Detail, Vijay Singh and His Harem, c. 1770. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Accn. 2002.38.
Tuesday April 14, 2020
In this session we will learn about some of the basic concepts and terms associated with music in northern India and Pakistan, including राग, ताल, and बंदिश, as well as critical concepts and terms associated with lyrical genres like पद, छंद, and तुक.
Listen:
- Vidyadhar Vyas: Rag Chandrakauns
- Shruti Sadolikar: Rag Deshi
Read:
- Ranade, Ashok. Hindustānī Saṅgīt (Delhi: National Book Trust). Chapter 1.
- Bhikharidas. Ras-Sārãś (Banaras: Nagari Pracharini Sabha). [selections]
To help you read the short excerpt from Bhikharidas’s रससारांश (Ras-Sārãś) I have created the following video. Do not worry if you find the reading difficult– this is an earlier form of Hindi that takes effort to learn. Use the video and the dictionary to help you understand what Bhikharidas is saying about रस (rasa), the aesthetic essence of ‘flavor’ of music and poetry.
As we discussed during the first class meeting, we will memorize a verse of poetry before each class session. Your assignment for the upcoming class session is to memorize the following dohā by the court poet Bihari Lal (1595-1663):
तंत्री नाद कबित्त रस सरस राग रति रंग ।
अनबूड़े बूड़े तरे जे बूड़े सब अंग ।।
Vocabulary शब्दावली:
We will learn and use the following terms during the class discussion. Some of the terms below have been linked to their definitions in the Oxford Hindi-English Dictionary; the rest of the terms you will need to look up on your own.
| राग | ताल |
| स्वर | बंदिश |
| आलाप | रस |
| शृंगार | हास्य |
| वीर | रौद्र |
| अद्भुत | बिभत्स |
| करुण | भयानक |
| शान्त | छंद |
| तुक | लय |
| धुन | लज़्ज़त |
Instuctor’s notes:
As you will probably notice from the content of the homework readings and from the vocabulary for this session, we will divide our focus for this session between the ‘musical’ and ‘textual’ aspects of song. On the one hand, we have the conceptual and technical world of musical sound: rhythm, melody, tempo, timing, and the like. On the other hand, we have the conceptual and technical world of poetry: meter, rhyme, imagery, symbolism, and the like.
Yet you may also notice that many concepts and technical terms are shared between music and literature– most importantly the concept of rasa (रस) or lazzat (लज़्ज़त). This idea of ‘taste’ informs how various peoples of South Asia over the past several centuries have thought about, enjoyed, and cultivated an appreciation for music, literature, and other arts. In north India, the conceptual vocabulary for thinking and speaking about music (including its poetic content), like the language of Hindi itself, is in fact drawn from multiple linguistic and cultural traditions, including Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, and local vernacular languages.
Our goal in during this session (and during our preparation for it) will be to get a feel for speaking about music and literature in Hindi. To that end, I am sharing a few videos below. Take a few minutes to watch, listen, and learn how people involved in music and literature– musicians, poets, and scholars–speak about song and poetry.
Rahim Fahimuddin Dagar and Ashish Sankrityayan: Dhrupad, the Call of the Deep
Watch the first three and a half minutes of this video during which Ustad Rahim Fahimuddin Dagar, a teacher of the dhrupad style of music, reads from an early musicological work. What kind of terms does it use? In which script is it written? Do you recognize this language?
Gulzar: Ustad Amjad Ali Khan
This documentary, made by Gulzar (the famous lyricist whose poetry we will read later in the course) for the Indian government’s Films Division, gives insight into the life of a practicing Hindustani musician, Amjad Ali Khan. Khan, a famous sarod player, speaks about his family history, the history of Hindustani music, and the processes of learning, teaching, performing, and appreciating music in the present age (and earlier times). Pay attention to the terms and concepts that he uses to describe his understanding of all these aspects of music in north India.