa, ri, na, ta, etc. instead of swaras to slowly elaborate the notes and flow of the raga. This begins slowly and builds to a crescendo, and finally establishes a complicated exposition of the raga that shows the performer's skill. All of this is done without any rhythmic accompaniment, or beat. Then the melodic accompaniment (violin or veena), expounds the raga. Experienced listeners can identify many ragas after they hear just a few notes. With the raga thus established, the song begins, usually with lyrics. In this, the accompaniment (usually violin, sometimes veena) performs along with the main performer and the percussion (such as a mridangam). In the next stage of the song, they may sing niraval or kalpanaswaram again.
In most concerts, the main item will at least have a section at the end of the item, for the percussion to perform solo (called the tani avartanam). The percussion performers perform complex patterns of rhythm and display their skill. If multiple percussion instruments are employed, they engage in a rhythmic dialogue until the main performer picks up the melody once again. Some experienced artists may follow the main piece with a ragam thanam pallavi mid-concert, if they do not use it as the main item.
Following the main composition, the concert continues with shorter and lighter songs. Some of the types of songs performed towards the end of the concerts are tillanas & thukkadas - bits of popular kritis or compositions requested by the audience. Every concert that is the last of the day ends with a mangalam, a thankful prayer and conclusion to the musical event.
Audience
The audience of a typical concert has a reasonable understanding of Carnatic music. It is also typical to see the audience tapping out the tala in sync with the artist's performance. As and when the artist exhibits creativity, the audience acknowledge it by clapping their hands. With experienced artists, towards the middle of the concert, requests start flowing in. The artist usually plays the request and it helps in exhibiting the artist's broad knowledge of the several thousand kritis that are in existence.
Modern concerts
Every December, the city of Chennai in India has its six week-long Music Season, which has been described as the world's largest cultural event.[35] The Music Season was started in 1927, to mark the opening of the Madras Music Academy. It used to be a traditional month-long Carnatic music festival, but since then it has also diversified into dance and drama, as well as non-Carnatic art forms.
- See also: Madras Music Season
Prominent modern artists
Vocalists
Past Vocalists
Popularly referred to as the female trinity of the Carnatic music,[36] M. L. Vasanthakumari, M. S. Subbulakshmi and D. K. Pattammal, together with the leading male vocalists Muthiah Bhagavathar, Mysore Vasudevachar, Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar, Musiri Subramania Iyer, Maharajapuram Viswanatha Iyer, Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavathar, G. N. Balasubramaniam and Madurai Mani Iyer created a golden era for Carnatic music during the mid to late twentieth century. The other popular prominent performers during this era were Alathur Venkatesa Iyer, M.D.Ramanathan, M. Balamuralikrishna, S.Ramanathan, K. V. Narayanaswamy, Tanjore S. Kalyanaraman, Maharajapuram Santhanam, D. K. Jayaraman, Nedunuri Krishnamoorthy, T. K. Rangachari, Sirkazhi Govindarajan, Thanjavur Sankara Iyer, P. S. Narayanaswamy, Madurai Somu and Jon. B. Higgins.
Past-Present Vocalists
R. K. Srikantan, R. Vedavalli, T. V. Sankaranarayanan and K. J. Yesudas, along with Nedunuri Krishnamoorthy and M. Balamuralikrishna, are the only musicians that are still alive, and from time-to-time, still perform in public concerts.
While D. K. Pattammal no longer performs in public concerts, she is the only survivor of those who helped create the Golden era for Carnatic music.
T. N. Seshagopalan and Neyveli Santhanagopalan remain popular, even today.
Current Vocalists
Popular vocalists of today include Nithyashree Mahadevan, Sudha Ragunathan, P. Unni Krishnan, Priya Sisters, S. Sowmya, Sanjay Subrahmanyan, Bombay Jayashri Ramnath, Aruna Sairam, O. S. Arun, O. S. Thyagarajan, T. M. Krishna, Malladi Brothers - Sriram Prasad & Ravikumar, Ranjani & Gayatri, Sikkil C. Gurucharan, Vishakha Hari and Sreevalsan J. Menon.
Instrumentalists
Past Instrumentalists
T. Chowdiah, Rajamanikkam Pillai, Papa Venkataramiah, Dwaram Venkataswamy Naidu among others, excelled in violin, while Palghat Mani Iyer, Palani Subramaniam Pillai and C.S.Murugabhoopathy redefined the role of mridangam in concerts in the recent past. T.H.Vinayakram is a very famous ghatam player. T.R. Mahalingam and Thyagarajanwere famous flute players. Some of the well known veena players include S. Balachander, Veena Dhanammal, Doraiswamy Iyengar, K.S. Narayanaswamy and Emani Sankara Sastri.
Past-Present Instrumentalists
T.N.Krishnan, M.S.Gopalakrishnan, Lalgudi G. Jayaraman, Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan, Dr.Mysore Manjunath, Mysore Nagaraj and A. Kanyakumari are among the living violinists who still perform, while the mridhangists who fall under this category include Karaikkudi Mani, Umayalpuram K. Sivaraman, T. K. Murthy, Guruvayur Dorai, Mannargudi Easwaran, T.V.Gopalakrishnan, I. Sivakumar and J. Vaidhyanathan. T.H.Subhashchandran and N. Govindarajan are Ghatam players that fall under this category.
N. Ramani and Sikkil Sisters are the most well known flute players of today, while E. Gayathri, Kalpakam Swaminathan are known in the same way for playing the Veena. Kadri Gopalnath is similarly known for his Carnatic talents on the saxophone, while N. Ravikiran is known in the same way for playing several stringed instruments, most notably the Chitraveena/Gottuvadhyam.
Current Instrumentalists
Violinists of today include Ganesh and Kumaresh, Ranjani and Gayatri, Vittal Ramamurthy, Embar S. Kannan, Lalgudi GJR Krishnan, Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi and others..
Mridhangists of today include Thiruvarur Vaidyanathan and others.
Flute players of today include Mala Chandhrashekharan, R. Thyagarajan, R. Atul Kumar, S. Shashank, [T. Suresh]]. Veena players of today include Jayanthi Kumaresh.
See also
Notes
- ^ Sāmbhamūrti, P. "Music of the Ancient Tamils", South Indian Music, Book VI. Chennai 600 014: The Indian Music Publishing House, 91-92. “"The pans of the Thevaram are historically old ragas (page 91); It is in the pans of the Thevaram that we first come across full-fledged bhashanga ragas" (page 91);"The pans of Tevaram are all jiva ragas"(page 92)”
- ^ Breyer, Barbara (1972). "Composers and Tradition in Karnatik Music". Asian Music 3: 42-51.
- ^ Breyer, Barbara (1972). "Composers and Tradition in Karnatik Music". Asian Music 3: 42-51.
- ^ a b c d e f g History of Music, Origins. The Carnatica Group. Carnatica.net. Retrieved on 2007-07-03.
- ^ http://www.hindu.com/seta/2005/01/13/stories/2005011300111500.htm
- ^ Veena in Yajurveda.
- ^ Yajnavalkya on Music.
- ^ Carnatic Music. Swaralaya. Carnatic music organization, Tampa Bay, Florida. Retrieved on 2007-07-03.
- ^ Sāmbhamūrti, P. "Music of the Ancient Tamils", South Indian Music, Book VI. Chennai 600 014: The Indian Music Publishing House, 91-92. “"The pans of the Thevaram are historically old ragas (page 91); It is in the pans of the Thevaram that we first come across full-fledged bhashanga ragas" (page 91);"The pans of Tevaram are all jiva ragas"(page 92)”
- ^ Sāmbhamūrti, P. "Music of the Ancient Tamils", South Indian Music, Book VI. Chennai 600 014: The Indian Music Publishing House, 87.
- ^ Sundaram, V.P.K.. Music in Ancient Tamil literature (in Tamil: Pazam Thamizilakkiyaththil icai iyal). Saiva Siddhanta Book publishers, 272-334.
- ^ Carnatic music. (2007). In Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved April 12, 2007, from Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
- ^ Split in HM and CM.
- ^ http://www.hinduonnet.com/2000/12/02/stories/0902070b.htm
- ^ Theory of Music , Vasanthamadhavi P.183
- ^ Fountainhead of Carnatic music. Online webpage of The Hindu. The Hindu. Retrieved on 2007-07-03.
- ^ Pranesh (2003), p54-55, p92, p162-163, p225-226
- ^ Pranesh (2003), p108
- ^ Pranesh (2003), p128
- ^ Pranesh (2003), p214
- ^ http://www.karnatik.com/glossv.shtml
- ^ Galaxy of composers
- ^ http://www.hindu.com/fr/2006/03/31/stories/2006033100510300.htm
- ^ http://www.hindu.com/fr/2006/03/31/stories/2006033100510300.htm
- ^ http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/fr/2002/01/04/stories/2002010401120600.htm
- ^ http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/fr/2002/01/04/stories/2002010401120600.htm
- ^ http://www.karnatik.com/glosss.shtml
- ^ http://www.soundofindia.com/showarticle.asp?in_article_id=952096767|Sound of India
- ^ http://www.karnatik.com/glosss.shtml
- ^ S. Santhanlingam, Kudumiyan Malai, Tamil Nadu Government Archeology Department publication, 1981
- ^ http://www.karnatik.com/glossm.shtml
- ^ http://www.karnatik.com/glossr.shtml
- ^ http://www.karnatik.com/glosst.shtml
- ^ http://www.karnatik.com/glossr.shtml
- ^ Musical Musings. The Hindu. Retrieved on 2007-01-13.
- ^ [1]The Hindu
References
- Pranesh, Meera Rajaram (2003), Musical Composers during Wodeyar Dynasty (1638-1947 A.D.), Vee Emm Publications, Bangalore
External links
- Carnatic Corner. This was the first comprehensive portal on Carnatic music. It has links to almost all the Carnatic sites in existence as well as a reference library and page of lists for ragas, compositions and lyrics.
- Carnatica Handbook. An innovative portal on Carnatic music. It has a great deal of information.
- carnaticindia
- ART INDIA Carnatic. This site is perhaps one of the oldest sites with information on Carnatic music and also other styles of Indian classical music and dance. It also carries information on 'Madras Music Season'.
- Simple Introduction to South Indian Classical Music - Part 1Published by World Music Central
- Simple Introduction to South Indian Classical Music - Part 2Published by World Music Central
- Karnatik A great deal of information on Carnatic music and more.
- Sangeetha Sampradaya Pradarshini A valuable and authoritative text on South Indian Musicology
- DMOZ directory links on Carnatic music
Bibliography
- "Carnatic music". Encyclopædia Britannica (15). (2005).
- Panchapakesa Iyer, A. S. (2003). Gānāmrutha Varna Mālikā. Gānāmrutha Prachuram.
Kumar Sanu
![Kumar Sanu](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_F2dLIRhrzPw/RySjJLRu2oI/AAAAAAAAABw/IQTBe8ZTsDI/S658/188903_F.jpg)
Comparative View of Jazz and Indian Classical Music
Comparing Jazz and Indian classic music
Comparative View of Jazz and Indian Classical Music
Indian music is the greatest tradition of improvisation in the East. Therefore it is unsurprising that Jazz musicians, which have become the greatest exponents of improvisation in the West, have developed a certain fascination for Indian musicians and vice versa. Coltrane was fascinated by Indian music (even naming his son Ravi after Ravi Shankar). Keith Jarrett returned to improvised music, after a phase of playing entirely Western Classical music, on hearing a concert of Indian Classical music which he claims was "a reminder that what I was doing was not music" (in Carr 1991:157).
Both Jazz and Indian music are commonly described as improvised music but in fact, composition is integral to both arts. Compositions are used mainly as a springboard for improvisation and would probably account for about a tenth of a performance in both traditions [citation needed]. One of the functions of the composition is to define the structure upon which the improvisation is based. The gat is always played at the beginning of the final portion of an exposition of a rag by the soloist and from this, the tabla player is expected to join in. It is not uncommon for the tabla to have not been told what the tal or what tempo is to be used and would be expected to derive this information from the gat which he may not have heard before. If the soloist wishes to change to a new tal or tempo (other than by acceleration) it is signalled by playing a different gat.
The presentation of the two main instruments in jugalbandi (duet) has become common both in India and outside. What happens in Jugalbandi is not unlike the organisation of collective improvisation in jazz, in the sense that the musicians come together in the precomposed song or whatever the basis of the piece, and otherwise take it in turns to improvise in a spirit both of cooperation and friendly cooperation (Sorrell 1989:2).
In Jazz, the structure of the improvisation is most usually defined by the `head' which normally comprises a melody and a harmonic structure, but could contain more or less structural information such as changes of feel e.g. from swing to salsa, or changes of tempo or meter. The standard form of a jazz performance would start with the `head' which might be 32 bars long. Then, the musicians would take it in turn to improvise over this cyclic structure. The performance ends with a recapitulation of the `head'.
Improvisations in both musics take place within cyclic frameworks, with the notable exception of `free jazz' which consciously eschews predetermined structures. The ability to learn to use these frameworks to assist and inspire improvisation is really the essence of both art forms. Being able to maintain one's place is the tal is precisely analogous to `keeping the form' in Jazz playing. In fact, there are distinct similarities between the Sam (first beat) of the tal and `top of the form', the first beat of repeating structure, in Jazz. The special feature of the Sam is that phrases either start or end on it, reinforcing the notion that the tal is a `circular' structure. Whilst there is no such formalisation in Jazz of the `top of the form', there is no doubt that musicians often use the `top of the form' as the point of minimum release of tension.
See also
References
- Ian Carr (1991) Keith Jarrett: The Man and His Music (Grafton Books) ISBN 0-246-13434-8
- Neil Sorrell (1989) The North Indian Classical Sarangi: Its Technique and Role.
Sukhvinder Singh
![Sukhvinder Singh](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_F2dLIRhrzPw/RyVoI7Ru2pI/AAAAAAAAAB4/vXW71K31BeY/S658/mela_ad_big.jpg)
Indian folk music
Music of India: Topics | |||||||||
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Timeline and Samples | |||||||||
Genres | Classical (Carnatic and Hindustani) - Folk - Rock - Pop - Hip hop | ||||||||
Awards | Bollywood Music Awards - Punjabi Music Awards | ||||||||
Charts | |||||||||
Festivals | Sangeet Natak Akademi – Thyagaraja Aradhana – Cleveland Thyagaraja Aradhana | ||||||||
Media | Sruti, The Music Magazine | ||||||||
National anthem | "Jana Gana Mana", also national song "Vande Mataram" | ||||||||
Music of the states | |||||||||
Andaman and Nicobar Islands - Andhra Pradesh – Arunachal Pradesh – Assam – Bihar – Chhattisgarh – Goa – Gujarat – Haryana – Himachal Pradesh – Jammu – Jharkhand – Karnataka – Kashmir – Kerala – Madhya Pradesh – Maharashtra – Manipur – Meghalaya – Mizoram – Nagaland – Orissa – Punjab – Rajasthan – Sikkim – Tamil Nadu – Tripura – Uttar Pradesh – Uttaranchal – West Bengal |
Indian folk music is diverse because of India's vast cultural diversity. It has many forms including bhangra, lavani, dandiya and Rajasthani. The arrival of movies and pop music weakened folk music's popularity, but cheaply recordable music has made it easier to find and helped revive the traditions. Folk music (desi) has been influential on classical music, which is viewed as a higher art form. Instruments and styles have impacted classical ragas. It is also not uncommon for major writers, saints and poets to have large musical libraries and traditions to their name, often sung in thumri (semi-classical) style. Most of the folk music of India is dance-oriented.]]
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[edit] Bhavageete
- Main article: Bhavageete
Bhavageete (literally 'emotion poetry') is a form of expressionist poetry and light music. Most of the poetry sung in this genre pertain to subjects like love, nature, philosophy etc, and the genre itself is not much different to Ghazals, though ghazals are bound to a peculiar metre. This genre is quite popular in many parts of India, notably in Karnataka and Maharashtra. This genre may be called by different names in other languages. Kannada Bhavageete draws from the poetry of modern, including Kuvempu, D.R. Bendre, Gopalakrishna Adiga , K.S. Narasimhaswamy, G.S. Shivarudrappa, K. S. Nissar Ahmed, N S Lakshminarayana Bhatta etc. Notable Bhavageete performers include P. Kalinga Rao, Mysore Ananthaswamy, C. Aswath, Shimoga Subbanna, Archana Udupa, Raju Ananthaswamy etc.
Bhangra
Main article: Bhangra
Bhangra is a form of dance-oriented folk music that has become a pop sensation in the United Kingdom. The present musical style is derived from the traditional musical accompaniment to the folk dance of Punjab called by the same name, bhangra.
Lavani
Main article: Lavani
Lavani is a popular folk form of Maharashtra. Traditionally, the songs are sung by female artists, but male artists may occasionally sing Lavanis. The dance format associated with Lavani is known as Tamasha.
Dandiya
Main article: Dandiya
Dandiya is a form of dance-oriented folk music that has also been adapted for pop music worldwide. The present musical style is derived from the traditional musical accompaniment to the folk dance of Dandiya called by the same name, dandiya.
Rajasthani
Rajasthani music has a diverse collection of musician castes, including langas, sapera, bhopa, jogi and manganiyar
Bauls
The Bauls of Bengal were an order of musicians in 18th, 19th and early 20th century India who played a form of music using a khamak, ektara and dotara. The word Baul comes from Sanskrit batul meaning divinely inspired insanity. They are a group of Hindu mystic minstrels. They are thought to have been influenced greatly by the Hindu tantric sect of the Kartabhajas as well as by Sufi sects. Bauls travel in search of the internal ideal, Maner Manush (Man of the Heart).
Garba
Dollu Kunita
Main article: [[]]
Kolata
Main article: Kolata
Veeragase
Main article: Veeragase
Indian Folk Music Collection
Dance-oriented folk music popular in Western India, especially during Navaratri.
List of Indian film music directors
Most Indian films are musicals, and their music directors are among the best known musicians in India. Music directors are typically both composers and arrangers.
Cassettes or CDs of a film's music are often released before the movie itself. Favorite songs are remembered long after the movie is forgotten.
See the article on filmi music.
Notable directors include:
- A. R. Rahman
- Aadesh Shrivastava
- Anand Raaj Anand
- Anand-Milind
- Anil Biswas
- Anu Malik
- Ashwath-Vaidi
- Babukishan
- B. S. Hoogan
- C. Ashwath
- C. Ramchandra
- Chitragupt
- Devi Sri Prasad
- Dabu Malik
- G. Devarajan
- G. K. Venkatesh
- Ghantasala
- Gurukiran
- Hamsalekha
- Harris Jeyraj
- Hemant Kumar
- Himesh Reshammiya
- Husnlal Bhagatram
- Ilaiyaraaja
- Ismail Darbar
- Jaidev
- Jatin Lalit
- K.V. Mahadevan
- Kalyanji Anandji
- Khayyam (Mohammed Zahur Khayyam)
- Khemchand Prakash
- Laxmikant Pyarelal
- M. Ranga Rao
- M.M. Keeravani
- M.S. Baburaj
- Madan Mohan
- Mani Sharma
- Mano Murthy
- Mickey J Meyer
- Mihir Trivedy
- Mihir Kiran Bhattacharya
- N. Dutta
- Nadeem-Shravan
- Naushad
- Nikhil-Vinay
- O. P. Nayyar
- Pritam Chakroborty
- Pankaj Mullick
- R Sudarshanam
- Rahul Dev Burman
- R. P. Patnaik
- Raamlaxman
- Raichand Boral
- Rajan Nagendra
- Rajesh Ramanath
- Rajesh Roshan
- Ramana Gogula
- Ravi
- Ravindran
- Roshan
- S. N. Tripathi
- Sachin Dev Burman
- Sadhu Kokila
- Sajid-Wajid
- Sajjad Hussain
- Salil Chowdhury
- Sandesh Shandilya
- Sandeep Chowta
- Sanjeev-Darshan
- Sapan Chakraborty
- Sardar Malik
- Sathyam
- Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy
- Shankar Ganesh
- Shankar Jaikishan
- Shiv-Hari
- T.G. Lingappa
- Upendrakumar
- Usha Khanna
- Uttam Singh
- V. Manohar
- Vasant Desai
- Vidyasagar
- Vijayaanand
- Vijayabhaskar
- Vishal-Shekhar
- Yuvan Shankar Raja
External links
"MERE SAPNE" MUSIC by SRIRAJETH Relaeasing Soon
Filmi
Music of India: Topics | |||||||||
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| |||||||||
Timeline and Samples | |||||||||
Genres | Classical (Carnatic and Hindustani) - Folk - Rock - Pop - Hip hop | ||||||||
Awards | Bollywood Music Awards - Punjabi Music Awards | ||||||||
Charts | |||||||||
Festivals | Sangeet Natak Akademi – Thyagaraja Aradhana – Cleveland Thyagaraja Aradhana | ||||||||
Media | Sruti, The Music Magazine | ||||||||
National anthem | "Jana Gana Mana", also national song "Vande Mataram" | ||||||||
Music of the states | |||||||||
Andaman and Nicobar Islands - Andhra Pradesh – Arunachal Pradesh – Assam – Bihar – Chhattisgarh – Goa – Gujarat – Haryana – Himachal Pradesh – Jammu – Jharkhand – Karnataka – Kashmir – Kerala – Madhya Pradesh – Maharashtra – Manipur – Meghalaya – Mizoram – Nagaland – Orissa – Punjab – Rajasthan – Sikkim – Tamil Nadu – Tripura – Uttar Pradesh – Uttaranchal – West Bengal |
Filmi (Hindi: फ़िल्मी, Urdu: فلمی) is Indian popular music as written and performed for Indian cinema. There is constant work for pop music composers — or music directors, to use the Indian term. Movie soundtracks are released as tapes and CDs, before the movie is released and account for the bulk of popular music sales in India.
This may be partly due to widespread music piracy in India. Songs released only on CD may be popular, but they will not necessarily make any money for the artists, thanks to illegal copying. A composer makes more money as a music director, due to up-front payments by film-makers, and also gets free publicity. This is also true of singers and musicians. Filmi thus attracts some of the most talented Indian artistes.
Why musicals? Some say that the long tradition of Indian temple spectacles, sacred dramas danced and sung, still shapes Indian tastes. Others point to the linguistic diversity of India. Many languages are spoken and there are a number of regional cinemas. Only films that transcend language barriers have any hope of being all-India hits. Music, not being tied to any one language, expresses the feelings of the characters even to people who can't follow the dialogue.
Indian cinema does not require that its performers act, dance, and sing — they must merely act and dance. They only pretend to sing, lip-synching songs sung by professional playback singers. Playback singers need not be beautiful or photogenic; they need only be supremely good singers. They tend to sing for many films, have long careers and be adored by their fans.
(One might usefully contrast the forthrightness of Indian practice with Hollywood's assumption that musical stars should be actors, dancers, and singers. When Hollywood does use playback singers, the practice is buried in the end-of-film credits and ignored as much as possible by the publicists. Perhaps one reason that Hollywood does not produce as many musicals as India is that it is harder to find performers with the multiple talents required.)
Filmi is often said to have begun in 1931, with the release of Ardeshir M. Irani's Alam Ara and its popular soundtrack. In the earliest years of the Indian cinema, filmi was generally Indian (classical and folk) in inspiration, with some Western elements. Over the years, the Western elements have increased significantly.
How much of current filmi is "Western" or "Indian" in style is a matter of dispute, as is the desirability of the increasing internationalization of a formerly regional style. Some fans prefer the classic music of the past; others see it as old-fashioned and whole-heartedly embrace novelty.
Contents[hide] |
Music directors
R. C. Boral, Pankaj Mullick, Anil Biswas and Naushad were noteworthy music directors of the 1940s, writing scores redolent of the elegance of Northern India's Moghul and Rajput courts. The 1950s and 1960s, considered the 'golden age' of the Hindi film music, was fortunate to have music composers like Shankar Jaikishan, Naushad, S. D. Burman, O. P. Nayyar, Madan Mohan, C. Ramchandra, Roshan , Vasant Desai, Kalyanji Anandji and Khaiyyam. As Indian cinema segued into the go-go years of the 1960s and 1970s, pop artists like R.D. Burman and duos like Nadeem-Shravan and Jatin-Lalit gave filmi a stronger western flavor. The legendary Ilaiyaraaja and Raveendran became phenomenally successful during the 1980s and 1990s especially in southern India. In the 1990s and 2000s, the dominant force in filmi has been the phenomenally successful A. R. Rahman, who vaulted from fame in the Tamil film industry to success in Bollywood and finally to hit musicals in London and New York.
See: Indian film music directors
Playback singer
A playback singer is a singer whose song is pre-recorded for use in films. The singer records the song on a soundtrack and the actors or actresses lip sync the song for the cameras. This is a form of singing that is most highly developed in the Indian sub-continent.Popular playback singers in India enjoy the same star status as actors. The songs of a film and the quality of the music — its music director (composer), lyricist and singer have often determined the success of a film. Often film albums are released before the films are released and therefore there is sometimes a mismatch between the songs on film and the songs on its CD or LP or tape.
Asha Bhosle, Geeta Dutt, Alka Yagnik, Lata Mangeshkar, Kavita Krishnamurthy,Shreya Ghoshal, Sunidhi Chauhan. Mohammed Rafi, Hemant Kumar, Talat Mehmood, Mukesh, Kishore Kumar, Manna Dey, Dr. K. J. Yesudas, and S. P. Balasubrahmanyam . Younger singers include Nihira Joshi, Udit Narayan, Kumar Sanu, Abhijeet, M. G. Sreekumar, Sonu Nigam,Frede and Hariharan are some playback singers.
for more See: Playback singer
Lyricists
In the 1950s and 60s, lyricists like Shailendra, Hasrat Jaipuri, Sahir Ludhianvi, Raja Mehdi Ali Khan, Frede, Rajinder Krishan, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Bharat Vyas, Shakeel Badayuni, Qamar Jalalabadi, Jan Nissar Akhtar and S.H. Bihari wrote lyrics still fondly remembered today. Lyrics tended towards the literary and drew heavily on contemporary Urdu and Hindi poetry. The pop lyrics of later years are deplored by filmi traditionalists.
See details article Bollywood songs.
Instrumentalists
Instruments played as background to the vocals include:
- Bansuri
- Daf
- Dholak
- Harmonium
- Jal Tarang
- Khol
- Manjira
- Rabab
- Santoor
- Sarangi
- Sarod
- Shehnai
- Sitar
- Tabla
- Tabla tarang
- Tanpura
- Violin.
Unlike music directors and playback singers, instrumentalists do not get film credits and are less likely to use movies as a springboard to popular success.
Popularity ratings
Binaca Geetmala was a very popular radio show presented by Ameen Sayani giving popularity ratings of Hindi film songs from Bollywood on a weekly basis, listened to by millions of Hindi music lovers (akin to Billboard Hot 100 list of songs). It ran in various incarnations from 1952 to 1993. Annual lists of the most popular songs were played at year end. The list was compiled on the basis sales of records in India.[1] It was the most popular radio program before Satellite television took over in India sometime in 1990s. Currently, Hindi filmi songs are sold on tape & CD compilations, played as promos and in programs on various cable & satellite television channels and radio stations, with different popularity ratings claiming different songs as being on the top.
Accusations of plagiarism
Because popular music directors score a great many films over the course of a year, there is always a tendency to cut corners and speed production by plagiarizing. Sometimes the target is a catchy Western or Middle-Eastern tune with proven audience appeal. For example, one production number in Dil (1990) is based on Carl Perkins' Blue Suede Shoes, sung with Hindi lyrics. Many times, however, Indian tunes can easily get plagiarized. Of late the Indian film industry has been gaining visibility outside India and now there is real legal risk in plagiarism. Some producers have actually paid for the musical rights to popular Western songs. The Indian audience is also much better acquainted with Western music and films these days and more apt to notice the imitations. It would be hard to measure musical plagiarism with any exactness, but it is probably diminishing.
Wider success for filmi
Filmi is also making converts and exerting influence beyond the usual Desi audiences. Western music stores carry Bollywood compilations. Baz Luhrman showcases the song "Chamma Chamma" from China Gate in his 2002 movie Moulin Rouge!. A. R. Rahman, one of the most popular current music directors, now has a musical, Bombay Dreams, playing in London and New York.
Non-Indians interested in sampling filmi can listen to several Internet radio stations. If local music stores don't carry filmi, CDs can be purchased online or at local Indian grocery/spice/video stores. Some CDs are simply movie soundtracks; others are compilations of favorite songs by popular music directors or playback singers. Consult those Wikipedia articles for lists of popular artists.
See also
References
External links
Indian pop
Music of India: Topics | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||||
Timeline and Samples | |||||||||
Genres | Classical (Carnatic and Hindustani) - Folk - Rock - Pop - Hip hop | ||||||||
Awards | Bollywood Music Awards - Punjabi Music Awards | ||||||||
Charts | |||||||||
Festivals | Sangeet Natak Akademi – Thyagaraja Aradhana – Cleveland Thyagaraja Aradhana | ||||||||
Media | Sruti, The Music Magazine | ||||||||
National anthem | "Jana Gana Mana", also national song "Vande Mataram" | ||||||||
Music of the states | |||||||||
Andaman and Nicobar Islands - Andhra Pradesh – Arunachal Pradesh – Assam – Bihar – Chhattisgarh – Goa – Gujarat – Haryana – Himachal Pradesh – Jammu – Jharkhand – Karnataka – Kashmir – Kerala – Madhya Pradesh – Maharashtra – Manipur – Meghalaya – Mizoram – Nagaland – Orissa – Punjab – Rajasthan – Sikkim – Tamil Nadu – Tripura – Uttar Pradesh – Uttaranchal – West Bengal |
Indian pop music, often known as Indi-pop or Hindi pop, is a term that refers to pop music of India. It is based on various Indian folk or classical music, influenced by modern beats from different parts of the world. Indian pop was relatively non-existent until the late 1970s to early 1980s. The major push to bring South Asian music into a "pop" motif was by Indian singer, Alisha Chinoy (touted in ethnomusiclogy circles as the "Queen of Indi-pop"). Much if not most of Indian Pop music comes from the Indian Film Industry, and coincides with the filmi genre.
Contents[hide] |
Western Music
Several Indians have gained popularity in mainstream popular Western music, especially rock, however Indian Pop as a genre remains relatively unknown in the West. Artists of Indian descent include Freddie Mercury of British band Queen, born in Zanzibar, Tanzania, who started his first band in an Indian boarding school in Panchgani. During the '90s in the UK, the Asian Underground or Asian Massive scene gave rise to numerous Indo-Brit musicians and producers such as Talvin Singh, who in turn influenced mainstream pop music. Indie Indo-British band Cornershop also fuses Indian and Western music.
In the US, popular rock musicians of Indian descent include Kim Thayil of Soundgarden, Tony Kanal of the group No Doubt, and guitarist Anand Bhatt. Grammy-winning jazz singer Norah Jones is half-Indian, her father being sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar, who himself was a famous artist in the West.
In Canada, Indo-Canadian musicians include Dave 'Brownsound' Baksh, a former Sum 41 guitarist who is now forming his own band, Brown Brigade, percussionist Safwan Javed of the pop-rock trio Wide Mouth Mason, bassist, vocalist, and producer Chin Injeti, formerly of the trio Bass is Base, Ian D'Sa of Billy Talent and Ashwin Sood, drummer and husband of Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan.
In the Scandinavian extreme music scene, Indian musicians include Yusaf Parvez of the Norwegian black metal bands Dimmu Borgir/DHG/Ved Buens Ende/Code.
Earlier artists
It started in the 90s and that time there were very few singers who were popular as non-film singers viz. Usha Utthup, Sharon Prabhakar and Peenaz Masani. Then as the industry expanded, came Baba Sehgal, Alisha Chinai, Shantanu Mukherjee aka Shaan, Sagarika, Colonial Cousins (Hariharan and Leslie Lewis), Lucky Ali, Sonu Nigam etc.
Current artists
Some of the popular Indipop artists include Sonu Nigam, Daler Mehndi, Rageshwari, Devika Chawla, Bombay Vikings, Asha Bhosle, Shaan, Sunidhi Chauhan, Bombay Rockers, Anu Malik, Jazzy B, Malkit Singh, Hans Raj Hans, Baba Sehgal and more recently Raghav, Jay Sean, Juggy D, Rishi Rich, and Bally Sagoo, Punjabi MC, Bhangra Knights, Mehnaz and Sanober.
Global appeal
Many Punjabi Indian film and pop songs are finding their way into mainstream American music, like in the case of Britney Spears with Rishi Rich, Jay-Z with Panjabi MC, Timbaland, Missy Elliott, and Truth Hurts, with her song "Addictive" (for which they were sued for copyright infringement of a Lata Mangeshkar song). The beginning of mainstream Indian music finding its way into America began with the movie Moulin Rouge!. In the movie, the main number, "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend (Hindi)", featured Alka Yagnik's song "Chamma Chamma" from the Indian movie "China-Gate".
In the UK, the growth of South Asian musical subcultures began to influence mainstream pop by surfacing in songs and remixes by the likes of Siouxsie and the Banshees, Erasure, Bananarama, and Samantha Fox.
Recently Indian pop has taken an interesting turn, with the 'remixing' of oldie songs from past Indian Film songs and adding new beats to them. Most of the Indian music, whether it be Filmi, Classical, Pop or Folk, still incorporates the eternal beats of India, making it one of few pop music cultures that keep traditional beats and sounds even with the modernization of music.
External Links
- Indian Pop’s Panoply of Styles. Business Week online. Retrieved 4 April, 2007
- Songs from ArjunAnant - Album Safar releasing with T series - 2008
- Indiaudio.com a new name in Indian pop music
See Also
[hide] Pop music | |
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By style | Arabesque pop - Baroque pop - Bubblegum pop - Country pop - Futurepop - Glam rock - Pop rock - Pop punk - Pop rap - Power pop - Synthpop/Electropop - Indie pop - Teen pop - Traditional pop - Glam metal - Sunshine pop - Modern Laika |
By region | American pop -Arabic Pop - C-pop (Cantopop, Mandopop) - Taiwanese pop - HK English pop - Europop (Austropop, Nederpop) - Indi-pop (Bhangra, Filmi) - J-pop - K-pop - SFR Yugoslavia pop- Persian Pop |
Other topics | Boy band - Girl group - Pop icon - Popular music - Pop culture - Summer hit |
About Me
- Pallavi Laxman
- Vocalist