ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF INDIAN MUSIC

ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF INDIAN MUSIC

 Indian music has a very long, unbroken tradition and is an accumulated heritage of centuries. It is believed that the sage Narada introduced the art of music to the Earth. The origin can be traced back to Vedic days, nearly two thousand years ago. It is said that the sound that pervades the whole universe, i.e. Nadabrahma, itself represents the divinity. Organised Indian music owes its origin to the Samaveda.  The Veda has all the seven notes of the raga karaharpriya in the descending order.  The earliest Raga is speculated to be 'Sama Raga'. Theories and treatises began to be written about how the primitive sound 'Om' gave rise to the various notes. The first reference to music was made by Panini (500 BC) and the first reference to musical theory is found in Rikpratisakhya (400 BC). Bharata's Natya Sastra (4th Century AD) contains several chapters on music. This is probably the first work that clearly elaborated the octave and divided it into 22 keys. The next major work on music was Dathilam, which also endorses the existence of the 22 sruti per octave and even goes to suggest that these 22 srutis are the only ones a human body could make. This view was expressed again by another musicologist of the 13th century AD Saranga Deva in his famous work Sangeeta Ratnakara. Saranga Deva, among other things, defined almost 264 Ragas, including some Dravidian and North Indian ones. He also described the various 'kinds' of 'microtones' and also classified them into different categories. Of the other important works on Indian music, mention may be made of Brihaddesi (9 AD) written by Matanga, which attempts to define the word 'Raga', Sangeeta Makaranda (11th century AD) written by Narada, which enumerates 93 Ragas and classifies them into masculine and feminine species, Swaramela-kalanidhi of Ramamatya (16 AD) and Chaturdandi-prakssika of Venkatamakhi (17 AD).

 It took a long time for music to come to its present-day form. In the beginning music was devotional in content and was purely used for ritualistic purposes and was restricted to temples. During the late Vedic period (3000-1200 BC), a form of music called Samgana was prevalent which involved chanting of the verses set to musical patterns.  Various forms of music like Jatigan were evolved to narrate the epics. Between 2-7 AD a form of music called Prabandh Sangeet, which was written in Sanskrit, became very popular. This form gave way to a simpler form called dhruvapad, which used Hindi as the medium. The Gupta Period is considered as the golden era in the development of Indian music.  All the music treatises like Natya Shastra and Brihaddeshi were written during this period.

 One of the strongest and most significant influences on Indian music has perhaps been that of Persian music, which brought in a changed perspective in the style of Northern Indian music. In the 15th century AD, as a result of the patronage given to the classical music by the rulers, the devotional dhruvapad transformed into the dhrupad form of singing. The khayal developed as a new form of singing in the 18th century AD. The Indian classical music, thus, developed from the ritualistic music in association with folk music and other musical expressions of India's extended neighbourhood, developing into its own characteristic art. It is then that the two schools of music resulted, the Hindustani (North Indian music) and the Carnatic (South Indian music). Historical roots of both Hindustani and Carnatic classical music traditions stem from Bharata's Natyashastra. The two traditions started to diverge only around 14th Century AD. Carnatic music is kriti based and saahitya (lyric) oriented, while Hindustani music emphasises on the musical structure and the possibilities of improvisation in it. Hindustani music adopted a scale of Shudha Swara saptaka (octave of natural notes) while Carnatic music retained the traditional octave.  Both systems have shown great assimilative power, constantly absorbing folk tunes and regional tilts and elevating many of them to the status of ragas. These systems have also mutually influenced each other.

STYLES OF INDIAN MUSIC

 RAGAS & TALAS

 In the Indian Classical Music, Raga is the basis of melody and Tala is the basis of rhythm. Each melodic structure of Raga has something akin to a distinct personality subject and to a prevailing mood.

Ragas involve several important elements.  The first element is sound -- metaphysical and physical, which is referred to as nada. Nada is the manifestation of the first of the five elements of creation--the element of space. There are two types of nada, anahata nada or un-struck sound and ahata nada or struck sound. The next element of raga is pitch, relegated into swara (whole and half tones), and sruti (microtones). Raga also involves the production of emotional effects in the performer and listener, which are known as rasa. The aim of raga is to elicit emotional and psychological responses from the listener. The production of these specific responses can be understood by exploring the concept of rasa. Rasa has been referred to as "aesthetic delight" and is free from the limitations of personal feelings. There are nine rasas: Love (Shringar), Humour (Hasya), Pathos (Karuna), Anger (Rudra), Heroism (Vir), Terror (Bhayanaka), Disgust (Veebhatsa) and Wonder (Abdhuta).

Raga is the basis of classical music. Raga is neither a scale, nor a mode. It is based on the principle of a combination of notes selected out the 22 note intervals of the octave. There are 72 'melas', or parent scales, on which Ragas are based. Raga has its own principal mood such as tranquility, devotion, eroticism, loneliness, pathos and heroism.  Each Raga is associated, according to its mood, with a particular time of the day, night or a season. A performer with sufficient training and knowledge alone can create the desired emotions, through the combination of shrutis and notes. Every Raga is derived from some Thaat or Scale.  Improvisation is an essential feature of Indian music, depending upon the imagination and the creativity of an artist. A great artist can communicate and instill in his listener the mood of the Raga.

Ragas are placed in three categories: (a) Odava or pentatonic, a composition of five notes, (b) Shadava or hexatonic, a composition of six notes and (c) Sampoorna or heptatonic, a composition of seven notes,

Every Raga must have at least five notes, starting at Sa, one principal note, a second important note and a few helping notes. The principal note, "King" is the note on which the raga is built. It is emphasized in various ways, such as stopping for some time on the note, or stressing it. The second important note or the "Queen" corresponds to the "King" as the fourth or fifth note in relation to it. The ascent and descent of the notes in every raga is very important. Some ragas in the same scale differ in ascent and descent. The speed of a raga is divided into three parts: Vilambit (slow), Madhya (Medium) and Drut (fast).

Another aspect of the ragas is the appropriate distribution in time during the 24 hours of the day for its performance, i.e. the time of the day denotes the type of the raga to be sung. Based on this, the ragas are divided into four types: Sandi-prakash ragas or twilight ragas, Midday and Midnight ragas, Ragas for the first quarter of the morning and night and Ragas for the last quarter of the day and night. All the ragas are divided into two broad groups -- Poor Ragas and Uttar Ragas. The Poor Ragas are sung between 12 noon and 12 midnight. The Uttar Ragas are sung between 12 midnight and 12 Noon. The Santa Makananda mentions "one who sings knowing the proper time remains happy. By singing ragas at the wrong time one ill-treats them. Listening to them, one becomes impoverished and sees the length of one's life reduced."

Another division of ragas is the classification of ragas under six principal ragas -- Hindol, Deepak, Megh, Shree and Maulkauns. Other ragas are derived from these six ragas. The first derivatives of the ragas are called raginis, and each of the six ragas has five raginis under them. All the ragas are supposed to have been derived from their thaats. Every raga has a fixed number of komal (soft) or teevra (sharp) notes from which the thaat can be recognized.

Ragas in the Carnatic music fall into two categories, the base or melakarta ragas and the derived or janya ragas. The 16 swaras form the basis for the melakarta scheme. Melakarta ragas have a formal structure and follow a fairly rigid scheme of scientific organization whereas the janya ragas are rooted in usage and are liable to evolve with the music. In fact many janya ragas change their character over time. Janya ragas are derived from the melakarta ragas through various means. The simplest way to generate a janya raga is to leave out one or more of the swaras in the arohanam and/or avarohanam. Contemporary Carnatic music is based on a system of 72 melakarta ragas. These 'creator' ragas are also called janaka ragas and thai (mother) ragas. The current system can be traced to the works of Venkatamakhi (17th century AD) who appears to be the first to use the 72 melakartas. Earlier works generally contain fewer melakartas and most have flaws in their organisation. At that time, many of Venkatamakhi's melakartas were unknown and were not assigned names. Later, all 72 were given names and this system is sometimes referred to as the Kanakaambari - Phenadhyuthi system after the names of the first two melakartas in it. Muthuswamy Dikshithar's compositions are generally based on the raga names and lakshanams (definitions) in this system while Thyagaraja used a later scheme devised by Govindacharya in the late 18th century. There is an important feature to the ragas in Carnatic music, namely the appropriate gamakams (microtones) associated with many ragas. Gamakams are of ten types and their mastery is a must for effective portrayal of certain ragas.

Hindustani Ragas              Carnatic Ragas

Adbuth Kalyan                  Niroshta

Amir                                      AmirKalyani

Asavari                                 Nata Bhairavi

Bhairav                                 Mayamalavagowla

Bhairavi                                Hanuman Todi

Bhairavi                                Sindhu Bhairavi

Bhoop                                   Mohanam

Bhoopali                              Mohanam

Bhoop Kalyani                   Mohana Kalyani

Bilawal                                  Dheera Sankarabharanam

Champakali                         Ketakapriya

Chaya                                    Begada Sarang

Durga                                    ShuddaSaveri

Hanskalyani                        Hamsadhwani

Hindol                                   Sunada Vinodini

Jayith Kalyan                      Mohanam

Joghiya                                 Malahari

Jogh                                       Bahudari

Kafi                                        Kharaharapriya

Kalyani                                  Mecha Kalyani

Kedar                                    Saranga

Khamaj                                 Hari Kambhoj

Malkauns                            Hindolam

Marwa                                  Gamanasrama

Pilu                                         Kapi

Purvi                                      Kamavardhini

Rageshwari                         NattaiKurinji

Sri Kalyani                            Saraswati

Todi                                       Subha Pantuvarali

Vasant                                  Vasanta

Yaman Kalyan                    Yamuna Kalyani

                                            

Tala: Tala is the rhythmical groupings of beats. These rhythmic cycles range from 3 to 108 beats. It is the theory of time measure and has the same principle in Hindustani and Carnatic music, though the names and styles differ. The musical time is divided into simple and complicated metres. Tala is independent of the music it accompanies and has its own divisions. It moves in bars, and each beat in it is divided into the smallest fraction. Tala is the most important aspect of classical music, and it can be considered to be the very basis or pulse of music. Different talas are recognised like Dadra, Rupak,  Jhaptal, Ektal, Adha-Chautal and Teen-Tal. There are over a 100 Talas, but only 30 Talas are known and only about 10-12 talas are actually used. The most commonly encountered one is the one with sixteen beats called the teentaal. The Laya is the tempo, which keeps the uniformity of time span. The Matra is the smallest unit of the tala.

Carnatic music has a rigid thala structure. The thalas are defined on the basis of intricate arithmetic calculations. Thalas always occur in cyclic pattern. The thalas are made up of three basic units, namely, laghu, drutam and anu drutam. The time unit of laghu varies according to the "jaati". Depending on the jaati of laghu we get 35 thalas. It is again possible to split each time unit or beat into five "ghatis". This leads to 35x5 = 175 thalas in Carnatic music. The most common thala is the Adi (first, foremost) thala, which consists of a repeating measure of 8 beats. Thalas are also associated with moods just like the ragas. The popular mapping from the thalas (gatis) to the moods is chatusram - devotional and happy times; tisram - festivity; khandam - anger or frustration; misram - romantic and joyous, and sangeernam - confusion.

Alap: Alap is the first movement of the Raga. It is a slow, serene movement acting as an invocation and it gradually develops the Raga.

Jor: Jor begins with the added element of rhythm which, combining with the weaving of innumerable melodic patterns, gradually grains in tempo and brings the raga to the final movement.

Jhala: Jhala is the final movement and climax. It is played with a very fast action of the plectrum that is worn on the right index finger.

Gat: It is the fixed composition. A gat can be in any tala and can be spread over from 2 to 16 of its rhythmic cycles in any tempo, slow, medium or fast. A gat, whether vocal or instrumental, has generally two sections. The first part is called "pallavi" (Carnatic) or "asthayi" (Hindustani) which opens the composition and is generally confined to the lower and middle octaves. The following part of the composition is called the "anupallavi" (or antara) which usually extends from the middle to upper octaves. In Carnatic music further melodic sections called "charana" follows the "anupallavi."

 HINDUSTANI MUSIC

 In Hindustani music, there are 10 main forms of styles of singing and compositions: Dhrupad, Dhamar, Hori, Khayal, Tappa, Chaturang, Ragasagar, Tarana, Sargam and Thumri. Nowadays Ghazals have become very popular as the 'light classical' form of music.