Folk Dance - Tarangamel

It is the folk dance of Goa that celebrates the youthfulness of the region. It is performed during Dussehra and Holi. The use of rainbow-like costumes with multi-coloured flags and streamers make it a visual spectacle.

Folk Dance - Chhau

The word Chhau originates from ‘Chhaya’ meaning shadow. It is a form of mask dance that uses vigourous martial movements to narrate mythological stories. Some narrations also use natural themes such as Sarpa nritya (serpent dance) or Mayur Nritya (peacock dance). 

There are three main styles of Chhau dance – Saraikella Chhau in Jharkhand, Mayurbhanj Chhau in Odisha and Purulia Chhau in West Bengal. Of these, Mayurbhanj Chhau artists don’t wear masks.

In 2010, UNESCO inscribed Chhau in the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Gana Sangeet

This is the form of fusion music that is sung in chorus or groups and in large numbers. The most common form of Gana Sangeet is to sing about patriotic feelings. They also include songs of protest against the malpractices in the society. They generally try to bring in a social message, for example, to urge people to stop the exploitation of women and children etc. One of the most popular examples of Gana Sangeet is our national song: Vande Mataram, which is sung in praise of the nation.

 

Folk - Powada

This is also a folk type emerging from the state of Maharashtra. They are usually ballads sung for the heros of the past like Shivaji. These songs describe the events of their glorious past and their heroic deeds.

Folk Dance - Dandiya

Raas or Dandiya Raas is the traditional folk dance form of Gujarat and is associated with scenes of Holi and lila of Krishna and Radha at Vrindavan. Along with Garba, it is the featured dance of Navratri evenings in Western India.

 There are several forms of Raas, but “Dandiya Raas”, performed during Navaratri in Gujarat is the most popular form. Other forms of Raas include Dang Lila from Rajasthan where only one large stick is used, and “Rasa lila” from North India. Raas Lila and Dandiya Raas are similar. Some even consider “Garba” as a form of Raas, namely “Raas Garba”. In Dandiya Raas men and women dance in two circles, with sticks in their hands.

 

Folk Music - Pai Song

These songs are mostly from Madhya Pradesh. They are sung during the festivals, especially those festivals that fall during the rainy season. These songs generally plead for a ‘good monsoon and a good harvest’ as these are the songs of the farmer communities.

 Generally, the Saira dance is performed on Pai music. 

Folk Music - Ovi

This form of music is from Maharashtra and Goa. They are usually the songs of women i.e., they are sung by women during leisure time and when they are completing their household work. They usually contain four small lines of poetry. These are usually songs written for marriages, pregnancy and as lullabies for children. 

Folk Music - Panihari

This form is from the State of Rajasthan and is thematically related to water. The songs are generally about women fetching water from the nearby well and carrying the water back to their households in matkas over their head. The songs are usually about the scarcity of water and the long distance between the well and the village.

Sometimes the songs also talk about the daily concerns of the village women who are clustered near the village well.

Some other time, the songs also concentrate on a chance encounter between lovers, hence they are also romantic in nature. They also talk about the contentious relationship between the mother in law and the daughter in law.

Link to watch video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yhQfDX1Djk

Folk Music - Pandavani

This type of folk music is based on the grand epic-Mahabharata and Bhima as hero. It is all inclusive of gayan (singing) and vadan (playing an instrument). Usually the songs are set to the rhythm of a tambura. One of the most well known artists is Tijanbai from the state of Chhattisgarh who won the Padma Shri and the Padma Bhushan for her contribution to this musical field.

 

Folk Music - Baul

It is not only a type of music but a Bengali religious sect. The music of the Bauls, Baul Sangeet, is a particular type of folk song. Its lyrics carry influences of the Hindu Bhakti movements and the Suphi, a form of Sufi song exemplified by the songs of Kabir and is called ‘Baul Gaan’ or Baul song.

Their music represents a long heritage of preaching mysticism through songs in Bengal, as in the Shahebdhoni or Bolahadi sects.

The prominent propounder of this music is: Yotin Das, Purno Chandra Das, Lalon Phakir, Naboni Das and Sanatan Das Thakur Baul.

Gharana System

A gharana is a system of social organisation linking musicians or dancers by lineage or apprenticeship, and by adherence to a particular musical style.

The word gharana comes from the Urdu/Hindi word ‘ghar’, which means ‘family’ or ‘house’. It typically refers to the place where the musical ideology originated.

A gharana also indicates a comprehensive musicological ideology and differentiates one school from another.

It directly affects the thinking, teaching, performance and appreciation of music.

Some of the gharanas well known for singing Hindustani classical music are: Agra, Gwalior, Indore, Jaipur, Kirana, and Patiala.

Indian Music and Culture - Thaat

Thaat is a system of classification of the ragas in different groups.

Presently, in Hindustani classical music, 10-Thaat classification has been adopted. According to V.N Bhatkhande, one of the most important musicologists in the field of North Indian classical music, each one of the several traditional ragas is based on, or is a variation of 10 basic thaats or musical scales or frameworks. A thaat can only be sung in aaroha as the notes are composed in the ascending order.

A thaat should have seven notes out of the 12 notes (7 Suddha Swaras and 5 Vikrata Swaras) and they should necessarily be placed in an ascending order. The 10 thaats are: Bilawal, Khamaj, Kafi, Asavari, Bhairavi, Bhairav, Kalyan, Marwa, Poorvi and Todi. Thaat has no emotional quality unlike raga and it is not sung. The ragas produced from the thaat are sung.

Indian Music - RASA

The reason behind the creation of ragas was to evoke emotional responses in the performer and the audience. These emotions, which are evoked through the singing and playing of instruments, are called Rasas. The rasas have also been called the ‘aesthetic delight’ as they are consciously made to feel an emotion through someone else’s art, even though they are free from the limitations of personal feelings. Initially, there were eight rasas, but later another rasa called the ‘shanta’ rasa was added to make nine rasas or ‘Nauras’. These are:

Type of Rasa                   Mood it Evokes

Shringara                              Love

Haasya                           Humour/Laughter

Karuna                                  Pathos

Roudra                                   Anger

Bhayanak                             Horror

Veer                                     Bravery

Adbhuta                               Wonder

Bibhatsa                               Disgust

Shant                              Peaceful or calm

However, after the 15th century, Bhakti or the rasa of devotion to God became widely accepted into the initial corpus of the nine rasas.

 Some musicologists argue that Bhakti and Shant rasa were one and the same. Another intervention into what moods are evoked by different notes has been made in the Natyasastra. Bharata argues that different moods evoked by the notes are: Madhyam evokes humorous instincts; Pancham will evoke erotic feelings; Shadja notes would evoke heroic feelings and last the wrathful instincts are evoked by Rishabh notes.

Indian Music and Culture - TALA

The rhythmic groupings of beats are called Tala. These rhythmical cycles range from three to 108 beats. According to the concept of tala, the musical time is divided into simple and complicated metres.

 This theory of time measurement is not similar in Hindustani and Carnatic music. The unique point about the concept of tala is that it is independent of the music that accompanies it and has its own divisions. The tempo of the tala, which keeps the uniformity of the time span, is called the laya.

Several musicologists have argued that there are more than hundred talas, but only thirty talas are currently known and even within that only 10 to 12 talas are actually used. Different kinds of recognized and used talas are dadra, kaharba, rupak, ektal, jhaptal, Teental and Ada chautal. Amongst these, music composers usually use teen-tal that uses sixteen beats.

Unlike the Hindustani music, the Carnatic music has a much more rigid structure. The Tala (thala) are made of three components: laghu, dhrutam and anu dhrutam. There are original 35 thalas and each one of them can be further split into 5 ‘ghaatis’. Hence, there are 175 (35*5) thalas in Carnatic music.

 

Different type of RAGAS - Shuddha, Chhayalag, Sankeerna

Shuddha Raga

This is the raga in which if any notes that are absent from the composition are played, its nature and form does not change.

Chhayalag Raag

This is the raga in which if any notes that are not present in the original composition are played, its nature and form changes.

Sankeerna Raag

This is the raga in which there is a combination of two or more ragas.

Hence, every raga should have the basic 5 notes. Amongst these ragas:

The ‘King’ is the principal note on which raga is built. This is called the ‘Vaadi’ and it is used most often in the composition.

The next important note is the ‘queen’ that corresponds as the fourth or fifth note in relation to the principal raga. This second most important note of the ‘raga’ is called ‘Samvaadi’.

All the other notes in the composition apart from the vaadi and samvaadi are called the Anuvaadi.

Lastly, the notes that are not present in the composition are called Vivadi.

Furthermore, the ascent of the notes means that each note is higher than the preceding note, for example, Sa re ga ma pa dha ni. This ascent is called the Aaroha. Similarly, the descent is called Avaroha, where each note is lower than the preceding notes. For example, ni, dha, pa, ma, ga, re, sa. Depending on the ascent and descent of the notes, the ragas can be divided into three speeds or Laya: vilambit (slow); Madhya (medium) and drut (fast).

ANATOMY OF INDIAN MUSIC - RAGA

The word ‘raga’ comes from the Sanskrit word ‘Ranj’, which literally means to delight or to make happy and satisfy a person. The ragas form the basis of the melody, while the tala becomes the basis of the rhythm. Each melodic structure of the raga has something similar to the distinct personality subject and the mood evoked by the sounds.

The basic element necessary for the working of a raga is the note on which they are based. According to the number of notes in the raga, there are three main jaatis or categories:

Audav/Odava Raga: is the ‘pentatonic’ raga, contains 5 notes

Shadava Raga: is the ‘hexatonic’ raga, contains 6 notes

Sampurna Raga: is a ‘heptatonic’ raga, contains 7 notes 

A raga is neither a scale nor a mode but it is a scientific, precise, subtle and aesthetic melodic form with its own peculiar ascending and descending movement, which consists of either a full octave, or a series of 5 or 6 or 7 notes. There are three major types of Raga or Raga Bhed.

ANATOMY OF INDIAN MUSIC - Swara

In the ancient period, the term “Swara” was associated with the recitation of the Vedas. Over time, the term is used to define the ‘note’ or ‘scale degree’ in a composition. In the Natyasastra, Bharata has divided the swaras into twenty-two notes scale.

Currently, the notational system of the Hindustani music is defined by these abbreviated swaras – Sa, re, ga, ma, pa, dha, ni. The Seven Swaras together are called Saptak or Sargam. He listed each pitch using the following names:

The Swara differs from Shruti. A Shruti is the smallest gradation of pitch representing the quality of frequency. There are 22 Shrutis. or microtones out of which only 12 are audible. These 12 are seven Suddha Swaras and five Vikrita Swaras.

 

HISTORY OF INDIAN MUSIC

A lot of development in music stemmed from being played at devotional sites. This type of ritualistic music was displayed in the later Vedic period through a type of music called Sangama, which involved chanting of verses that were usually set to musical patterns.

Even the epics were set to the narrative type of music called the Jatigan.

The first work that clarified and elaborated on the subject of musicology was Bharata’s Natyashastra. It contains several important chapters on music, especially the ones that identified the octave and elaborated on its 22 keys. These 22 keys were recognised as shrutis or srutis. This distinction was made in Dathilam, a text that endorsed the existence of 22 srutis per octave and made the suggestion that maybe these were the only one that a human body could make. Sarangadeva, a 13th-century musicologist who wrote the classic text on music, the Sangeet Ratnakara, seconded this view.

The Sangeet Ratnakara defined about 264 ragas including some from the North Indian and the Dravidian repertoires. Its greatest contribution was to identify and describe the various ‘microtones’ and classify them into different categories. Later, some medieval texts on musicology focused on particular themes, for example, Brihaddeshi written in the 9th century by Matanga focused on the definition of the word ‘raga’.

Similarly, the 11th-century text, Sangeeta Makaranda was composed by Nanda who enumerated 93 ragas and classified them into feminine and masculine forms. Other important texts of this period were Swaramela-Kalanidhi written by Ramamatya in the 16th century which again deals primarily with ragas.

Chaturdandi-prakasika written by Venkatamakhin in the 17th century is also famous for the important information on musicology. During the ancient and early medieval period, we find evidence of the existence of Gurukuls where students lived with the teacher in order to become a master in the art of music.

The change in the tenor of music came with the effect of the Persian elements. This influx of Islamic and Persian elements changed the face of North Indian music, for example, the Dhruvapad or the devotional style of singing patronised by the rulers transformed into the Dhrupad style by the 15th century. By the 17th century, a new form of Hindustani music had evolved which was called the Khayal style. Furthermore, more and more styles of ‘folk’ singing emerged in this period. 

Gupta Age

The emergence of the Gupta Empire in 4th century A.D. is often hailed as the “Golden period of Indian Architecture”. While the earlier Gupta rulers were Buddhists and continued the traditions of Buddhist architecture, temple architecture came to the forefront under the patronage of the Hindu rulers of the later Gupta phase.

Temple architecture reached its climax during this period. Similarly, Buddhist and Jain art also reached its peak during the Gupta Age.

The Gupta rulers, especially in the later phase, were Brahmanical rulers. However, they showed exemplary tolerance for all other religions. Three principal deities were worshipped – Vishnu in the Northern and Central part of India, Shiva in the Southern part and Shakti in the Eastern part of India as well as in the Malabar coast or South-west part of India.