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The flute, nadaswaram,
veena, gotuvadhyam, thavil, mirdangam, and the
plain drum are some of the ancient instruments of music in India. The
sitar and the tabala were late comers. This sitar appears to have infiltrated from Persia and has assumed great popularity. Except the veena which is neatly, all instruments are negotiated by the method of trial and error. Their handling depends on the ingenuity and dexterity of the player. The flute and the nadaswaram as also the
shehnai are wind instruments; the veena, gottuvadhyam, sitar and now the
sarod from Afghanistan are stringed instruments. The drum varieties are percussion instruments.
Indian instrumental music is basically vocal in conception. This is more pronounced in
Carnatic music where the artist reproduces only the works of great masters on the instruments. The element of
improvising occur in the Aalap or the free prelude. But there is a slight difference. In Hindustani music, instrumental scores do not rely on musical compositions with lyrics alone.
A musical phrasing based on a given rhythmic cycle is taken up for delineation and is processed in five stages namely,
Aalap (free prelude), Jhod and Jhala (chords),
Gaat (the musical structure to be negotiable), the
Vilambit (slow pace) and the Dhrut (fast tempo). Though there are separate musical scores for musical instruments, the emphasis is on the
Gayaki Ang. That is, effort is made to be as faithful as possible to the vocal style. However, these days great maestros are trying to innovate an experiment on patterns unique to the instruments and bring out their potentialities.
Pandit Ravishankar,
Ali Akbar Khan and Amjad Ali Khan are instances in point. Ravishankar has gone a step further and specialized in orchestration also. Not only that, he also tried to effect a fusion between Indian and Western music. He has rubbed shoulders with the Beatles, the Pop and Jazz tribes. Only posterity will be able to decide the value and potentiality of this experiment. On the percussion side also there has been a lot of effort to achieve a common platform for drums of all types.
Zakir Hussein, the young and ebullient son of the
illustrious late Allah Rakha, has made much progress in this direction. This effort clicked, as rhythm has universal appeal and brooks no regional
or international prejudices. The violin, a totally western instrument has also been Indianised and has become popular. It was in the 19th century that the brother of
Muthuswamy Dikshitar, Baluswamy Dikshitar, introduced the violin to India, since then it has caught on and become an indispensable adjunct to Indian music.
The modern day
exponents include Dr. L Subramaniyam.
In the North, the
Sarangi, another stringed instruments, has been in vogue for centuries. But it has its inadequacies. It sports a plethora of vibrating strings which have to be returned for every change of
raga in concert. Added to this, it has to be operated by the knuckles instead of the fingertips. In the circumstances, there cannot be pin-point precision in notes in the speeder utterances.
In the recent past the violin has started catching on in the recent past the violin has started catching on in the north also.
V.C. Jog and Smt. N. Rajan are two outstanding artistes of this instrument. |
