Transcript Document

HINDUSTANI CLASSICAL MUSIC
Hindustani Classical Music –
What is it?
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One of the two main traditions in Indian
traditional / classical music
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Hindustani Classical Music belongs to
North India
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Carnatic Classical Music belongs to
South India
Hindustani Classical Music
Instruments in Hindustani
Classical Music
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Tambura (providing the drone)
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A four-stringed, long-necked lute
with a large gourd body.
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Player simply plucks the four
strings (which usually reinforce
the two most important pitches “do” (I) and “soh” (V)) throughout
the music.
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Usually the one that creates the
“buzzing sound” in the beginning
and throughout the music, where
the background buzz could be
likened to aural incense
permeating a room.
Instruments in Hindustani
Classical Music
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Tabla (providing the rhythm)
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Consists of a small cylindrical wooden
drum with a single head called tabla and a
larger, round metal drum with single head
called baya.
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Each drum stroke has a name and tabla
players memorise the stroke names as part
of learning process
Instruments in Hindustani
Classical Music
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Sarod (providing the main melody)
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Long-necked lute, around forty inches long
and has a large wooden body covered with
calfskin.
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Six main strings of metal running over a
fretless metal fingerboard.
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Eleven to Fifteen “sympathetic” metal
strings which are tuned to vibrate
“sympathetically” with the main strings,
providing a background of ethereal ringing.
Instruments in Hindustani
Classical Music
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Sitar, the more popular alternative to Sarod
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Long-necked lute and has a large body made of
gourd as resonator.
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Six or seven main strings of running over a
movable fretted fingerboard.
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Similar to the sarod , there are “sympathetic”
strings which are tuned to vibrate
“sympathetically” with the main strings,
providing a background of ethereal ringing.
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Ravi Shankar plays the sitar.
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The sitar sound is the most
recognisable export of
Indian Classical Music
to the world.
Hindustani Classical Music
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Raga
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Organised set of pitches, similar to the concept
of scales in Western music
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Unlike Western music, ragas also dictate the
hierarchy of strong and weak notes, sets of
typical melodic figures and a set of extramusical associations with things such as
moods, times of the day etc. Sometimes, ragas
are represented pictorially as individual human
beings.
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Can be seen as a “skeletal tool” which
performers use to create the melody “on-thespot”.
Hindustani Classical Music
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Tala
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Fixed cycle of beats which can be subdivided
into few sections (you may imagine our 4/4
time-signature, subdivided into four sections).
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The number of beats in each cycle ranges from
3 to 128.
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Unlike Western Music, talas end on the first
beat of the cycle.
Hindustani Classical Music
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Form
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Raga performances typically start out very slow
and increase in tempo gradually until they reach
a breathtakingly rapid climax.
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The structure of a performance varies
somewhat from school to school and even artist
to artist.
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Usually, it starts with the main melodic
instrument (sarod or sitar) and the drone
instrument (tambura) in an unmetered manner
and very slowly, “teasing out” the notes of the
raga. This is known as the alap section.
Hindustani Classical Music
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Form (cont’d)
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When the rhythmic instruments (tabla) comes in
with the tala, the music becomes metered. The
tempo may then increase and reach a climax
with virtuosic display from both the sarod (or
sitar) and tabla players. This is known as the
gat section.
Hindustani Classical Music –
Musical Essentials
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Western Music – Focus is on Harmony
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Recall 12-bar blues – Bass progression
(foundation of Harmony) is the “identity” and
“driving force”
Hindustani Classical Music – Focus is on the scale
(raga) used and the melodic improvisation based
on the scale used.
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Recall how the music starts with the alap
section to slowly reveal the characteristics of
the raga with only the main melodic instrument
and the drone, followed the improvised main
melody (gat) and its improvisation.
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However, like western improvised music, such
as jazz, exciting and complex rhythm (tala) may
be incorporated to create excitement in the
course of improvisation.