Modern Indian Music

In the present day, there are far less people who enjoy Indian classical music as they feel it is too slow for them. Many youngsters go a step further terming classical music to be boring. But then, enjoying music is a personal journey and purely depends on the moods. However, in keeping with times and demands, today, most music composers have shifted from the classical to newer forms, whereby they imbibe the Indian melody and tunes with the western beats.



Modern Indian music comprises:

· Remixes, where old tunes are blended with faster beats making them popular amongst the younger generation. These are generally played at discos and parties.

· Fusion is that type of music where Indian classical music is combined with the western music forms to create a musical mix of east and west

· Film music is in fact extremely popular amongst people of all age groups. In fact an Indian film is considered incomplete without songs with the heroes and heroines dancing. Undoubtedly there is a clear distinction between the type of songs that were composed between the 1940s and 1980s and those composed ever since

· Indi pop, which is basically the Indian version of the western pop music. There are number of young artists who sign up with music companies to cut an album of pop songs in Hindi and other regional languages.



Modern Indian music has more of the western influences and barely imbibes any of the traditional forms. In fact even the basics of classical Indian music, raga and taal, has been removed from the latest compositions with composers using the western scale and tones. In fact the new music being generated brings in the older styles and blend them into the western chords, thus creating a fusion of east meets west type of music.

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ORIGIN OF INDIAN MUSIC

Indian music has a very long, unbroken tradition and is an accumulated heritage of centuries. It is believed that the sage Narada introduced the art of music to the Earth. The origin can be traced back to Vedic days, nearly two thousand years ago. It is said that the sound that pervades the whole universe, i.e. Nadabrahma, itself represents the divinity. Organised Indian music owes its origin to the Samaveda. The Veda has all the seven notes of the raga karaharpriya in the descending order. The earliest Raga is speculated to be 'Sama Raga'. Theories and treatises began to be written about how the primitive sound 'Om' gave rise to the various notes. The first reference to music was made by Panini (500 BC) and the first reference to musical theory is found in Rikpratisakhya (400 BC). Bharata's Natya Sastra (4th Century AD) contains several chapters on music. This is probably the first work that clearly elaborated the octave and divided it into 22 keys. The next major work on music was Dathilam, which also endorses the existence of the 22 sruti per octave and even goes to suggest that these 22 srutis are the only ones a human body could make. This view was expressed again by another musicologist of the 13th century AD Saranga Deva in his famous work Sangeeta Ratnakara. Saranga Deva, among other things, defined almost 264 Ragas, including some Dravidian and North Indian ones. He also described the various 'kinds' of 'microtones' and also classified them into different categories. Of the other important works on Indian music, mention may be made of Brihaddesi (9 AD) written by Matanga, which attempts to define the word 'Raga', Sangeeta Makaranda (11th century AD) written by Narada, which enumerates 93 Ragas and classifies them into masculine and feminine species, Swaramela-kalanidhi of Ramamatya (16 AD) and Chaturdandi-prakssika of Venkatamakhi (17 AD).



It took a long time for music to come to its present-day form. In the beginning music was devotional in content and was purely used for ritualistic purposes and was restricted to temples. During the late Vedic period (3000-1200 BC), a form of music called Samgana was prevalent which involved chanting of the verses set to musical patterns. Various forms of music like Jatigan were evolved to narrate the epics. Between 2-7 AD a form of music called Prabandh Sangeet, which was written in Sanskrit, became very popular. This form gave way to a simpler form called dhruvapad, which used Hindi as the medium. The Gupta Period is considered as the golden era in the development of Indian music. All the music treatises like Natya Shastra and Brihaddeshi were written during this period.

One of the strongest and most significant influences on Indian music has perhaps been that of Persian music, which brought in a changed perspective in the style of Northern Indian music. In the 15th century AD, as a result of the patronage given to the classical music by the rulers, the devotional dhruvapad transformed into the dhrupad form of singing. The khayal developed as a new form of singing in the 18th century AD. The Indian classical music, thus, developed from the ritualistic music in association with folk music and other musical expressions of India's extended neighbourhood, developing into its own characteristic art. It is then that the two schools of music resulted, the Hindustani (North Indian music) and the Carnatic (South Indian music). Historical roots of both Hindustani and Carnatic classical music traditions stem from Bharata's Natyashastra. The two traditions started to diverge only around 14th Century AD. Carnatic music is kriti based and saahitya (lyric) oriented, while Hindustani music emphasises on the musical structure and the possibilities of improvisation in it. Hindustani music adopted a scale of Shudha Swara saptaka (octave of natural notes) while Carnatic music retained the traditional octave. Both systems have shown great assimilative power, constantly absorbing folk tunes and regional tilts and elevating many of them to the status of ragas. These systems have also mutually influenced each other.

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