One of the world's most ancient and distinguished musical cultures is that of the Indian subcontinent, including the modern nations of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Indian music is divided into two main traditions, Hindustani, of north India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and Karnatic or south Indian, of the Indian peninsula, south of Hyderabad.
It is thought that the purest and most ancient music of India is preserved in the south, where the aboriginal Dravidian Hindu population was driven over millennia by waves of invasions, first by the Aryans (2nd millennium bc) and later by the Muslims (13th century onwards). North Indian music has been heavily influenced by central Asian and Persian forms introduced to the Moghul courts, and many of the famous hereditary performers are Muslims. Despite the many differences between these two great traditions, the fundamental concepts of composition and performance are shared and have been enshrined over the centuries in theoretical treatises, beginning with the much-studied Nā&tdotb;ya-śāstra (probably 4th and 5th centuries ad), a treatise on ancient dramaturgy.
Most Indian classical music has three main components, a solo melody line, usually highly embellished, a rhythmic accompaniment and a drone. Vocal music is predominant; instrumental styles and genres, though better known in the West through famous performers such as Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan, are based on vocal models. Indian melodies are based on scalar-modal structures called ‘ragas’. Each raga has an ascending and descending form (which may differ), prescribed ornaments, characteristic melodic phrases, a specified time of day for performance, a predominant mood (rasa) and two primary notes, a main melodic note and a secondary one usually a 4th or 5th higher. Thousands of ragas are described in theoretical writings, but in practice only c 50 are played in the Hindustani tradition and 50 in the Karnatic. Indian rhythm is conceived of in time cycles called ‘talas’, usually with six to 16 beats. Talas are subdivided into groups of beats: for example, the Hindustani jhap-tāl tala with ten beats is subdivided 2+ 3+ 2 + 3 and the Karnatic jhampā tala, also with ten, is subdivided 7 + 1 + 2. Each tala has characteristic patterns and phrases which are memorized by Indian drummers.
Improvisation, another important feature of Indian music, is based on the elaborate rules that govern the performance of raga and tala. Most Indian genres, such as the Hindustani dhrupad and khayāl vocal forms, begin with a slow unmeasured improvisatory section in which the characteristics of the raga are introduced. Performances are often something of a contest between soloist and drummer, with each introducing increasingly complex permutations of the tala, often spanning several cycles.
Indian instruments reflect the main requirements of the musical system - flexibility of pitch to perform the many ragas and their microtonal ornaments, rhythmic complexity and an ever-present drone. There are very few instruments of fixed pitch, such as the metallophones and xylophones that predominate in South-east Asia, although the harmonium has become popular in the 20th century. Most melody instruments have drone strings which the player strums while performing the raga. The sitar, the best known of north Indian string instruments, is a long-necked plucked lute with four melody strings, three drone strings and 13 sympathetic strings, which vibrate independently when the instrument is played, enriching the timbre. The sarod, another Hindustani plucked lute, has a shorter neck than the sitar, six melody, two drone and several sympathetic strings. The vī&ndotb;ā, the principal string instrument of Karnatic music and one of India's oldest instruments, is a long-necked plucked lute with four melody and three drone strings. The European violin is also played in Indian classical music; the performer sits crosslegged on the floor and holds it against his chest with the scroll braced against the instep of his right foot. The drums of classical Indian music, all played with the hands and fingers, are tuned to the main pitch of the raga. In the south the main drum of the classical tradition is the mṛdaṅgam, a double-headed barrel drum. In the north, the tabla, a pair of small single-headed drums, accompanies vocal and instrumental music, often with great virtuosity and amazing speed. The basic drone is supplied by the tamburā, a long-necked lute with four strings that are never stopped but strummed slowly and evenly throughout the raga, often by a pupil of the soloist.
Over 70% of the population of India lives in villages where urban art music is seldom heard. Village music includes songs of the life cycle, seasons and Hindu festivals. In recent decades the most popular music in India has been Indian film music disseminated by the large Bombay film industry.
