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About Indian classical music

Indian classical music

Indian classical music is music that is played mainly in the Indian subcontinent with a history, theory, and musical instruments that are completely different from Western music.

Its origins date back to at least the sacred Vedic (scripture) of 2000 BC.

Indian classical music is improvised based on the melody structure "Raga" and the time cycle "Taal".

 

Indian classical music includes North Indian classical music and South Indian classical music. They are also known as Hindustani music, Carnatic music.

North Indian and South Indian music have similar roots and concepts, but have different traditions and use different musical instruments.

 

Indian classical music has no sheet music and is generally inherited by oral tradition. The disciple spends many years with  Guru, absorbing all aspects of music with the philosophies that shape life.

North Indian classical music

The style of North Indian music has forms such as "Khyal" and "Dhrupad".

 

Khyal is a modern form, and the word Khyal means "imagination."

The sitar is this khyal style.

 

Dhrupad is an ancient form and a central form of classical music.

The word Dhrupad comes from Dhruva, which means "immovable and permanent."

Raga Raga

In Sanskrit's maxim, there is a word that means "what colors the spirit is raga." Raga is a Sanskrit word derived from "color".

 

Raga is the basis of the melody of Indian music, the musical framework. Musicians will improvise  the raga.

Every raga is associated with a certain emotion or mood. It is also closely related to the time of day and the particular season.

There is also an episode in India where a great artist sang a  raga of rain and actually started raining due to his great performance.

Taal Tara

Tala is an element of time and rhythm.

 

The word Tala is originally made up of the syllable Ta (from the cosmic dance of Lord Shiva, Turndaba) and the syllable La (from the feminine form of Turndaba, originally the dance of the Goddess Parvati, Rasha). It is reported that.

There is a theory that the rhythm is named Tala (because it is the union of Shiva, the source of all things, and his wife Parvati), and that it is clapping hands to keep time right. It seems.

 

Each taal(rhythm pattern) is repeated with regularity, starting with the beginning beat of "sam" and ending. And it has a fixed number of beats.

 

Taal can also be expressed as a word by "bol" (name of sound).

Musicians use this bol to learn from guru.

 

Reference: Overseas sites about Indian music, "My Life, My Music" Ravi Shankar, "Introduction to Tabla" Shigeru Moriyama

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