History
The root ofTexts
The post-Vedic era historical literature relating to Indian classical music has been extensive. The ancient and medieval texts are primarily in Sanskrit (Hinduism), but major reviews of music theory, instruments and practice were also composed in regional languages such as Braj, Kannada, Odia, Pali (Buddhism), Prakrit (Jainism), Tamil and Telugu. While numerous manuscripts have survived into the modern era, many original works on Indian music are believed to be lost, and are known to have existed only because they are quoted and discussed in other manuscripts on classical Indian music. Many of the encyclopedicMajor traditions
The classical music tradition of the ancient and medieval Indian subcontinent (modern Bangladesh, India, Pakistan) were a generally integrated system through the 14th century, after which the socio-political turmoil of theCarnatic music
Hindustani music
It is unclear when the process of differentiation of Hindustani music started. The process may have started in the 14th century courts of the Delhi Sultans. However, according to Jairazbhoy, the North Indian tradition likely acquired its modern form after the 14th or after the 15th century. The development of Hindustani music reached a peak during the reign ofPersian and Arab influences
Hindustani music has had Arab and Persian music influences, including the creation of new ragas and the development of instruments such as the sitar and sarod. The nature of these influences are unclear. Scholars have attempted to study Arabic ''Features
Classical Indian music is a genre ofRaga
A ''raga'' is a central concept of Indian music, predominant in its expression. According to Walter Kaufmann, though a remarkable and prominent feature of Indian music, a definition of ''raga'' cannot be offered in one or two sentences. ''Raga'' may be roughly described as a musical entity that includes note intonation, relative duration and order, in a manner similar to how words flexibly form phrases to create an atmosphere of expression. In some cases, certain rules are considered obligatory, in others optional. The ''raga'' allows flexibility, where the artist may rely on simple expression, or may add ornamentations yet express the same essential message but evoke a different intensity of mood. A ''raga'' has a given set of notes, on a scale, ordered in melodies with musical motifs. A musician playing a ''raga'', states Bruno Nettl, may traditionally use just these notes, but is free to emphasize or improvise certain degrees of the scale. The Indian tradition suggests a certain sequencing of how the musician moves from note to note for each ''raga'', in order for the performance to create a ''rasa'' (mood, atmosphere, essence, inner feeling) that is unique to each ''raga''. A ''raga'' can be written on a scale. Theoretically, thousands of ''raga'' are possible given 5 or more notes, but in practical use, the classical Indian tradition has refined and typically relies on several hundred. For most artists, their basic perfected repertoire has some forty to fifty ''ragas''. ''Raga'' in Indian classical music is intimately related to ''tala'' or guidance about "division of time", with each unit called a ''matra'' (beat, and duration between beats). A ''raga'' is not a tune, because the same ''raga'' can yield a very large number of tunes. A ''raga'' is not a scale, because many ''ragas'' can be based on the same scale. A ''raga'', states Bruno Nettl and other music scholars, is a concept similar to mode, something between the domains of tune and scale, and it is best conceptualized as a "unique array of melodic features, mapped to and organized for a unique aesthetic sentiment in the listener". The goal of a ''raga'' and its artist is to create ''rasa'' (essence, feeling, atmosphere) with music, as classical Indian dance does with performance arts. In the Indian tradition, classical dances are performed with music set to various ''ragas''.Tala
According to David Nelson – an Ethnomusicology scholar specializing in Carnatic music, a ''tala'' in Indian music covers "the whole subject of musical meter". Indian music is composed and performed in a metrical framework, a structure of beats that is a ''tala''. A ''tala'' measures musical time in Indian music. However, it does not imply a regular repeating accent pattern, instead its hierarchical arrangement depends on how the musical piece is supposed to be performed. The ''tala'' forms the metrical structure that repeats, in a cyclical harmony, from the start to end of any particular song or dance segment, making it conceptually analogous to meters in Western music. However, ''talas'' have certain qualitative features that classical European musical meters do not. For example, some ''talas'' are much longer than any classical Western meter, such as a framework based on 29 beats whose cycle takes about 45 seconds to complete when performed. Another sophistication in ''talas'' is the lack of "strong, weak" beat composition typical of the traditional European meter. In classical Indian traditions, the ''tala'' is not restricted to permutations of strong and weak beats, but its flexibility permits the accent of a beat to be decided by the shape of musical phrase. The most widely used ''tala'' in the South Indian system is '' adi tala''. In the North Indian system, the most common ''tala'' is '' teental''. In the two major systems of classical Indian music, the first count of any ''tala'' is called ''sam''.Instruments
Instruments typically used in Hindustani music include theNotation system
Indian classical music is both elaborate and expressive. Like Western classical music, it divides the octave into 12 semitones of which the 7 basic notes are, in ascending tonal order, ''Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni '' for Hindustani music and ''Sa Ri Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni '' forReception outside India
According to Yukteshwar Kumar, elements of Indian music arrived in China in the 3rd century, such as in the works of Chinese lyricist Li Yannian. In 1958,Organizations
SPIC MACAY, established in 1977, has more than 500 chapters in India and abroad. SPIC MACAY claims to hold around 5000 events every year related to Indian classical music and dance.See also
*References
Bibliography
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