The sounds of South Asia have become increasingly familiar to Western ears, through the involvement of Western popular musicians in Indian traditional music in the latter half of the 20th century, and through the wider distribution of Indian films. Nonetheless, the extremely complex and subtle classical music of the region—defined here as the Indian subcontinent, including neighbouring nations such as Afghanistan, Nepal, and Tibet—is probably more alien to the Westerner than that of other Eastern countries such as China and Japan.
The chief influence on the life of the region was the Islamic invasion from the tenth to the 13th centuries A.D. The Islamic armies came from the west via Afghanistan and only slackened in force when they reached South India. This has resulted in the southern Indian, or Carnatic, tradition being markedly different from the rest of the region. The Hindu religion remains the chief faith, and the music is still religious in nature. Buddhism has largely been pushed out to the fringes of the region, being the main religion in Sri Lanka and surviving, although under pressure, in Tibet.
The religious affiliations affect the music because, in most areas, vocal music is considered the peak of the performer’s art and, in Hindustani music, the texts and stories used still derive chiefly from the ancient myths and epics. Islamic music is based on religious songs celebrating the glory of Allah. Moreover, in the Hindustani tradition, music is closely linked to other performing arts, including plays, puppet-shows, shadow theatre, dance-drama, and opera, but the Islamic religion prohibits representation of one person by another, as in acting.
The instrumentation of the region also varies from north to south, although the instruments can be discerned as belonging to the same families. Probably the most important type is the large plucked lute-type—the sitar and the sarod in the north, which are distinguished by their sympathetic strings under the played strings, and the veena in the south, which does not have the sympathetic strings. The bowed, gut-stringed sarangi from the north can also have up to 40 metal sympathetic strings under the three or four bowed ones, and is reputed to be one of the most difficult instruments to play, while in Carnatic music, the Western violin was adopted in the 18th century and is admirably suitable for the slides and ornamentation of the music.
Reed instruments and flute-types are also used, although more in folk music than in the classical ensembles, but the greatest variety of instruments is in the drum family. The most common type is the barrel drum, with two heads tuned to different pitches, the pakhavaj in the north and the mrdangam in the south. Northern ensembles also use the tabla, a pair of smaller drums that can produce a variety of pitches. With the violin, Carnatic musicians also adopted the harmonium, which they took over from Christian missionaries, but the use of the instrument is confined to producing drones (sustained pitches) that provide the foundation over which the string players and singers improvise.
The basis of Indian classical music is an improvisation above set patterns called ragas and talas. Ragas are patterns of notes incorporating both the idea of the scale, in that some notes are pivotal to the structure of the music, and the idea of melody, in that the shape of the sequence is also to some extent determined. There are about 200 ragas in use, although they fall into groups with recognisably similar patterns. As well as determining the pattern of the music, the raga has another function, however, because it fits the music into the complex structure of Indian life. There are specific ragas for the different seasons, for different weathers, for different times of day, and for different voices, so that the performance always has an affinity with ceremony.
Talas are rhythmic patterns—the word is derived from the clapping of hands—and again there are hundreds of different cycles of these patterns. The cycles are repeated but overlap and can be very long. However, a large part of the performance of a raga is improvised independently of the time cycle, and without a beat at all. The performance of a raga can sometimes take several hours and follows a set pattern, with a basic exposition of the raga followed by variations, and only in the last section is the drum introduced. The instrumentalist or singer improvises a continuous stream of subtle variations on the phrases of the raga, with the underlying drone providing a groundwork.
The ambience of the performance also plays a considerable part in the music. Western listeners who have heard ragas in large concert halls cannot appreciate the intimate and meditative nature of the traditional Indian performance. These used to be in the palaces of princes or sheikhs, and are now often performed in the private houses of rich people who can provide the space for a mahfil, or private concert. Another factor, which contributes to the deep concentration with which the music is played and heard, is that the transmission of music from teacher to pupil is oral, and the relationship built up is both long and intense. Often, a son will become the pupil of his father, and a school or gharana is made up of generations of the same family. Ravi SHANKAR is the most famous Indian musician to have toured widely throughout the West; he learned the sitar in the traditional way and now plays with his daughter.
In Pakistan, the pressures of orthodox Muslim religion have relegated music to a lower social level. Performers are regarded as entertainers and art music plays a much smaller part in life. Folk music, however, is used to cement all the various ceremonies of rural life, at the elaborate and prolonged weddings, at festivals, and as an accompaniment to manual work.
One religious type of music is qawwali, or devotional songs of the ecstatic form of Islam known as Sufism. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was a native of Pakistan best known for performing qawwali. He made more than 100 recordings, which included film soundtracks for The Last Temptation of Christ and Dead Man Walking. Qawwali is a complex vocal music that has been compared by Western listeners to yodelling. It is more than seven centuries old, and is passed orally from father to son (and, very occasionally, to daughters) by Sufi masters. The songs are accompanied by drums, and often use the harmonium for the supporting drone. These ritual performances must include songs of praise to Allah, Muhammad, and the saints. The audience often dances in accompaniment.
In popular music, Indian film music is a genre in itself. It combines folk music with other styles, notably the qawwali and gbazal (soulful love songs). Western influences have changed music throughout India and Pakistan as musicians have come into contact with rock and pop music.
Afghanistan has a heritage unlike that of its other Asian neighbours. The traditional music is a result of the mingling of sounds from India, Persia, and China and from different ethnic groups such as the Pashtuns, Uzbeks, Tadzhiks, Kazakhs, and Turkmens.
One unique instrument that makes Afghani music distinct is the rabab, a lute with a metal soundboard, which gives it a plangent, carrying quality. Other instruments include reed instruments and flutes: the frequently nomadic lifestyle demands instruments that are loud rather than intimate in tone, and therefore suitable for outdoor use.
The folk songs are often long, complicated tales, developed to amuse groups around campfires or in tea houses along the nomads’ routes. Folk poetry has been augmented by imported music heard on the radio—a relatively recent introduction in this nation. Radio has also raised the status of musicians. Indian and Pakistani ghazals have been popular in recent decades as has Indian film music.
Kiliwali, which has developed as a mix of folk music and imported styles, is said to be the closest genre to a national music, but, during the civil war of the 1990s, most prominent kiliwali performers fled from Afghanistan.
Music in Bangladesh does not use the classical ragas. Its forms are much simpler; because of the national love of poetry, many musical forms provide a setting for narrative or dramatic verse. These include kabigan, which is a poetic contest having a simple accompaniment in which wit and topical references are keenly judged by the audience.
Jatra is a form of music theatre for the predominantly rural population. It uses local religious and historical legends, and the miscellaneous musical ensemble consists of a mix of Western instruments, from saxophones to harmoniums, and brass cymbals, gongs, and drums. The entertainment can go on all night and includes musical interludes and dancing.
Ali Akbar Khan, who grew up in what is now known as Bangladesh, is a pre-eminent player of the sarod, a 25-string instrument similar to a lute. He is credited with having made the first Western recording of Indian classical music and the first televised performance of Indian music in the 1950s.
The high valley of Kashmir is a distinct area of the Himalayas with its own culture. It includes parts of India, Pakistan, and China, and its musical culture has its roots partly in Iran and partly in India to the south. The two primary genres are the Sufiana kalam, which is a form of devotional music related to the Pakistani qawwali, and Kashmiri folk song. The devotional songs are accompanied by instruments bearing a distinct resemblance to those of Iran to the west, the sebtar, or long-necked lute, and the santur, a zither played with hammers.
Kashmiri folk song, on the other hand, uses instruments more akin to those of India, the bowed sarang (a smaller version of the sarangi) and a plucked rabab similar to the sarod.
Burmese instruments are more akin to those of Southeast Asian ethnic groups than to those of India, although the subject matter of its dramatic music is tied to Indian folklore. The content typically originates in the Ramayana or Mahabharata epics. Hsaing-waing music has taken its name from the chief instrument of the ensemble, a set of gong-chimes that is more like a gamelan than any Indian instrument. The player sits inside a circle of tuned drums and chimes. Typical ensembles might also include oboes, additional percussive instruments, flutes, and mouth organs. Traditional Burmese orchestras use a common melody, but instrumentalists can freely improvise within this framework.
These ensembles are used for theatrical performances, at festivals, and for religious ceremonies. Contemporary recordings are commonly made by professional government-sponsored groups, playing both solo and in ensembles.
There is a common thread of culture and history linking Bhutan, Nepal, and Tibet. The religion in the high mountains is Buddhism and ceremonies typically use loud wind instruments, long shawms (double-reed instruments), trumpets, and drums. In Tibet, before the Chinese invasion in 1950, the Buddhist monks spent a large part of their lives chanting hymns and scriptures. Since the refugee monks moved to the West, this type of music has been heard and studied outside Tibet. Typically, the monks sing in unison on very deep notes but create chords by altering the resonating cavities in the mouth, which adds harmonics to the fundamental note (overtone singing).
Ritual drumming and dance are also popular. The mask dances of Bhutan, for example, typically associated with religious festivals, are performed by monks and laity. These dance and music pageants represent the Buddha in various manifestations.
In Nepal, musicians belong to two untouchable castes (groups of the lowest class in India, whom members of the four main castes were once forbidden to touch), the Damai and the Gaine. The ensembles are known as panche baja or damai baja, and use instruments such as shawms, drones, drums, and cymbals, and play for ceremonies and festivals.
Music in Sri Lanka is almost invariably associated with dance, and uses many different types of drums and conch trumpets. The dances are elaborate enactments of traditional stories with costumed mime actors. Kandyan ceremonies can include processions of Buddhist monks, elephants, singers, and dancers. Another popular genre is the masked devil dance, used to exorcise evil spirits. With Sri Lanka’s strong orientation toward entertaining tourists, there has been an active move to preserve these traditional and colourful performances.
In South Asia, it is popular music that has been most influenced by the West, while musicians such as Ravi Shankar, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and Ali Akbar Khan, introduced by pop figures such as the BEATLES and Peter Gabriel, have done much to popularise Indian music in the West.
Western influences have also been felt in South Asia. Although the musicians might be singing in Urdu or Tamil, their popular music has absorbed a range of Western musical forms, such as rock, country, blues, and disco. Nepalese and Pakistani rock music became so popular that Western-style radio stations, like Nepal’s Hits FM 100, were instituted in part to promote indigenous artists. These include Junoon and Saroor, Pakistani pop groups, and Nepal’s Kandara and Om Mane Padme. Some younger Burmese musicians typically graft Burmese lyrics to Western music or choose to perform French and English songs to a Burmese beat. At the same time, an increased consciousness of their invaluable heritage has encouraged the preservation of traditional music.
Linda Dailey Paulson
SEE ALSO:
BHANGRA BEAT; GAMELAN; INDIAN FILM MUSIC; MIDDLE EAST; SOUTH EAST ASIA.
FURTHER READING
Farrell, Gerry. Indian Music and the West
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997);
Titon, Jeff Todd, ed. Worlds of Music
(New York: Schirmer Books, 1984).
SUGGESTED LISTENING
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma
Folk Music of Afghanistan Vols. 1 and 2; The Garos of
the Madhuphur, Hsain Waing of Myanmar, Rituals of
the Drukpa Order, Songs of the Pashai
India
Balachander: Veena Virtuoso; Sheila Chandra: Weaving
My Ancestors’ Voices; Ali Akbar Khan with Asha
Bhosle: Legacy, Ustad Nizamuddin Khan: Tabla;
Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan: Ragas; Ravi
Shankar: Pandit Ravi Shankar, Ramnad Krishnan:
Vidwan—Songs of the Carnatic Tradition;, Vadya
Lahari: South Indian Instrumental Ensemble.
Kashmir, Nepal, Pakistan
Kashmir Traditional Songs & Dances;
Singh Tara Bir: Nepal Sitar, Folksongs of Nepal;
Khamisu Khan: L’Algoza du Sind;
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan: The Day, the Night,
the Dawn, the Dusk.
Sri Lanka, Tibet
Singhalese Music-Singing and Drumming;
Sri Lanka: Comic Theatre and Folk Operas;
Ache Lhamo: Tibetan Musical Theatre,
Gyuto Monks: Tibetan Tantric Choir.
