Audacious: Indian Music

Indian music is one of the oldest and the richest in the world. In India, the word music is called as SANGEETHA which means the art of singing, playing of instruments and dancing. Indian music is composed of two major components namely RAGA and TALA. Raga is the structure of melody whereas Tala is the structure of rythm. The former deals with the rise and fall of sounds and the latter deals with the pattern of beats.

Tala is the pulse of Indian music. The term Tala is derived from the Sanskrit word 'Tal' which means to strike with palms. Early musicians may have employed claps or palm-strokes to mark time in dance and music which later developed into a complicated system of 108 talas of classical music. It is a time cycle that remains fixed through out a particular rendering. Tala, binds music together and offer a regularity that calms the mind.

Raga is the basic scale or note-pattern of a melody formed by selecting notes from the thirteen tonal intervals, conventionally established in the octave space. The notes are selected from ascending as well as descending progressions. They are Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni in the ascending order and Sa, Ni, Dha, Pa, Ma, Ga, Re, Sa in the descending order. Frameworks, thus provided by the selected notes function as the ground-plan. Musicians can elaborate Ragas on the basis of this plan and create more tonal patterns pleasing to the ears of the listeners.

In India two types of music exits namely Hindustani and Carnatic. The former is follwed in the North while the latter in South.

Hindustani music offers various kinds of music namely Dhruvapada, Khyal, Thumari, Tappa and Ghazal. Some of the well known instruments used in Hindustani music are

the sitar.
the sarod.
the rudraveena.
the santoor.
the flute.
the shehnai .
the sarangi.

Carnatic music require deeper understanding of vocal notes. It is rigid and deeply spiritual. The important element in carnatic music is "Kirti", a composition of three elements. The three great composers of carnatic music called TRINITY of carnatic music are Thyagaraja, Shyama Shastri and Muthuswamy Dikshithar. Some of the instruments used in carnatic music are