As communities moved from the food gathering to the food growing stage in life, music too came to be more organized. The early Aryans lived close to nature, partook of its bounties and gifts, worshipped its various manifestations and were extra sensitive to its sights and sounds. They conducted their religious rituals by reciting Mantras, a kind of musical recitation confined to three notes they had found. It was called Saman. Even now if you go to temples and hear a priest chanting, it will be in the above manner. Listen carefully and you will be able to identify only three notes.
In the course of time the other five notes were also discovered to complete the octave.Indian music is based on the three unique concepts of raga, rasa and tala. Any sequence of notes that exhilarates the mind, has a distinct mood and character, a mode of ascent and descent and is unlike any other sequence already in existence, is called the raga. Every note or semi-note, severally or in conjunction with other notes, is deemed to have a distinct emotional hue.
Thus it follows that every raga depicts a distinct mood or rasa and requires to be rendered at a time of the day or night favouring the portrayal of that mood or emotion. And hence a time-theory which enjoins a particular time for every raga. Laya means the speed or gati of music while the tala provides the measure or metre of the rhythm.
It is believed that music had a divine origin and a divine purpose. The Nada or musical sound was treated as Nada Brahma or God. The stylized music which had moksha or salvation as its aim was called Margi Sangeet Whereas the one meant for popular entertainment was known as Deshi or popular music. But there is ample evidence to show that the two types penetrated into each other and there was a regular give and take between them.
Three types of singing characterize any Hindustani music concert. The dhrupad, which is the serious form, the Khayal, which literally translated means an idea and the thumri which is lighter than the rest.
Since music was a means of worship and 'a ladder unto God' the search for a suitable musical mode to translate man's devotional aspirations led to the innovation of the musical from called dhrupad. It combined meaningful text with solemn swaras or notes. Heavy, deep and long notes and wistful tonal glides, expressive of a divine longing formed the warp and woof of this virile form. It had an elaborate lyric consisting of four parts, with an appropriate swara-scheme for each.
The reign of the benign Moghul emperor Akbar can be regarded as the golden age of dhrupad which saw such peerless exponents as the 'Hermit of Vrindaban', Swami Haridas and his immortal disciple Tansen. The evidence of his extraordinary genius is to be found in some of the most fascinating melodies such as Darbari Kanhra, Mian Ki Malhar, Mian Ki Todi, Mian Ka Sarang etc. which he conceived and left for posterity.
Notwithstanding the unchallenged sway of dhrupad in Akbar's time, a new style called the khayal too was rearing its head. Its emergence could be attributed to twin forces at work, the influence of the Muslim art and culture on the native arts especially those in the North, the changing pattern of life and the popular reaction to the dhrupad that had in the course of time fallen prey to the rigidities of technique and lost its vivifying breath and spark.In comparison, music of the Persian strain brought in by the Muslim invaders, addressed itself more instantly to the fundamental emotions of man. The khayal, as a musical form, was more uninhibited and free though it retained the orderly and elaborate alap of the dhrupad. The alap is that section of music that plays with the notes to explore the melody being played. It precedes the lyrics.
The khayal incorporated many embellishments of Persian music. Crisp and curly ornamentations which were a taboo in the more austere dhrupad had a free access to khayal. As a result the impact of music partly shifted from the spiritual to the sensual. And thus was set into motion a romantic era in Hindustani music. Ornamental figures of many kinds made their way into music and the people began to look for more and more aural pleasure in it. Observance of the rules of the game grew relatively lax as did the adherence to the traditional form. The innovation of the khayal is attributed to Sultan Husain Sharqui of Jaunpur, a place in northern India's Uttar Pradesh.
The Chhota or the fast khayal is supposed to have been fashioned on the pattern of the Persian Qawwali by the famous poet-musician Amir Khusro. He is also credited with the invention of instruments like the sitar and tabla, ragas or melodies like sarparda, sazgiri, zilaf, beats or talas like jhoomra and soolphakhta and the musical forms like the qawwali, tarana and Chhota khayal. The patronage of the Muslim rulers did a world of good to Hindustani music.
The last Moghul King Mohammad Shah Rangeela was a poet of no mean caliber besides being a musician and composer of great distinction. Many of his compositions have become a part of our musical heritage and are lovingly sung by musicians to this day. But his reign would be remembered above all for his patronage of two uniquely gifted brothers Sadarang and Adarang who composed hundreds of khayals which are today the mainstay of the khayal singer.
However connoisseurs of the art and performing musicians continued to treat the khayal as an inferior form, entertaining an aristocratic contempt for it even though many of them like it at heart. Instead of the earlier invocation of nature and the omnipresent, the lyrics now eulogized Kings, Nawabs and other benefactors of the musicians and composers.
Towards the close of the last century, another form of music came into being, the thumri, which was like a lovely damsel with love-shot eyes, supple and supine in every limb and luring all rhythm in such a way as to make the amorous words and text it revolved around, come alive. Like the khayal, thumri too has an improvisational character. It is steeped in romance, quite often deified romance as in the favourite Radha-Krishna themes.
Thumri has two movements called the sthai or the recurring first part of a composition, generally lodged in the middle octave and the antra, concentrating on the higher notes of the middle octave and the one above it. The first phase of the thumri is known as lac laggi in which the rhythm is doubled. It marks its climax. Thumri is couched in ragas or melodies of light and lyrical vein. It was evolved in Lucknow in the time of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, a renowned patron and lover of music. Lucknow and Varnasi continue to be the home and haven of this romantic semi-classical form.
Alongside, came into being the brisk and ornate tapa form, an innovation of Shori Mian. Romantic in nature, tapa's text is always in Punjabi. It was supposed to be a song of the cameleers of Punjab.
Music is truly a child of nature, born as it is of sounds like the cacophony of birds and animals, the murmuring brooks, the winds wailing through the pine trees, the drip-drop of rain falling on lotus leaves and the like, all pruned, polished and reformed to make them musically as invigorating.
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