In the previous post, I ended with Mukund Lath’s central question: How do we understand the identity of an object whose very identity depends upon change? The raga, Lath argues, presents us with precisely such a case. At the heart of Indian classical music lies not the faithful or mechanical reproduction of a fixed sequence of svaras, but the unfolding of the raga as a “malleable”, “living” and “felt” musical form. Yet, this living form…
The concept of the Raga, without doubt, is the key to understanding Indian classical music. The core of Indian classical music, it is often said, lies in the exploration, elaboration and the unfolding of a raga in all its beauty. Hence, the great practitioners of the art have called raga “the soul of Indian music, “a way of seeing the world through sound,” and as a unique, exquisite form, “which the bandish and the tala…
A young, musically talented nephew of mine, raised a question: Why is it that Indian classical music did not explore harmony like Western music did? Even when they encountered new European instruments like harmonium and violin, the Indians made it an accompaniment to individual, vocal renderings rather than use it for exploring harmony, he observed. As far as he was concerned, moving from monophony to harmony and polyphony was a natural progression in the evolution…