music at the IST

Bhangra is a lively form of music and dance that originated in the Punjab region in Southeast Asia. As many Bhangra lyrics reflect the long and often tradigious history of the Punjab, knowledge of Punjabi history offers important insights into the meaning of the music. While Bhangra began as a part of harvest festival celebrations. Moreover, during the last thirty years, Bhangra has enjoyed a surge in popularity worldwide, both in traditional form and as a fusion with genres such as hip-hop, house, and reggae.

 

Bhangra

The rag is the most important concept that any student of Indian music should understand.  The Hindi/Urdu word "rag" is derived from the Sanskrit "raga" which means "colour, or passion".  It is linked to the Sanskrit word "ranj" which means "to colour".  Therefore rag may be thought of as an acoustic method of colouring the mind of the listener with an emotion.  This is fine as a general concept but what is it musically?  It is not a tune, melody, scale, mode, or any concept for which an English word exists.  It is instead a combination of different characteristics.  It is these characteristics which define the rag.  Here are the characteristics.

The sarangi is a very common Indian classical music instrument and comes in many varieties.

The sarangi is a small gut strings instrument is carved in a single piece of wood.
The neck is fretless and the bridge is seated on a skin stretched over the body of the instrument.
If the basic concept of the sarangi does not change, the shape, the tuning or the number of strings are never the same from one school to another, or even from a generation to another in the same school.
Most of the sarangis have 3 gut playing strings, played with the cuticle of the index and the major of the left hand, 1 bronze rhythm string tuned on the high tonic (SA), 11 sympathetic strings placed on two flat bridges near the pegs tuned on the notes of the raga, and at last 25 sympathetic strings tuned on all the shrutis of two octaves.
The 3 playing strings are played with a bow (different from the violin bow, the tension is convex and adaptative) held in the right hand.
Sarangi is played solo and accompanies khyal singers Listen to the solo sarangi
Listen to a sarangi accompaniement by the same artist.

 

The tabla

The tabla is the percussion instrument of the Khyal Indian classical music' style.

The tabla is a drum-pair in which each drum is played by one hand.
The bass drum is played by the left hand, the treble by the right hand.
The bass drum - the bayan - is made of copper or brass, with a large skin.
The treble drum's body is made of tun (Cedrela tuna), or shisham (Dalgergia Sissoo) or khair (Iron Wood).

The goat skin in both drums wears a thick black disk, the shiai. The shiai is made of flour, ferric oxid powder and starch and it is stuck in the skin centre to allow the emission of harmonics.

The skin, tightened by camel skin braces, is tuned to the SA of the solo musician, with a PA and GA harmonic depending on the musician stroke.
The bayan can be tuned and made to play notes of the raga on the spot just by application of wrist pressure.

 

The Tambura

The tambura is an indian classical string instrument, the evolution of the tambur (an instrument close to the tambura but of smaller size).

In the XIXth century, this instrument was smaller, because its main resonator is made of a pumkin and big pumkins were not available in India. The neck of the instrument is hollow and is used as a "central" resonator.
Its body is carved out of tun, (Cedrela tuna) or teak wood.
But the special drone effect results from the flat bridge or jawari, which increases enormously the spectrum of the notes and links the strings' vibration.

Main accompaniment for the Indian classical music's singer, the tambura is played on open strings. The 4 strings are tuned PA SA SA SA, (dominant, tonic, tonic, tonic of the lower octave).
By a extremely precise tuning, a tembura can play the raga scale with it's harmonics
Dhrupad musician like Uday Bhawalkar are able to reach such tuning

 

 

The Harmonium

 

The harmonium is a Europian intrument imported in the 19th century, idian people just modified it a bit...

 

 

The picture above shows you how to play it. Its quite hard (i think, because i never tried it, but it looks complex, so you know...).