Indian classical music brief history

indian classical music

 Vedic period : 

 The sages used to sing and their wives used to play instruments like Veena. Amongst the four Vedic scriptures, “Samved” was primarily music based. The ‘matras‘ in Samved were recited in vocal form and were known as “Samgan“. In Samgan three types of swar i.e tone used were, Anudatta(low pitch), Udatya (high pitch) and Swarit ( between low and high pitches).

  The 13th century Sanskrit text Sangita-Ratnakara of Sarangadeva is regarded as the definitive text by both the Hindustani music and the Carnatic music traditions.

The root of music in ancient India are found in the Vedic literature of Hinduism. The earliest Indian thought combined three arts, syllabic recital (vadya), melos (gita) and dance (nrtta). As these fields developed, sangeeta became a distinct genre of art, in a form equivalent to contemporary music. This likely occurred before the time of Yāska (c. 500 BCE), since he includes these terms in his nirukta studies, one of the six Vedanga of ancient Indian tradition. Some of the ancient texts of Hinduism such as the Samaveda (c. 1000 BCE) are structured entirely to melodic themes, it is sections of Rigveda set to music.

The Samaveda is organized into two formats. One part is based on the musical meter, another by the aim of the rituals. The text is written with embedded coding, where swaras (octave notes) are either shown above or within the text, or the verse is written into parvans (knot or member) in simple words this embedded code of swaras is like the skeleton of the song. The swaras have about 12 different forms and different combinations of these swaras are made to sit under the names of different ragas. The specific code of a song clearly tells us what combination of swaras are present in a specific song. The lyrical part of the song is called "sahityam" and sahityam is just like singing the swaras altogether but using the lyrics of the song. The code in the form of swaras have even the notation of which note to be sung high and which one low. The hymns of Samaveda contain melodic content, form, rhythm and metric organization. This structure is, however, not unique or limited to Samaveda. The Rigveda embeds the musical meter too, without the kind of elaboration found in the Samaveda. For example, the Gayatri mantra contains three metric lines of exactly eight syllables, with an embedded ternary rhythm.

The most cited and influential among these texts are the Sama Veda, Natya shastra (classic treatise on music theory, Gandharva), Dattilam, Brihaddesi (treatise on regional classical music forms), and Sangita Ratnakara (definitive text for Carnatic and Hindustani traditions). Most historic music theory texts have been by Hindu scholars. Some classical music texts were also composed by Buddhists and Jain scholars, and in 16th century by Muslim scholars.

The age of Ramayana and Mahabharata is considered to be the golden age of Gandarbha music. Possibly during this era, the seven swars known as Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni came into being.

Muslim period/ medieval period  and  Modern Era: 

Development of Hindustani music reached a peak during the reign of Akbar. During this 16th century period, Tansen studied music and introduced musical innovations, for about the first sixty years of his life with patronage of the Hindu king Ram Chand of Gwalior, and thereafter performed at the Muslim court of Akbar. Many musicians consider Tansen as the founder of Hindustani music

Tansen's style and innovations inspired many, and many modern gharanas (Hindustani music teaching houses) link themselves to his lineage. The Muslim courts discouraged Sanskrit, and encouraged technical music

Hindustani music style is mainly found in North India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. It exists in four major forms: Dhrupad, Khyal (or Khayal), Tarana, and the semi-classical Thumri. Dhrupad is ancient, Khyal evolved from it, Thumri evolved from Khyal. There are three major schools of Thumri: Lucknow gharana, Banaras gharana and Punjabi gharana. These weave in folk music innovations. Tappa is the most folksy, one which likely existed in Rajasthan and Punjab region before it was systematized and integrated into classical music structure. It became popular, with the Bengali musicians developing their own Tappa.

Khyal is the modern form of Hindustani music, and the term literally means "imagination". It is significant because it was the template for Sufi musicians among the Islamic community of India, and Qawwals sang their folk songs in the Khyal format

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Dhrupad (or Dhruvapad), the ancient form described in the Hindu text Natyashastra, is one of the core forms of classical music found all over the Indian subcontinent. The word comes from Dhruva which means immovable and permanent.

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Improvisation is of central importance to Hindustani music, and each gharana (school tradition) has developed its own techniques. At its core, it starts with a standard composition (bandish), then expands it in a process called vistar. The improvisation methods have ancient roots, and one of the more common techniques is called Alap, which is followed by the Jor and Jhala. The Alap explores possible tonal combinations among other things, Jor explores speed or tempo (faster), while Jhala explores complex combinations like a fishnet of strokes while keeping the beat patterns. As with Carnatic music, Hindustani music has assimilated various folk tunes. For example, ragas such as Kafi and Jaijaiwanti are based on folk tunes.

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.

Many of the encyclopedic Puranas contain large chapters on music theory and instruments, such as the Bhagavata Purana, the Markandeya Purana, the Vayu Purana, the Linga Purana, and the Visnudharmottara Purana.

The beginning of 20th century saw the revival of Indian classical music.  

  Amongst those who contributed to this revival, the names of Pt. Bishnu Digambar paluskar(1872-1931), Pt. Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhananda(1860-1936) need special mention. The process of notation in music invented by Bhatkhanadaji is now followed by Hindustani classical musicians.

The 20th century witnessed a galaxy of brilliant Indian Classical musicians like Ustad Faiz Khan, Ustad Abdul Karim Khan, Ustad Amir Khan, Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Pandit Onkarnath Tahkur, Biswadeb Chottopadhyaha, Tarapada Chakravarty, Ustad Alauddin Khan, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, UStad Enayat Khan, Pandit Ravi Shankar, Pandit V.G Jyog etc.


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