Tarakeswar Degree College Music Department
Characteristics of Indian Music DR. SRABANI SEN ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF MUSIC April 2020 Characteristics of Indian Music
Indian music consists of folk, classical (Hindustani and Carnatic) and pop music, among others. The Classical music is characterized by microtones (or shruti), notes (or swara), ornamentations (or alankar), melodies improvised from grammar (or raga) and rhythmic patterns used in percussion (or tala). SHRUTI
Shruti or śruti, is a Sanskrit word, found in the Vedic texts of Hinduism where it means lyrics and "what is heard" in general. It is also an important concept in Indian music, where it means the smallest interval of pitch that the human ear can detect and a singer or musical instrument can produce. SWARA
Svara or swara is a Sanskrit word that connotes a note in the successive steps of the octave. More comprehensively, it is the ancient Indian concept about the complete dimension of musical pitch. These seven swaras are Sa, Re (Carnatic) (Hindustani), Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, and Ni. Ornamentation in Indian Classical Music (alankar) • There are many different kinds of ornaments (alankar) in Indian classical music. Some add finer nuances to the melody, others give it texture. Together, the various ornaments play a very important role in giving body and expressiveness to a simple melody, making it complete in and of itself without the need for accompaniment. • Some of the main ornaments used in Indian classical and semi-classical music. Meends, gamaks, khatkas & kan-swars are used in Indian classical music and murki & jamjama are used i n semi classical music. • We sing simple compositions without gamaks or meends or khatkas, but take away the kan-swars, and the music is stripped of its essential identity. Meend
A meend is a smooth glide from one note to another. During slower parts of a melody, kan-swars also become meends. However, meends can span much longer intervals too. Although a meend spanning a distance of several notes technically includes all the intermediate frequencies, only selected frequencies are given enough prominence as to be identified clearly. Sometimes only the starting and end notes of a meend can be clearly identified, but at other times, other specific notes are also given prominence. Not all meends travel directly from the starting to ending notes – some meends take circuitous paths, touching notes that do not fall between the notes in question. Gamak Gamak is a word used to describe the sound of a drum; the vibration that happens when you strike the drumhead.
As a musical ornament, it is a technique of singing a note with force in a way that creates a vibration, which adds a new dimension or texture to the music.
The effect of a gamak can be heard most effectively when several notes in succession are sung with force using a vowel sound at a brisk, even pace. Different kinds of gamak are possible in terms of the intensity and wavelength of the vibration and the quality of voice used. Khatka A khatka is an ornament that involves performing a single note as a cluster of notes. The main note is featured most prominently, but a neighboring note or two are included as well. The main note is the note that can be sung straight in place of the khatka without affecting the underlying structure of the melody. Khatkas are very common, but their application is far from random. Different notes in different ragas lend themselves to the use of khatka, but not all the time. Kan-swar
A kan-swar can be sung before or after the note it ornaments, and it can be borrowed from a note below or above it, but whatever the case, the main note is held for the longer duration while the kan-swar is more subtle. Without the appropriate kan-swars, the melody no longer sounds Indian music. What kan-swar is used and when largely depends on the raga as well as the musical phrase and it takes experience to know what sounds appropriate in which context.
Notes can be sung straight, but they are often sung with kan- swar (grace notes; literally "a small quantity of a note") borrowed from an adjacent note in a musical phrase. This lends mellifluousness and expressiveness to the melody. Ornaments Used Mainly in Semi-Classical Music • Some ornaments like murki and zamzama are very characteristic of Indian folk music and semi-classical forms of music that are influenced by or recently evolved from folk music, such as dadra, thumri, tappa and so on. They do also feature in mainstream classical music, but only very rarely. • Murki • A murki is very much like a trill in that it usually involves two or three neighboring notes being alternated very swiftly and lightly. In fast-paced folk-derived compositions, murkis are rendered to sound light and sharp. In slower, more sensuous compositions, such as the thumri, they are smoothed over a bit, to sound more languid than sharp. • Zamzama • A zamzama is a zigzag pattern of notes sung using sharp, quavery gamaks. This ornament is very characteristic of folk music in the western parts of India, and also of a genre of semi-classical music called tappa which evolved from folk songs sung by camel riders in Punjab. Raga Raga is the most important concept in music making, and the classification of ragas plays a major role in Indian music theory. In northern India, ragas are classified according to such characteristics as mood, season, and time; in southern India, ragas are grouped by the technical traits of their scales. The basic components of a raga can be written down in the form of a scale (in some cases differing in ascent and descent). The performer sets out to create a mood or atmosphere (rasa) that is unique to the raga. There are several hundred ragas in present use, and thousands are possible in theory. Tala A Tala literally means a "clap, tapping one's hand on one's arm, a musical measure. It is the term used in Indian classical music to refer to musical meter, that is any rhythmic beat or strike that measures musical time. The measure is typically established by hand clapping, wavin g, touching fingers on thigh or the other hand, verbally, striking of small cymbals, or a percussion instrument in the Indian subcontinental traditions.Along with raga which forms the fabric of a melodic structure, the tala forms the life cycle and thereby constitutes one of the two foundational elements of Indian music. The tāla is indicated visually by using a series of rhythmic hand gestures called kriyas that correspond to the angas or "limbs", or vibhag of the tāla. These movements define the tala in Carnatic music, and in the Hindustani tradition too, when learning and reciting the tala, the first beat of any vibhag is known as tali ("clap") and is accompanied by a clap of the hands, while an "empty" (khali) vibhag is indicated with a sideways wave of the dominant clapping hand (usually the right).
But northern definitions of tala rely far more upon specific drum-strokes, known as bols, each with its own name that can be vocalized as well as written. In one common notation the sam is denoted by an 'X' and the khali, which is always the first beat of a particular vibhag, denoted by '0' (zero). A tala does not have a fixed tempo (laya) and can be played at different speeds. In Hindustani classical music a typical recital of a raga falls into two or three parts categorized by the quickening tempo of the music; Vilambit (delayed- slow), Madhya (medium tempo) and Drut (fast). Carnatic music adds an extra slow and fast category, categorised by divisions of the pulse ; Chauka (1 stroke per beat), Vilamba (2 strokes per beat), Madhyama (4 strokes per beat), Dhuridha (8 strokes per beat) and lastly Adi-dhuridha (16 strokes per beat).
Indian classical music, both northern and southern, have theoretically developed since ancient times numerous tala, though in practice some talas are very common, and some are rare.