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GAYAKI - NORTH INDIAN VOCAL MUSIC

by David Courtney working tools

The vocal trad­ition is es­pec­ially strong in In­dian music.  It goes with­out saying that the song is prob­ably the most ancient form of music.  Vocal music occupies a con­si­der­able part of the Natya Shastra.

One may argue that the Vedas, es­pec­ially the Samaveda, is the oldest mus­ical text in India.  It is true that the Samaveda is writ­ten in a crude mus­ical notation.  How­ever, it is prob­ably more appropriate for us to look at contemporary music.



Contemporary mus­ical forms are built up from very well de­fined structures.  These structures such as a primary theme, a secondary theme and other elements form a structured frame­work in which a largely improvised sys­tem of music can work.

There are many genres, some old and some new.  Dhrupad and dhammar are some of the oldest in use today; they go back to the Mogul era (circa 16th cen­tury).  Equally old, but stylistically quite dif­fer­ent, is the tarana; this is based upon meaningless syllables.  More modern (by In­dian stan­dards) are the highly improvised kheyal, dadra, and thumri.  Another classical style is the tappa of Punjab.

Most of the classical songs of north India are devotional in nature, but there are a few genre which are es­pec­ially oriented toward religion.  Most notable is the bhajan, dhun or kirtan for Hindus, the kawali (qawwali) for Muslims, and the shabad for Sikhs.

Not all the music is ser­ious, for there are also many pop­ular genres.  The gazal is one style which is known for it rich poetic, and romantic content.  the Hindi geet is ba­si­cally just a song.  Undoubtedly, the most pop­ular is the film song.

There are also a few genres which are oriented speci­fically toward mus­ical edu­cation.  The most notable example is the lakshan geet.  In this style the words of the song ac­tually des­cribe the rag which is be­ing performed.  Another genre which is used for pedagogic pur­poses is the swarmalika.  This style uses the sargam of the piece instead of words.

India also has a rich trad­ition of folk music.  These will vary from region to region.

 

Vocal Forms

 


 

Selected Video

 

 


 

© 1998 - 2021 David and Chandrakantha Courtney

For comments, cor­rections, and sug­gestions, kindly contact David Courtney at [email protected]