An Introduction to Hindustani Classical Music: A Beginners Guide

Vijay Prakash Singha

Description

An Introduction to Hindustani Classical Music: A Guidebook for Beginners is Vijay Singha's comprehensive guide to savour and appreciate classical music. Written in a simple and easy-to-comprehend style, this book delves into the understanding of raga sangeet, semi-classical and fusion music, raga sangeet in Hindi films, as well as the future of classical music in India.

Sujets

• Musique
• Culture musicale
• Musique
• Fusión
• Sangeet
• Classical music
• Semiclassical
• Hindustani classical music
• Raag
• Future
• Western music
• Music
• Indian
• Râga

Informations

• Publié par: Roli Books
• Date de parution: 31 mai 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9788193704943
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

A N I NTRODUCTION T O
H INDUSTANI C LASSICAL M USIC
 
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ROLI BOOKS
This digital edition published in 2018
First published in 2014 by
The Lotus Collection
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Copyright © Vijay Prakash Singha, 2014
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eISBN: 978-81-937049-4-3
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Contents
Foreword
Introduction
1. A Unique Creation of the Human Mind
2. Understanding Hindustani Classical Music
3. Birth and Development of Indian Classical Music
4. The Age of Transitions in Hindustani Classical Music
5. Predominance of the Human Voice
6. The Age of Gharanas
7. Raga Sangeet
8. Ingredients of Raga Sangeet
9. Concert and Recital
10. Percussion and Instrumental Accompaniment
11. Format of an Instrumental Recital
12. Fusion Music
13. Enjoying, Appreciating and Understanding Music
14. The World of Rhythm: Percussion in Hindustani Classical Music
15. Semi-classical Music: The Fabulous World of Thumri and Kathak
16. Recommended Progress: In Stages and by Genres
17. Historical Significance of Bengal in the 19th and 20th Centuries
18. Hindustani Raga Sangeet in Hindi Films
19. The Future of Hindustani Classical Music
Bibliography and Recommended Reading
Index
About the Author
 
For Devika, a budding musician herself
 
Foreword
O f all the arts, music is the most abstract and by far the most evocative; emotionally, cerebrally and as some might claim, spiritually.
There is nothing quite like a piece of music of any genre to take you into a moodspace of its choosing. Whether it is light music like bhajans or film songs, or music set to compulsive rhythms such as Rock, Hip Hop, Be Bop, or compellingly improvisatory as Jazz, Blues or Folk from different parts of the world, or classically derived musical compositions from across the planet, music transports you through a range of emotions and feelings, often difficult to describe. Music can make your heart beat faster, blood course more vigorously or conversely sail you into an ocean of calm and tranquility.
Unlike most countries of the world, India is heir to some of the most diverse forms of music; classical, folk, and contemporary. It is an abundance of riches with a vast array of folk-forms and an exceptionally sophisticated classical lexicon.
India has two classical traditions each with its own distinct character yet closely allied to one another – Hindustani, meaning North Indian and Carnatic, representing the traditions of the South. Hindustani classical music ranges all the way from spiritual and religious to secular and profane. There are a myriad musical forms like thumris, dadras, kajris at one end of the spectrum to elaborate renditions of ragas in dhrupad and khayal forms. Each raga is a set of notes in a given order that gives the raga a specific and particular melodic character. The singer or the instrumentalist takes the raga or mode as the basis for musical elaboration which corresponds in many ways to an exciting and serendipitous musical journey into the known and unknown, the familiar and the new.
Hindustani classical music is a highly evolved form that has ragas corresponding to different times of the day from dawn to dusk and through the night. Then again there are ragas that express the unique character of each season.
Unlike Western classical music which took the route of harmonies and counterpoint after the introduction of polyphony, Hindustani classical music is firmly tied to melody.
The aesthetic under-pinning of Indian classical music is based on an aesthetic theory that goes back more than sixteen hundred years – the Rasa theory, originally applied to the performing arts in the treatise Natya Shastra by Bharata. The author elaborated on what constitutes aesthetic experience in Art. He enumerated the basic human emotions as being nine in number.
Sringara : love and longing
Hasya : funny, amusing and unexpected
Karuna : compassion
Raudra : fury and anger
Veer : heroic
Vibhatsa : disgust
Bhayanaka : terrifying
Adbhuta : wonder
Shanta : tranquility, calm and repose
In life, experience of these emotions is real and therefore stable. In an artistic work emotion is savoured rather than experienced. What is savoured, is the essence of the emotion. It is fleeting and unstable and lasts only as long as one is exposed to the work of art. More than any other art form, the appreciation and experience of Indian classical music corresponds most easily and directly to the Rasa theory.
Sadly, not many books have been written for the lay person to help appreciate and savour Hindustani classical music.
A welcome addition to the few books that exist is Vijay Prakash Singha’s comprehensive and uncomplicated introduction to Hindustani classical music which he calls a guidebook for beginners. It is simply written, cogent in its explanation, and will go a long way in making even a casual listener into a rasik .
Shyam Benegal
 
Introduction
W henever we meet people familiar with Hindustani classical music, a little digging usually reveals that this familiarity is ‘received knowledge’ from parents, teachers, or from somebody they admired or respected as youngsters. Seldom, if ever, have they acquired it themselves. What about the many others who may be genuinely interested in learning about such music, but had no one to share their knowledge with them? How can they acquire some of it on their own? Where should they turn for guidance? A cursory survey of the market reveals that there is hardly any self-help material available to guide a beginner. Whatever there is on the bookshelves is useful only to those who already have a working knowledge of the subject. There is very little, indeed, for the novice. The greenhorn, rather than finding his way into the enchanted world of Hindustani classical music, is likely to lose it altogether. Worse, he may never come back for fear of getting lost again.
This guidebook is an effort to bridge this gap. It is written specially for novices, by a listener like themselves, who might be a bit more experienced, but is a listener all the same. I am neither a musician nor a musicologist, but an avid listener who, after many years of listening has been transformed into a rasik . A rasik is one who has savoured a flower’s nectar or ras and become addicted to it. A rasik is an ‘informed listener.’ Unlike a glass of wine, which is soon gone, the rasik’s glass gets full every time he sips from it.
People unfamiliar with Indian classical music are often hesitant to take up listening to it because they feel that either they are too obtuse for such heavy stuff, or that it is too abstruse for them. Still others are wary of being thought dilettantes. I hope to alleviate such unfounded beliefs, and assure readers that Hindustani classical music is well within the reach of anyone who desires to learn to appreciate it, irrespective of their complete lack of any prior knowledge.
This guidebook has been written with a view to helping beginners become rasiks .
References to famous musicians from the past might appear dated in a contemporary guidebook, but it must be remembered that in all classical genres, a century or two is not the same thing as it is in their popular counterparts. Till the genre is alive, musicians wh