Indian Classical Music Indian Classical Music is Based on Ragas A raga is a set of notes (between 5 and 8 notes) which are combined to create a mood Raga performances are improvised. They are never written down – they are passed down from generation to generation aurally Ragas use a similar scale to the Western 12-note scale, but while the Western scale has the same distance between notes e.g. TTSTTTS = major scale, the raga’s intervals can change

Traditional Indian Instruments The traditional Indian instruments are Sitar, Tambura and Tabla SITAR A sitar is a large, long-necked string instrument 5 of the 7 strings are plucked for the melody and the other two create drone notes Sitars have sympathetic strings underneath the main strings. These sympathetic strings vibrate when the main strings are played The frets on a sitar can be moved – they are adjusted to different positions for different pieces Sitar players can pull strings to make notes bend or distort Sliding a finger along a string as it’s plucked gives a sliding glissando sound called mind

Traditional Indian Instruments The traditional Indian instruments are Sitar, Tambura and Tabla TAMBURA The Tambura is a similar shape to the Sitar It usually has 4 metal strings, but can have up to 6 It is used as more of a backing instrument

Traditional Indian Instruments The traditional Indian instruments are Sitar, Tambura and Tabla TABLA Tabla is a pair of drums The smaller, right-hand drum is called the tabla or dayan The larger, lower-sounding drum is called the baya

Other Indian Instruments Sarod – a mini-sitar with no frets Sarangi – a small bowed stringed instrument with no frets Bansuri – a flute made of bamboo Shenhai – an instrument with a double reed like an oboe Singers sometimes perform with instruments as well sarangi bansuri shenhai sarod

The 4 main elements Melody & Improvisation Rhythm Drone (harmony) The melody instruments are the sitar, bansuri, sarangi and sometimes a singer Rhythm The tabla is the rhythm section Drone (harmony) The tambura is the drone or harmony instrument

Melody & Improvisation The melody is improvised on the sitar or melody instrument The sitar player improvises the melody. He or she chooses a scale called a raga and makes up a melody using notes from that scale There are hundreds of raga scales. Each one is named after a different time of day or season. Each raga is supposed to create an atmosphere like the time or season it’s named after Each raga is a set of ascending and descending notes. The notes going up can be different from the notes going down

Rhythm The Tabla is the Rhythm section The main rhythm is played on the Tabla The tabla player plays a rhythm called a tala with a set number of beats. There are hundreds of talas, just like there are hundreds of ragas The first beat of a tala is called the sam. All the performers in a group play together on each sam amd the whole piece always ends on a sam Each tala is split into groups called vibhags. It is like a bar except that you can have different numbers of beats in each vibhag As well as playing the tala, the tabla player improvises more complicated rhythms over the top of the drum. They can vary the sound with different finger positions

Drone (harmony) The Tambura creates the Harmony The tambura’s job is to create the harmony. The sitar’s job is a bit like the right hand in a piano piece (the tune) and the tambura’s job is like the left hand (the accompaniment/chords etc) The tambura’s part is described as a drone. It is very repetitive. The tambura plays a simple rhythmic pattern based on just two notes from the raga all the way through the performance

A Typical Raga has 4 sections A raga will have 4 phrases Alap – the sitar player introduces the notes of the chosen raga scale, and improvise freely using these notes. There is no beat or pulse to the melody at this point – it just flows along. The only accompaniment is the tambura drone The jhor – in this second section the music speeds up a bit. It’s still just the sitar and tambura player, but the music gets more rhythmic, and the melody improvised by the sitar player takes on a steady beat The jhala – this section is loads faster than the alap and jhor, and feels a lot more exciting than the bits that came before. The players improvise around the melody The gat or Bandish – here the raga really takes off. The tabla player comes in at last! The group plays a pre-composed piece. It’s called a ‘gat’ if it’s for instruments only and a ‘bandish’ if there’s a song. The players also add improvisations to the gat or bandish and pass their musical ideas around in a sort of musical question and answer.

What you need to know? You will need to know which instruments are playing Identify different sections of the raga Describe the differences between extracts e.g. instruments, tempos, improvised and pre-composed music