INDIAN MUSIC
Introduction
Indian classical music is divided into two parts, Hindustani music (northern and central) and Carnatic music (from the area now constituting the southern four states). both branches are thought to have diverged from the one root in about the 13th century.
Briefly, the northern music is strongly instrumental and the southern primarily vocal, in that the latter is completely melodic and either sung or, if played instrumentally, played in a singing style. Accordingly, it is the northern music with which Western people are most familiar, the sitar of Ravi Shankar, the tabla and so on.
Component Parts Of The Music
Indian music (both types) is based on raga, the various modes for melody, and tala, the rhythmic backdrop.
Hindustani Music
Hindustani music developed from ancient vedic (religious) chant being fused in the middle ages with Persian influences. Each mode in Hindustani music has a series of note intervals, like a Western "church mode. There are up to seven notes (scale degrees) in each mode, not including the repeated tonic note. Ten modes are generally identified.
The scale degrees are the same as the Western do re mi etc, except that the second, third, fourth, sixth and seventh notes in the mode can be flat or sharp as well as fixed as in the "do re mi" idea.
The major performers of Hindustani music are or have been:
Melody instruments
Ravi Shankar (sitar), Ali Akbar Kahn (sarod), Ram Naraya and Sultan Kahn (sarangi), Shivkumar Sharma (santoor)
Rhythm instruments
Zakir Hussain (tabla)
The Main Instruments:
Sitar: a sweet rich sound. Indian instruments do not have frets, hence the great use of sliding (glissandi).
Sarod: like the sitar it is multi-stringed, but deeper; it occupies a similar sound range to the classical guitar. The conventional sarod has 18 to 19 strings: four to five main strings are used for the melody, there are one or two drone strings, two chikari strings and ten to eleven sympathetic strings.
Sarangi: it is a bowed instrument (analagous to a cello) and its name is from two words meaning a "hundred colors".
Santoor: it is a box shaped instrument whose name means a "hundred strings". It is the oldest instrument in India, is of Persian origin, and has been recently brought fully into Indian classical music by virtuoso Shivkumar Sharma. The santoor has a range of three octaves and is struck with two mallets. In the sound clip, the Persian influence is easily heard.
Santoor (Shivkumar Sharma)
Tabla: the rhythm element of the music. The acknowledged current master is Zakir Hussain. Hear him with sarangi player Sultan Kahn below. The piece begins slowly, and (separate clip) ends frenetically.
Carnatic Music
Carnatic music is different to Hindustani music because it developed in the south of India, an area free of the Persian influence that hit the north in the 13th century. The music therefore stayed being played on instruments more suited to melody, such as the veena, which has scalloped-out frets!), the violin, the tambura (like a bouzouki, but played with open strings as a drone, and tuned to provide the right tonal shading for a raga), and the flute.
Major veena players were Veene Sheshanna (1852-1926), Veene Subbanna (1861-1939) and Veena Dhanammal (1867-1938). A violin virtuoso, in the Carnatic tradition, was Tirumakudalu Chowdriah (1895-1967), who pioneered the seven string violin to better accompany singers with volume.
A veena: Veena Dhanammal
Scalloped frets ....
The emphasis of Carnatic music on melody and singing can thus easily be imagined.
Photographs: Wikipedia