Durgesh K. Upadhyay
Lecturer
AIBAS, Amity University
Lucknow
"To appreciate Indian music, one has to adopt a completely different sense of values... one must orientate oneself and at least for the period concerned, forget there is a time-clock ticking away and merely sink into a kind of subjective, almost hypnotic trance. In that condition, the repetitive features of Indian music, both rhythmic and melodic, acquires an extraordinary fascination and charm... despite the domination of this hypnotic mood, a characteristic of Indian music is that far from deadening the intellect, it actively liberates the mind."
Yahudi Menuhin
I am familiar with the North Indian system of classical music often referred as Hindustani music. I am also acquainted with Bhojpuri (a regional dialect of the Indian states Bihar and Uttar Pradesh) Folk music. There are two major forms of Indian classical music: Hindustani music and South Indian or Carnatic music. Hindustani music cannot only be distinguished from Carnatic music but also from all other music survived in all over the world. North Indian music is the assemblage of different music systems. It shows its flexibility and ability to incorporate the peculiarities of each music system. The north was subject to numerous waves of invasions by Muslim rulers to a degree not experienced by southern regions, with strong Persian and even Arabic influences finding their way into Hindustani music. The courts of the Muslim rulers in the North became the primary centers for musical activity, thereby severely restricting the availability of the music except for a growing governing and connoisseur class. In his fashion, classical music in the North developed as a hereditary vacation that largely came to rely upon the support of patrons and sponsors for it to flourish.
Although the Vedic founts of these two major forms of Indian classical music remains the same, from about the 13th century onwards (Shankar, 1968:46) various historical and cultural forces influenced the development of distinctive systems and styles of India’s music. Carnatic musicians sometimes proclaim the relative “purity” of their music, which purportedly retains considerably less non-indigenous influences than in the North. For a variety of reasons, the bastions of orthodox Hindu cultural life in the South became the temples, which are closely associated with the everyday life of the people. Music, like the other arts, became allied with numerous temples and therefore religious activities, thus assuring wide access to the music for many of the common people.
Although there are many shared melodic and rhythmic elements between the two systems, there are important differences between the conception and structuring of these elements and the approach to performance within Hindustani and Carnatic music. Both place a high emphasis on soloists in performances. The Carnatic system is characterized by a plethora of fixed compositions, often intensely religious in content and traced to specific composers that are religious figures in their own right. In general, Hindustani music places a greater emphasis on improvisation and the imaginative interpretation of the music by individual performers than is done in the South. This is the most peculiar characteristics of Hindustani music. In an Indian musical performance, while the grammar of melody and rhythm is fixed, the skill and ingenuity of the musician lies in his improvisation and creativity, especially in evocation of the mood and rasa of the particular raga.
Improvisation means an artist giving his own individuality to the music that he has learned from his Guru. In Indian music, it always demands reverence for the tradition and a sense of the history of one’s artistic lineage as well. Creativity and experimentation in Indian classical music is therefore defined as something that “is regulated by the tradition, not bound by it. Pt. Ravi Shankar has noted:
…I am amazed that a musician who upholds the highest tradition can be a creative artist and brings about many innovations. The great Tan Sen and then Sadarang and even Allaudin khan faced some short of criticism early in their careers, but later their “innovations” became part of our musical tradition, and were well established through their disciples. That is one of the beauties of Indian classical music – that since the Vedas it has never stood stagnant, but has kept on growing and being enriched by the great creative geniuses of successive generations.
The great strength of Hindustani music is its flexibility and resilience to absorb new nuances and ideas. It enjoys the freedom of experiment both in theme and practice which is rare in Carnatic music. We can understand it by considering the example of Kumar Gandharva. Often in the musical tradition, one is taught that the lyrics or poetry of the work is subservient to the mood of the raga. That means every ‘Khayal’ or ‘Bandish’ of a Raga should sound like the Raga from which it is born and not have a distinct identity of its own. Kumar Gandharva was among one of the few people who dared to challenge this fixity. For him every lyrical form had its own life and needed to be honored for its own sake, and not alone the sake of Raga (Sharma, 2005). Kumarji sang out of the Bandish and not out of the Raga. He subordinated the Raga to the Bandish, never letting the Raga take priority over the Bandish. This was a unique turnaround in the culture of Hindustani classical music (Menon, 2001).
Initially, Hindustani music was fixed. Dhrupad Style of singing is the best suited example. Dhrupad is the oldest, most formal and respected genre of the North Indian music tradition. It has a very rigid way of singing but at that time, Dhrupad was the most prevalent style in Hindustani music. Then the other form Khāyāl was created as a reaction to the rigidity of dhrupad. Literally, khāyāl means "imagination" or "fancy". When the singer, complying with the rules of music creatively embellishes a song with alāp, tān, and tāl, the composition is called khāyāl. It is said that Amir Khusro (1235-1325) popularized this form of singing in the thirteenth century. Sultan Hussain Sharque of Jaunpur (1458-1480) created a new form of khāyāl. Khāyāl deals with more than one rasā (emotions) while thumri is limited to shringār (erotic) rāsā.
Peculiarities of Hindustani music:
1. Only Bandish of a lyric is sung in a fix manner whereas all other improvisations and Badhat (elaboration) are sung freely;
2. It is ‘Swara-pradhān’ (importance of musical notes);
3. Ragas have been generated only from ten primary scales or ‘Thāths’(A thāth is a group of notes from which raga can be built), therefore they are easier to understand and learning, whereas in South Indian or Carnatic music has 72 primary scales called melas, produced by variations of seven fundamental notes (shudh svaras) which makes it complex and fixed;
4. It consists only one-liner literature and musician has to just improvise this Rāgā for a long time;
5. It is eclectic, having absorbed the influence of its Muslim singers;
6. Emotion and devotion are the essential characteristics of Hindustani music;
7. It also contains the beauty and sweetness of regional Folk music, like Bhojpuri, Punjabi, Bengali, etc.;
8. Melody and rhythm are more developed and offer a great variety of subtleties, not possible in Western music. Indian notes are divided into small units called shruties (22 microtones in all), whereas Western music has only 12 semitones. The microtones are more subtle then semitones. These microtones adorned with gracetones (gamakas) produce a magical effect;
9. It has generally a principle mood or emotion in a rāgā;
10. Ragas are classified on the bases of the nature of notes, time-associations, and the seasonal variances;
11. Ragas are used therapeutically to cure different types of psychosomatic ailments;
12. Hindustani music relied on Gharanas (a family based musical tradition) and has been still preserved its genuineness and grace, etc.
Music as a Therapy: personal experience
There has been general notion that rāgās with strong time or seasonal associations are most potent and have their full effect only if played at their appropriate time. These are generally the rāgās that are said to describe or embody the feeling of that time or season, and in this sense is what music psychologists term “referential.” (Dowling and Harwood, 1986)
The purpose of putting these above lines here is that I firmly believe and have experienced the decisive effect of my vocal riaz (music practice). When I practice or perform a rāgā according to its classified criteria resonated with my own mood and feeling, it creates an esoteric effect. It produces lot of positive energies. These energies are able in strengthening my immune system for the better defense to outer disturbances that can harm me physically as well as psychologically. I am working on a project with the topic, “Curing the psychosomatic ailments by positive energies.” The basic idea is to share my personal experiences related to this context.
I do not know whether it is only my illusory belief or indeed, there is something like that. There are many sources of positive energies. Nevertheless, the most significant source for me is my music practice that continues endlessly whenever it gets opportunity. Moreover, simply there is a cutoff from external stimuli. This cutoff from surroundings helps me to restore and acquire more energy that is positive. Music has always helped me from many emotional problems and cured my different physical problems like coughing, sneezing, body aches, etc. However, I want to share one of my recent experiences of this year. I got two Asthmatic attacks within the period of six months. Only a vocal artist can feel this embarrassing situation. Initially I relied on some medications but after some relief, I decided not to continue despite the strict prescription.
Meanwhile I had continued my riaz and right now, I am substantially cured. I am not denying my cautiousness that has increased of course. Undoubtedly, my music practice bricked my damaged wall again. I will stop just by quoting the Mother’s saying:
An ailment of the body is always the outer expression and translation of a disorder, a disharmony in the inner being; unless this inner disorder is healed, the outer cure cannot be total and permanent.”
References:
Integral Healing, pp. 21, 24, 32-38, 73-79
Mansukhani, G. S. 1982. Indian classical music and sikh kirtan
Menuhin, Yehudi (1976). Unfinished Journey. New York: Random House
Siegell, M.M. (1988). Finding it as oneself: A psychological enquiry into the classical music tradition of north india. A Bell and Howell information company, USA
The Mother: questions and answers, Vol. 5, p. 21, 122-124, 185, 186.
Vasant 2002. Sangeet visharad, pp. 52-63. Sangeet Karyalaya, Hathras
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