Indian Classical Music Reading Answers

The origins of Indian classical music can be found from the oldest of scriptures, part of the Hindus tradition the Vedas.

Samaveda, one of the four Vedas, describes music at length. Indian classical music has its origins as a meditation tool for attaining self realization. All different forms of these melodies (ragas) are believed to affect various "chakras' ' (energy centers, or "mood' ') in the path of the Kundalini. However, there is little mention of these esoteric beliefs in Bharata's Natyashastra, the first treatise laying down the fundamental principles of drama dance and music. The Samadeva, one of the four Vedas, created out of Rig-veda so that its hymns could be sung as Samagana, established its first pop. 

Indian classical music has one of the most complex and complete musical systems ever developed. Like Western classical music, it divides the octave into 12 Semitones of which the 7 basic notes are Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni Sa, replacing Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do. However, it uses just intonation tuning (unlike western classical music which uses the equal temperament tuning system).

Indian classical music is monophonic in nature and based around a single melody line which is played over a fixed drone. The performance is based melodically on particular rages and rhythmically on talas.

NATIONAL SYSTEM

Scholars of Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth century were enamored by Indian music. With no facility to record the sound they explored for some existing system that might exist that expresses sounds in the composition. There were pointers to an ancient notations system which scholars had also translated into Persian: still complexity of Indian classical music could not be expressed in writing. Though some western scholars did record compositions in the staff notation system, Indian musicians used Pt. Though more accurate, this relies on Devanagari script rather than symbols and hence is cumbersome at times. A new notation system has been proposed which uses symbols and offers instantaneous comprehension

like a staff notation system. It is with standardization of a notation system that hitherto unknown compositions would see the light of day.

INSTRUMENTS

Instruments typically used in Hindustani music include sitar, sarood tanpura, bansuri, shehnai, sarangi, ana table. Instruments typically used in carnatic music include flute, gottuvadyam, veena mridangam, kanjira hatam and violin.