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World Music – Indian Music By Dr.R.Sathyanarayana
What is world music ? Is it a summation of music of all parts of the world ? If it is, I am totally incompetent to speak of it, for, I know – I think I know – a small part of a single system of music. Then, why is this ambitious title for this humble presentation ? In this presentation, I mean by world music, what is common to all music of the world – the sāmānya lakśana – of music. I mean by Indian music, the contribution of the music makers, music performers and music thinkers to this sāmānya dharma.
First, what is music ? Broadly speaking, it is a conscious creation and organization of tones and rhythms into a form. A tone is a smooth sound, an interval resonant, capable of being heard at a distance, and importantly, pleasing to the listener. Its capacity to appeal to listener’s mind is intrinsic, i.e, depends only on its nature and not on any outside factor. Tone has another attribute, viz, there is no time-lag between its production and perception. All these attributes are summarised in Indian music theory in an aphoristic definition of svara (tone, musical note), ‘śruty-anantarabhāvī yah snigdho’nurānātmakah svato rañjayati śrotr cittam sa svara ucyate’. The number of tones, their respective pitches and their mutual relationships are culturally conditioned and differ from one parent culture to another while many musical systems such as the Chinese use only five notes. Some, such as the Javanese employ both. The pitches constituting the notes of the scale are scales of any given musical system are peculiar to the aesthetic sensibility and attitudes of the respective community. This is a prime factor in the ‘nativity’ of the system and needs sympathetic exposure for a person of another culture to understand, if not enjoy, the music native to one culture. Music is a product of svara or tone–kinesis. This may be regarded as a locus of a single tone manifesting at different levels and places of a continuum or as the related or integrated manifestation of several tones. The first implies continuity in movement and the second, an integration or summation of relationships. Again, movement may occur as a sequence of single tones as in homophonic music or in terms of a progression of two or more tones sounded 2 ۩ together as in polyphonic music (I use polyphony in its broadest sense and not as part-singing). In homophonic music, the tones may be employed as discrete unites as say, in Chinese music or they may be connected to each other, as in Indian music. The connection is called gamaka (lit. movement) in which a svara is displaced from its original position and shaken (gamaka) in various ways, within the limits of the adjacent svaras. Gamaka is another prime factor in svara treatment in Indian music. It gives character and personality to a tone, expands its width, lends continuity to a music phrase and bestows specific expressiveness to rāga. Only the tonic and its fifth (if it occurs in the rāga) are exempted from gamaka so that these form the backbone of the scale. There are some systems such as Arabian and Persian music where gamakas are applied to all notes without exception. In polyphony on the other hand, tone progression is both horizontal and vertical. Since, two or more notes are sounded together there can be no gamaka, otherwise it would lead to clang or harshness in the chords.
Tone is an interval, the magnitude of which determines its pitch value. These are usually classified into three – small, middle and large. Their magnitudes are defined in terms of sub-intervals. The svara is manifested at its final sub-interval. The earliest attempt at such sub-division is found in India (some two thousand years ago). It is called śruti. The small, middle and large tones are attributed with two, three and four śrutis respectively, totally 22 to the octave. Being the smallest part of a svara, its theory explains the nature and functions of the svaras such as its relationship with śruti, svara modification, tri-chord, tetra-chord, register, octave, scale, sonance and so on.
Another quality of tone is octave phenomenon, a periodicity which occurs elsewhere also in Nature. This is a quality by which a note is reborn with the most similitude. This gives rise to the repeating octaves for every note both up words and down words. This is called sthayi in Indian music. Most of early music, especially religious music was confined to a single register. A musical system in which the voice is predominant adopts a three register range, extended by gifted vocalists by 3 ۩ some four or five notes below and above this range. Music in which instruments dominate adopts a larger range.
A fundamental property of tone is that it may serve as tonic or key note. The farmer serves as gravitational centre in melodic situations while the key note serves as a starting point, to extend a melodic line in it. These devices are called ādhāra svara and mūrchanā svara in Indian music from earliest times. Both seven-tone and twelve tone mūrchanās were known in Indian music in the 7th cent. AD.
A melodic system based on a scale of seven tones comprises of twelve semitones. Among these seven are designated conventionally as unmodified or pure based on a musical criterion and the other five are regarded as modified forms of the former. In Karnataka music (and in ancient Indian music theory) the lowest pitch among all the possible denominations or magnitudes of a svara is called pure and the higher ones, vikrta or modified. Such modification is limited by the next higher svara . In Hindusthani music, every svara takes two forms – a lower and a higher. The lower ones are called komal (tender, soft) while the higher ones are named śuddha. The degrees of a scale are sometimes tempered for musical expediency. The equal tempered twelve-semitone scale of western music arose in order to avoid clang or harshness of the natural components of a chord. The antara gāndhāra and kākali nisada of early Indian music were tempered to the next higher śruti each corresponding to the major third and seventh, in the 17th cent. A.D. Also the metastable four-śruti risabha of the 15th – 16th cent A.D. was resolved into a distinct three sruti and a five sruti risabha. Jaap Kunst records similar changes in Javanese music also.
Music may consist of monotonic chanting as in rgveda (ārcika), of two tones as in ballad singing (gāthika), of the three tones (sāmika), of four tones (svarāntara, cātuhsvarya – tetrachord as in tribal music e.g. sabara, pulinda, barbara, kirāta), of five tones (auduva), of six tones (sā dava) or of all seven notes (sampūrna). The last three belongs to the domain of folk music or art music. Altogether, these seven comprehend the entirety of music, as mentioned by MataΔga Muni in his Brhaddesi. 4 ۩
All melodic music is comprised of long sustained notes, ascending phrases (ārohi), descending phrases (avarohi) and their mixture (saΔcāri). This was posited as long as about two thousand years ago by Bharata Muni in the Nātyasāstram.
All the svaras subsist together as a family with mutual relationships under a familial organization. Such organization was called grāma in ancient and medieval Indian music in comparison with many families organized together as single entity viz. a village (grāma). The grāma comprehend relative magnitudes of svara intervals, the most dominant note in such organization, sonance as the capacity of a svara to blend with another.
Such relationships are of prime importance in every music system in the world functioning at conscious level or otherwise. In Indian music this is called vādi – samvādi – anuvādi – vivādi and functions slightly differently in Karnataka music and Hindushani music.
An analogy may be drawn between melodic music and language in terms of their elements. Syllable clusters formed to conduce meaning give words, word clusters arranged according to rules of plausibility give phrases or clauses; these are arranged so as to convey meaning progressively give sentences which give discursive meaning. Clusters of sentences converging to a central notion, idea or concept form paragraphs. If many paragraphs, each conveying a nucleal meaning arranged in a proper sequence give rise to a literary composition. A rough parallel may be argued with discrete musical notes, musical phrases (varnālaΔkāra), a melodic line with a self sufficient musical idea (non discursive, autonomic meaning), music sections and a music composition.
Music is an art in which tone moves in time. A fixed pattern of time offers a foil for the movement. The pattern may be linear such as beats or cyclic such as the tāla of Indian music. Its purpose is to measure the whole musical event and every part of it as well as to locate it in a time. Percussives have an important role to play in this and are a wonderful human invention by which time is patterned and structured 5 ۩ with sound. Indian music boasts of a large variety and scope in its percussion instruments.
A good musical form emerges from interplay of melody and rhythm in optimal proportions. It is a product of recurrence and variation. Its melodic behaviour is subject to law of continuity, Law of Variation, Law of Expectancy, Law of Return etc. Its rhythm behaviour is governed by equilibrium with melody in phrasing, by simulation and contrast, continuity, adoption to variable melody, functioning as a low key foil etc. It may be a form which is segmented or un-segmented, set to words or not, set to tāla or not; its word content may be more important than its music or vice versa ; it may have a specific emotional content or purpose or not. Music may be a vehicle or may be an end in itself. Indian music has all these varieties. At the present time, it has a repertoire of some seventeen forms in each of Karnataka music and in Hindusthani music. History of Indian music reveals some seventy five major music forms with more than four thousand sub-varieties !
Man expresses music not only with his music but also through various instruments he has invented. These may be classified in terms of quality of musical sounds generated by the respective materials such as stretched strings, stretched membranes, wind instruments and solid materials. These are comprehended in tata, susira,̣ avanaddha and ghana in Indian music theory. But human inventive genius has produced synthesized musical tones and musical sounds from such diverse materials that call for a more adequate classification.
Origin of music is attributed by different cultures to God, to Satan or Shaitan, to sages, to hunting calls of primitive men, to tendency to create word and language, to beauty simple numerical ratios of sound to the unique ability of the human mind for symbolic transformation, to behavioral vocal urges in moments of fear, grief or joy etc.
All these may be true. However, I think the source of all music is the heart of man which sings out in a language transcending words for the harmony among nations and symphony of all human endeavors towards peace and fraternity.