Ranganathan Dissertation
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Dwelling in my Voice: Tradition as musical judgment and aesthetic sense in North Indian classical Dhrupad By Sumitra Ranganathan A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Music in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Bonnie C. Wade, Chair Professor Benjamin E. Brinner Professor Charles K. Hirschkind Summer 2015 Dwelling in my Voice: Tradition as musical judgment and aesthetic sense in North Indian classical Dhrupad © 2015 By Sumitra Ranganathan Abstract Dwelling in my Voice: Tradition as musical judgment and aesthetic sense in North Indian classical Dhrupad By Sumitra Ranganathan Doctor of Philosophy in Music University of California, Berkeley Professor Bonnie C. Wade, Chair In this dissertation, I examine notions of tradition and fidelity to tradition in Indian classical music by investigating the development of musical judgment, categorical knowledge and aesthetic sense in the performance of Dhrupad - a genre of Hindustani music with medieval origins. Focusing on two contemporary performers of Dhrupad with very different histories of listening and practice, I show that categorical knowledge and strong notions of fidelity to tradition arise directly from the deeply dialogic and inter-subjective processes through which individual musicians develop and stabilize coherent aesthetic response to handed-down musical materials in situated practice. Specifically, I argue that strong notions of tradition and fidelity to tradition in Indian classical music are irreducible to a discussion of the disciplinary technologies of colonialism and cultural nationalism. Rather, I propose that tradition in Indian classical music has to be understood in dialogic relationship with intelligibility and individual musical judgment. I develop an analytical framework to investigate the interactive basis of musical judgment and categorical sense in Dhrupad performance. I understand forms of knowledge produced in performance to be acoustemic – namely, epistemologies produced through active sensing in and through sound. I investigate how formal structures of knowledge in a classical music system become available as human sensibility, affect and soma-aesthetic knowledge in the interactivity of musical environments - an intertwining engendered in part by the affordance of musico- aesthetic forms in Indian classical music. I show that musical objects develop both heterogeneity and ontological weight in the interactivity of Dhrupad vocal performance, rendering performance practice within traditional lineages systematic and heterogeneous, coherent and diverse. Based on this analysis I argue that heterogeneity and diversity are not antithetical to the existence of a Great Tradition of Indian classical music but a part of its sonic logic as a domain of creative human activity. In positing that the categories, codes, classifications and ontologies of the most hoary of genres in Indian classical music are constitutive of and constituted by situated practice of classical music in particular communities, this dissertation stakes a claim to the intellectual history of traditions in postcolonial contexts. 1 எ" ஒ$ க&ணா)ய ச,-ரேசகர$0 ம23$ க&ணா)ய 4-யா56-த$0 உ9க&ணா)ய உேம:வர$0 இதயகமலமான சாரைத@" மA@B 4ைளயாD0 E )$Fண$GH அவ$ைடய இ:K2கைள எ" பGM NலாகO பA-P ம)Q4Gக9D0! i Table of Contents Notation Conventions ............................................................................................................ iv Acknowledgments ................................................................................................................... v Prologue: choosing between milk and water ................................................................. 1 Chapter 1 - Introduction ........................................................................................................ 3 Indian Nationalism, epistemic encounters and the birth of Tradition ........................... 4 Writing history between the cocoon of continuity and the rhetoric of rupture .......... 8 Scholarship on tradition and performance in Hindustani music .................................. 10 Stakes on the ground .................................................................................................................... 14 “Invention”, “Re-invention”, “Tradition” and Tradition .................................................... 15 Dissertation chapters ................................................................................................................... 20 Chapter 2 - Tradition, intelligibility and musical judgment in Dhrupad ........... 22 Acoustemic environments, emplacement and place .......................................................... 23 Acoustic communities .................................................................................................................. 26 Grids of intelligibility, thick sound and musical judgment .............................................. 29 Thick sound ...................................................................................................................................... 30 Mapping the field: Places, musical communities and musicians ................................... 32 Mapping sound: Dhrupad vocal performance ...................................................................... 33 Sources and methodology ........................................................................................................... 42 Chapter 3 - Thick sound on an ancestral street .......................................................... 45 Lineage: the fertile grounds of family musical practice .................................................... 47 The musical inheritance - Indra Kishore’s khazana ........................................................... 49 The khazana as thick sound ....................................................................................................... 51 Emplacing sound: Acoustemic anchors for the catalytic khazana ................................. 52 An acoustemology of Bettiah’s musical places ..................................................................... 60 Acoustic communities .................................................................................................................. 69 Thick sound, intelligibility and musical judgment ............................................................. 75 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 81 Chapter 4 - Thick sound in a Bengali home ................................................................. 83 Musical lineage: a serendipitous discipleship in Benares ................................................ 85 The musical inheritance: Falguni Mitra’s khazana ............................................................. 87 Dwelling in my voice – the khazana as thick sound ............................................................ 92 Soundscapes of a Kolkata home ................................................................................................ 92 Home and the world: the acoustemology of music rooms ............................................... 96 Acoustic communities, thick sound and musical judgment ........................................... 101 The catalytic khazana - Paper and ink as acoustemic anchors ..................................... 109 The catalytic khazana - musical objects as acoustemic anchors .................................. 110 “An Amir Khan-like thought” – mental models and affective associations .............. 117 Conclusion: Thick sound, intelligibility and musical judgment ................................... 119 ii Chapter 5 - Sound objects: sensing structure and feeling form in Dhrupad performance ......................................................................................................................... 120 A concert on the river Ganga .................................................................................................... 121 Sensing and crafting new places from old ........................................................................... 125 A film and its preview ................................................................................................................. 138 Dhrupad songs as musico-aesthetic forms: the aesthetic category of bani .............. 145 Musical affordance, thick sound and the khandar bani .................................................. 160 Sound marks on a singing body ............................................................................................... 163 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 165 Chapter 6 - Conclusion: Of birds and debates over musical Truths ................. 166 Bibliography ......................................................................................................................... 173 iii Notation Conventions sargam Scale degree Scale degree name S 1 tonic r 2 flat second R 2 second g 3 flat third G 3 third M 4 fourth m 4' augmented fourth P 5 fifth d 6 flat sixth D 6 sixth n 7 flat seventh N 7 seventh Upper octave Superscript u Lower octave Subscript l iv Acknowledgments Most specially, I thank my supervisor Bonnie Wade. Her gift for listening and making something out of my barely formed ideas is a constant source of amazement to me. To professors