Time in Indian Music is the first major study of rhythm, metre, and form in North Indian rag , or classical, music. Martin Clayton presents a theoretical model for the organization of time in this repertory, a model which is related explicitly to other spheres of Indian thought and culture as well as to current ideas on musical time in alternative repertoriesnullincluding that of Western music. This theoretical model is elucidated and illustrated with reference to many musical examples drawn from authentic recorded performances. These examples clarify key Indian musicological concepts such as tal (metre), lay (tempo or rhythm), and laykari (rhythmic variation).

"This book is a comprehensive account of the various forms in Indian music. The Gharanas of Indian music have been discussed elaborately in this book. In vocal music, the author has discussed Dhrupad, Khayal and Thumri. In instrumental music, Gharanas of Sitar, Sarod and Tabla have been discussed. Besides this, five leading forms of Karnatak music have been covered in this book alongwith reviews of some of the most recent books on music."

Offering a broad perspective of the philosophy, theory, and aesthetics of early Indian music and musical ideology, this study makes a unique contribution to our knowledge of the ancient foundations of India's musical culture. Lewis Rowell reconstructs the tunings, scales, modes, rhythms, gestures, formal patterns, and genres of Indian music from Vedic times to the thirteenth century, presenting not so much a history as a thematic analysis and interpretation of India's magnificent musical heritage. In Indian culture, music forms an integral part of a broad framework of ideas that includes philosophy, cosmology, religion, literature, and science. Rowell works with the known theoretical treatises and the oral tradition in an effort to place the technical details of musical practice in their full cultural context. Many quotations from the original Sanskrit appear here in English translation for the first time, and the necessary technical information is presented in terms accessible to the nonspecialist. These features, combined with Rowell's glossary of Sanskrit terms and extensive bibliography, make Music and Musical Thought in Early India an excellent introduction for the general reader and an indispensable reference for ethnomusicologists, historical musicologists, music theorists, and Indologists.

This Book Introduces To Lay Readers The Basic Concepts Of Indian Music To Aid A Fuller Appreciation. Raga. Its Melodic Base, Is Examined First, With Scales And Figures Employed Where Necessary. Chapters On Tone And Rhythm Follow.The Many Forms Of Composition - Kheval, Thumri, Kriti - Are Explained Historically, And The Lives Of The Masters Briefly Touched Upon. Also Discussed Is The Folk Base Of Classical Music - Particularly The Devotional Forms That Abound. Folk And Concert Instruments Of A Wide Range Are Described, And Their Canons Of Classification Expounded.The Author Has Covered Hindustani And Karnatak Music; The Parallel Treatment Not Only Makes For Comprehensiveness, But Brings Out Common Features To The Benefit Of Those Familiar With Either System. The Approach Being Historical, The Study Of Evolving Codes And Canons Leads Naturally To A Consideration Of Music In The Modern Milieu.Illustrated With Over 80 Drawings, The Book Is Intended To Serve As A Primer For Those At Home And Abroad Who Seek The Enrichment India'S Ancient Music Offers.

Winner of the James Tait Black Prize for Biography An autobiographical exploration of the role and meaning of music in our world by one of India's greatest living authors, himself a vocalist and performer. Amit Chaudhuri, novelist, critic, and essayist, is also a musician, trained in the Indian classical vocal tradition but equally fluent as a guitarist and singer in the American folk music style, who has recorded his experimental compositions extensively and performed around the world. A turning point in his life took place when, as a lonely teenager living in a high-rise in Bombay, far from his family’s native Calcutta, he began, contrary to all his prior inclinations, to study Indian classical music. Finding the Raga chronicles that transformation and how it has continued to affect and transform not only how Chaudhuri listens to and makes music but how he listens to and thinks about the world at large. Offering a highly personal introduction to Indian music, the book is also a meditation on the differences between Indian and Western music and art-making as well as the ways they converge in a modernism that Chaudhuri reframes not as a twentieth-century Western art movement but as a fundamental mode of aesthetic response, at once immemorial and extraterritorial. Finding the Raga combines memoir, practical and cultural criticism, and philosophical reflection with the same individuality and flair that Chaudhuri demonstrates throughout a uniquely wide-ranging, challenging, and enthralling body of work.

From the late nineteenth century through the 1920s, the U.S. government sought to control practices of music on reservations and in Indian boarding schools. At the same time, Native singers, dancers, and musicians created new opportunities through musical performance to resist and manipulate those same policy initiatives. Why did the practice of music generate fear among government officials and opportunity for Native peoples? In this innovative study, John W. Troutman explores the politics of music at the turn of the twentieth century in three spheres: reservations, off-reservation boarding schools, and public venues such as concert halls and Chautauqua circuits. On their reservations, the Lakotas manipulated concepts of U.S. citizenship and patriotism to reinvigorate and adapt social dances, even while the federal government stepped up efforts to suppress them. At Carlisle Indian School, teachers and bandmasters taught music in hopes of imposing their “civilization” agenda, but students made their own meaning of their music. Finally, many former students, armed with saxophones, violins, or operatic vocal training, formed their own “all-Indian” and tribal bands and quartets and traversed the country, engaging the market economy and federal Indian policy initiatives on their own terms. While recent scholarship has offered new insights into the experiences of “show Indians” and evolving powwow traditions, Indian Blues is the first book to explore the polyphony of Native musical practices and their relationship to federal Indian policy in this important period of American Indian history.

Contents: Introduction, Music, Ancient Indian Music and Man, Indian Music, Man and the Aesthetics of Indian Music, Dance, Drama and Music, Indian Dance: The Background, Indian Dance: Theory and Practice, Music An Expression of Man s Creative Genius, The Search for Divinity in Khayal, Aspirations of the Ideal Musician, The Agra Gharana, Man s Response to Rhythm, Folk Music of Some Indian States, Music for Posterity and Role of the Notation.

Music in North India provides a representative overview of this music, discussing rhythm and drumming traditions, song composition and performance styles, and melodic and rhythmic instruments. Drawing on his experience as a sarod player, vocalist, and music teacher, author George Ruckert incorporates numerous musical exercises to demonstrate important concepts. The book ranges from the chants of the ancient Vedas to modern devotional singing and from the serious and meditative rendering of raga to the concert-hall excitement of the modern sitar, sarod, and tabla. It is framed around three major topics: the devotional component of North Indian music, the idea of fixity and spontaneity in the various styles of Indian music, and the importance of the verbal syllable to the expression of the musical aesthetic in North India.