EVERY GENRE PROJECT - May 14 - Hindustani Classical Music
Genre of the Day - Hindustani Classical Music
Album of the Day - Rāg Madhuvantī / Rāg Miśra Tilang by Shivkumar Sharma & Zakir Hussain (1988)
May 14, 2024
The west has been fascinated by Indian classical music ever since its first exposure as Indian culture became widely fawned over during decolonization. There’s no shortage of this phenomenon to easily call back to: the Beatles were the most well-known India-boos of all, who started their journey into its culture with their interest in the sitar, included on 1965 track “Norwegian Wood”, and highly-publicized subsequent trips as they tapped into spiritual traditions just beginning to become known in the west. Perhaps as a consequence of this promotion of Indian music to the world, even my mom loves a good Indian classical tune. Often without warning, she would throw on a CD of Indian classical music on a drive when I was young: I remember vivid lighting crash sounds in the background of one song for dramatic effect.
Starting from such a western-centric perspective is perhaps a bit of a disservice, but in terms of Hindustani classical music’s impact as a genre worldwide, the fact that its influence was paramount in the musical development of the band many hail as the greatest of all time is a testament to the tradition’s excellence and refinement. So let’s dig deeper into its millennia-stretching history.
The history of Indian classical music dates back around 3,000 years. The Samaveda, one of Hinduism’s essential religious works, was structured to melodic themes. As the lingua franca of the subcontinent at the time, Sanskrit music in both the formal, structured gandharva songs and informal, improvised gana forms spread, although regional languages like Tamil also had distinctive ancient songs. By the Natya Shastra, a Sanskrit text on the arts from around 200 BC, a standard system of instrumental classification between stringed chordophones, hollow aerophones, vibrating idiophones, and membranophones (drums).
Despite how early in India there was such a precise classification of instruments and other components of music theory, its music inevitably continued to experience tectonic shifts. By the 12th century, a schism between the Carnatic music of southern India and the Hindustani music of the north had appeared. The stronger cultural influence of the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empire in the north allowed the spread of new musical ideas such as new forms of song introduced by the Indo-Persian Sufi musician Amir Khusrau.
Indian classical music hinges on the slightly-hard-to-grasp concept of a raga. In essence, it’s a musical framework that gives musicians a set space to work in while also allowing for high levels of improvisation. Like anything with music theory jargon, it’s a bit confusing, and it’s also a distinctive musical idea from anything in western classical music. At the end of the day, a raga’s significance lies in its ability to bring new emotional colors to a piece. If you want some sort of definition, even though it’s quite conceptual, author Lewis Rowell sums up the vast notion that is a raga as “deeply etched tonal grooves that guide a performer’s spontaneous decisions into the proper channels.”
It’s evident that it takes a massive deal of learning and talent to effectively carry out a raga, which is why Indian classical music was primarily taught in schools blessed with royal patronage until the 20th century when publicly-funded music schools were founded. Since then, the traditions of Hindustani classical music have been able to flourish to new heights and on a global scale. Shivkumar Sharma, who plays the hammered dulcimer known as a santoor on today’s album and provides the melody of these two ragas, is one of the tradition’s towering names of the last one hundred years. That’s in part due to his nature as an innovator: the santoor was a folk instrument of Kashmiri extraction taught to him by his father, not a traditional instrument found in Hindustani classical music. It’s a demonstration of how raga’s nature can easily gravitate to new sounds rather than alienate them. We’re also graced by the world-class tabla drum player Zakir Hussein.
The santoor is a fascinating instrument with a serpentine, coiling sound. It’s metallic yet warm, but oscillates in the distance of its sound frequently and is capable of rapid shifts in playing speed as it ascends into scintillating riffs on the first raga. The nature of the raga means that these songs are long: this album is composed of two songs, elongated to 71 minutes. It’s not until fifteen minutes in on the first raga that the tabla drumming enters the fold. It’s meditative, and drawn out, and truly worth a listen even if a song that long sounds shocking. I don’t see these tunes going viral on TikTok anytime soon, but perhaps a sped up version could shave them off to 25 minutes. The synergy of the two instrumental components gradually builds as they kick into maximum overdrive in the final three minutes, all relentless pounding and superhuman santoor velocity. The second raga has a more joyful, lifting central melody, and again we find a slow burn. Around the thirty minute mark, the tabla drums begin to move and follow the melody of the santoor, the two pieces ending on an entwined note of harmony. Diving into the history of northern India’s classical music was a pleasure, and I must say that listening to a song that’s nearly the length of an album is an excellent way to still the constantly-streaming Spotifypilled mind and sink into a meticulously played groove.
