Indian classical music

“ It is very difficult to put down an Indian song in our musical writing, because, the Indians sing in a natural scale that has not been changed by centuries of musical learning. They sing in a rhythm that seems complicated 11to our ears in spite of all our musical knowledge, and this, too, is difficult to write down. Another thing which makes it hard to set down and to imitate Indian music, is that they beat the drum in different time from the song which they sing. They seldom strike the drum and sing a tone at the same time. In fact, the drum and the voice seem to race with each other. ”

“ The deeper spirit of nationalism and religion shows itself in music as much, if not more than in other things. Music has a sacred purpose connected with the regeneration of the human heart, and plays an important part in almost all our dealings in the world. If, however, Indian music is to advance and to become the vehicle for the expression of the highest ideals and feelings of modern India, it needs men like Bach and Beethoven, to lead it forward and to organize it, and to give of their best to its study and application. ”

“ It has always appeared to me that the Indian music is marked by a nationality, above many other traits, and it is a subject inviting future attention. It is certain that the Indian ear is exact in noting musical sounds, and in marking and beating time. But little observation at their dances, will be sufficient to establish this fact. Nor is it less certain, by attention to the philology of their language, that they are exact in their laws of euphony, and syllabical quantity. ”

“ Hindu music, like dramatic art, had suffered eclipse during the troublous years of the eighteenth century and a wide field was open to enthusiastic musical revivalists. By developing a new system of concerted music, by examining the different theories of music and by comparing English and Indian methods, he set Hindu music on a sounder and higher basis.
Succeeding his father in 1858, he found himself at the age of twenty-seven in possession of one of the most splendid inheritances to which any young man in Bengal has succeeded in modern times. ”

“ So great a part of an Indian’s life is music, that he has no word meaning poetry in his language. Poetry to the Indian is always song. In fact an Indian puts new words to an old tune and thinks he has invented a new song.
What Is Indian Music? When the Indian sings, he starts on the highest tone he can reach and gradually drops to the lowest, so that many of his songs cover almost two octaves. He does not know that he sings in a scale of five tones. For some reason which we cannot explain, most primitive races have used this same scale. ”

“ The scale as it exists to-day is one with great possibilities in regard to musical formations, and it has a very wide range in the microtonal variations included in it. The Indian musician is always trying to ornament his notes, because grace plays in the Indian system the part of harmony in the European. ”

“ He is simply pouring out his feelings, regardless of artistic effects. To him music is subjective: it is the vehicle of communication between him and the object of his desire.
Certain peculiarities in the Indian's mode of singing make it difficult for one of our race to intelligently hear their songs or to truthfully transcribe them.
There is no uniform key for any given song, for the Indians have no mechanical device for determining pitch to create a standard by which to train the ear. ”

“ Indian music is a subjective, spiritual, and individualistic art, aiming not at symphonic brilliance but at personal harmony with the Oversoul. The Sanskrit word for musician is BHAGAVATHAR, "he who sings the praises of God." ”

“ It is the ears of our musical understanding which are deaf to those sounds, which have so powerful an effect upon our neighbours.' There are also those who are repelled by the grotesque exhibitions, which so often accompany the rendering of Indian music even by some of the best artists, though this is not a trait which is altogether confined to Indian artists. ”

“ Indian melody is produced by the regulated succession of concordant notes, while western harmony arises from the agreeable concord of various related notes. As a result of this differentiation, Indian music has developed solely along the lines of melody, while the greatest development of western music has taken place in the region of harmony. Does the fact that western music has developed a second dimension, so to speak, make it more advanced than Indian music? Can we call Indian music thereby inferior or primitive? Indian music has taken one line of development, that of melody ”

“ Bat it is hardly fair that an art so little really understood, even among the natives of India themselves, should be judged by such a criterion and then put aside as worthless, because solitary individuals have been deceived by parties of outcast charlatans whose object is mere gain. For that Indian music is an art, and a very intricate and difficult one too, can hardly be denied. But to appreciate it one must first put away all thought of European music and then judge of it by an Indian standard, and impartially upon its own merits ”

“ Emotion also affects the rendering of Indian music. This is especially noticeable in solos, as love-songs, where the singer quite unconsciously varies from a quarter to a whole tone from the true pitch. On the contrary, emphasis sharps the tone. If, however, these peculiarities are imitated to him, the Indian immediately detects, and declares them to be wrong, thus betraying his unconsciousness of his own inaccuracies in endeavouring to strike a plain diatonic interval.
Our difficulty in hearing the music of the Indian is equalled by the trouble he has with our instruments. ”

“ Another difference that has a great deal to do with our appreciation or otherwise of music, is the matter of emphasis upon certain external qualities. Western music rightly has come to lay very great emphasis upon tone and timbre, whereas Indian music passes these by on the other side and gives all attention to execution and accuracy. The melody is not determined by canons of charm or pleasure, but by adherence to certain fixed standards ; and the quality of tone in which the melody is sung or played does not have the importance that it does in the west. ”

“ Three scales-major, harmonic minor, melodic minor-are the only ones which Occidental music employs, but Indian music outlines 72 thatas or scales. The musician has a creative scope for endless improvisation around the fixed traditional melody or raga ; he concentrates on the sentiment or definitive mood of the structural theme and then embroiders it to the limits of his own originality. The Hindu musician does not read set notes ”

“ When words are used they are few, fragmentary and generally eked out with vocables. Frequently only vocables are attached to a melody. To the Indian, song holds a place similar to that filled for us by wordless instrumental music. In ceremonies, rituals occur that are always rhythmically intoned; each line generally terminates in a refrain. Songs have a place in these rituals, breaking in on the recital particularly when an emotion is evoked, for music is the medium of emotional expression. An old Indian priest explained this peculiarity by saying: "Harmonious sounds unite the people." ”

“ Culture music, however, shows an intellectual control of emotion, a power of musical thinking, the enlarging and embellishing of musical form,—a form, nevertheless, which we find outlined, more or less clearly, in the songs of the untutored red man. The difference between these spontaneous Indian melodies and the compositions of the modern masters would seem to be not one of kind, but one of degree. ”

“ The Indian rajahs and princes still have in their service many famous musicians, but unfortunately many of them depend almost entirely upon tradition in the rendering of ragas and melodies. There seems to be no generally accepted system for Hindusthani music, though efforts are being made to-day by many scholars to work one out. The southern system, as readers will have guessed, is far more carefully systematized, and perhaps errs on the side of rigidity.
During the last few decades the scientific study of music in India has made great advances. ”

“ As far as we are [Pg 3] concerned Indian music is an exotic, and it is only of recent years that American composers have turned to it in a conscious search for national color which is, perhaps, the first real symptom of aspiration toward characteristically national expression. ”

“ Had the Indian the combined soul of these masters in music, could he cull from symphony and oratorio and requiem and dirge the master notes that have thrilled and inspired the ages, he then would falter at the edge of his task in an attempt to register the burden of his lament, and utter for the generations of men the requiem wrought out during these moments of passion—a passion of sorrow so sad that the voice of it must ride through the width of the sky, and conquer the thunder of the fiercest tempest. The orchestral grandeur of the world's great composers is the child of genius. ”

“ For the graphophone was a field worker with her—for a time her chief assistant in catching the elusive Indian songs. Perhaps there could have been no greater proof of their entire confidence in her than their willingness to sing for her again and again, and even to give into the keeping of her queer little black cylinders the strains that voiced their deepest and most sacred feelings. For Indian music is, for the most part, an expression of the bond between the human spirit and the unseen powers of Nature. ”

“ It is only recently that musical associations have been formed in India, and that music lovers have had opportunity to get together and compare their work. All this must be remembered in judging the progress that has been made by Indian music. ”

“ Sir George Clarke, Governor of Bombay, at a meeting of an Indian Choral Society in Poona, in August 1911, in sketching the diverse developments of Eastern and Western music, suggested that the tones of the instruments in vogue had affected the art of singing, and that the falsetto style, common amongst Indians, is in imitation of the shrillness of their reed instruments, while the fuller voice, cultivated in Europe, follows the development of the ampler harmonies of Western instruments. Each style of music represents a cultivation of certain qualities with a neglect of others. ”

“ After all, though the vaguely-floating subtle recitative style of the Indian music has its drawbacks and makes one crave for a little more definition and articulateness, it presses upon one as possible that our music might gain something by the adoption and incorporation of some of these more subtle Eastern elements—if only at times, and as an enhancement of our range of expression by contrast with our own generic style. ”

“ What a pity the government does not encourage the Indian to cultivate his own arts, instead of these alien and uncomprehended arts of the white man! In his ceremonial dances, he is lithe, graceful, and expressive; when he tries the one-step and waltz he is clumsy and ludicrous. His voice, strident, discordant and badly-placed when he attempts second-rate “civilized” music, booms out mellow and full-throated, perfectly placed in the nasal cavity, when he sings Indian melodies whose tantalizing syncopations, difficult modulations, and finely balanced tempo he manages with precision. ”

“ For this music, let us remember, daily gives pleasure to as many thousands as its more cultivated European sister gives to hundreds. There is hardly any festivity in India in which some part is not assigned to music, and for religious ceremonies its use is universal.'
In judging of Indian music one must enquire whether it contains those musical qualities which ensure an artistic appreciation from the cultured. ”

“ There are various practical ways in which enthusiasts can help in the progress and development of Indian music. The first thing to do is to study and practice it for oneself. There are books to-day, both in English and the vernaculars, which will help in this. Then it is good to make a habit of training the children in Indian music, and to see that they can play at least one Indian instrument. Every cultured family in the west aims at this, and in the large towns of India at any rate it is becoming quite possible to-day. ”

“ The science and practice of Indian music, if it is to advance, needs a great deal of original research, as well as very thorough education. Such research and cultivation of Indian music means the giving up of time and energy now spent on money-making to musical culture. ”

“ What with natural unsuitability to India and what with social discouragement, dance would lapse as a relic of the past. Weaned from its present low associations, music would become a commoner and more respectable acquirement—a profession with some and an accomplishment with many; and all the genuine pleasure to be derived from that noble art might, after a generation or two, be fully regained. Indian music, rich in devotional and unfortunately pretty full in amorous element, would have to be considerably improved on the purely social side. ”

“ This may very well be done now and then for an artistic holiday, as MacDowell has done it in his Indian Suite; but if a folk-music is to enter vitally into art it must bring with it something more than quaintness or distinctive idioms, it must be genuinely expressive of the temperament of the people using it; and of the complex American temper Indian music can never be thus representative. ”

“ This universal use of music was because of the belief that it was a medium of communication between man and the unseen. The invisible voice could reach the invisible power that permeates all nature, animating all natural forms. As success depended upon help from this mysterious power, in every avocation, in every undertaking, and in every ceremonial, the Indian appealed to this power through song. When a man went forth to hunt, that he might secure food and clothing for his family, he sang songs to insure the assistance of the unseen power in capturing the game. ”