Chapter 6
Instruments, Melodic and Rhythmic
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(1) 7-12, C/U
Pages 65
The Indian Violin
As have those in other nations and cultures, Indians have imported the violin from
Europe and have used it with those instruments that are indigenous to the region. Explore
with students the acculturation process by which the violin has become integral to Indian
musical traditions, listening, observing, and discussing the distinctive manner in which
Indians have fashioned (1) its tuning (a-d-a-d), (2) its playing position (at an oblique
angle from under the chin to where the scroll rests on the foot), and (3) its timbre (played
with a straight, non-vibrato tone). Invite students to play with these possibilities. Look to
other journeys the violin has made--to Turkey, Indonesia, Mexico, eastern Canada, the
Apache nation, and Bolivia, by searching keywords like "violin", "fiddle" and "lute,
bowed", and compare the violin on the three facets which Indians have shaped to their
liking and use.
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(2) 7-12, C/U
Pages 65-66
Instrumental Influences
Challenge students to search for examples of Indian instruments in the musical styles of
neighboring countries. What instruments exist in Burma, China, Iraq, Iran, and Nepal
that resemble the Indian sāntur (hammered dulcimer), sitār, and tablā? (For illustrations
of instruments, see Ruth Midgley et. al., editors, 1997, Musical Instruments of the World,
New York: Sterling Publishers).
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(3) AA
Pages 66-68
The Drone
Have students explore the function of the tānpura in providing a drone to create a fixed
tonal center for a melodic performance by a singer or instrumentalist. Listen for the
drone in the musical selections. Play a V-I-I-I (G-c-c-G or A-d-d-D) drone on piano
(with pedal), guitar, or cello, and then add a sung or played melody above it. Invite
someone with a tānpura in to class to demonstrate it.
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(4) AA
Page 68-69, 76-79
Instrumentally “Fit”
Examine with students an assortment of familiar instruments to determine whether they
would qualify in the performance of Indian traditional styles. Consider, for example, the
clarinet (or the viola, guitar, recorder, trumpet, flute, trombone, or keyboard), and run the
three-point test to see whether it "fits" Indian music: (1) Can the instrument be played to
slide between notes up to the interval of a fifth? (2) Can it play in slightly altered
tunings? (3) Can it play ornaments, like trills, to decorate the melody? Encourage
students to play their own instruments to determine whether they pass the “fit” test.
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(5) 7-12, C/U
Pages 71-72
How Teachers Teach
Read aloud to students the excerpt from Ravi Shankar's My Music, My Life. Guide
students in contemplating the manner in which teachers teach, including disciplinary
measures (or "motivational strategies" as the case may be) taken by someone's piano (or
flute, or guitar, or voice) teacher for a poorly executed piece or exercise. Discuss Ravi
Shankar's feelings regarding his teacher's reaction to his performance, and speculate why
he was able to work his way through these feelings.
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(6) AA
CD Track 32-36
Ali Akbar Khan, Rag Chandranandan on the sarod
1. Play the beginning of the selection. Ask "What do you hear?" Answer: sarod,
tānpura, (and at 27") tablā.
2. Describe the featured melody instrument, sarod, as a plucked lute thatis played by
using the fingernail on a fretless steel fingerboard to produce various pitches.
3. Chandrananandan is an evening rāga. It is played by Ali Akbar Khan, who studied
sarod with his father, Allauddin Khan, later to be joined by sitarist Ravi Shankar. Ali
Akbar Khan now lives and teaches sarod near San Francisco, and continues to be an
active performer of sarod.
4. Listen to piece, for the interplay of sarod with the tablā, for the repeated motifs as
well as the progressive development of the melody, the intricacies of the sarod's
melodic ornamentation and tablā's rhythmic play, the increasing tempo.
5. Listen freely to the piece, or using the guide below. As the piece runs long, it is
useful to stop for each of the five sections, to discuss what might be musically going
on at the moment within the piece. Compare the following events with the guide on
Text Pages 88-89. _____ ______ ______ _______ _____ _____ _____ ___
* Introduction to the raga on the sarod [running 0’27”]
* Beginning of descending Mukhrā by sarod and entrance of the tablā playing tīntāl.
(The 16-beat tīntāl can be clapped and counted, and the mukhra can be quietly sung, in
following the musical development.) [running 0’28”]
* Mukhrā [running 0’09”]
* Vistār (improvised instrumental section) on sarod lasting two cycles of tīntāl.[running
0’20”]
* Return of Mukhrā, followed by rhythmic variations by tabla lasting two cycles. Sarod
explores lower register in vistār.[running 1’23”]
* Return of Mukhrā, and tablā playing in triplets and more complicated rhythmic
flourishes. Sarod continues to improvise in vistār, including upper register improvisations. [running 0’30”]
* Vistāar in middle register [running 0’30”]
* Tān of mainly down-strokes on sarod [running 0’05”]
* Tihāī [running 1’ 03”]
* Tan ends with Mukhrā [0’32”]
* (Recording cuts actual performance) Sarod becomes more rhythmically intricate
through the use of syncopations.(called layakari, or "playing with the rhythm") [running
1’18”]
* Return of Mukhrā. [running 0’05”]
* Beginning of fast composition (gat) represent with its regular rhythmic plucking pattern, "1- 2-3, 1-2-3....", w
* Emergence of a structured tān, or improvised section [running 0’30”]
* Beginning of the jhālā section, characterized by repeated quick strokes of the sarod's
drone strings and tablā's rising and falling pitches that complement the rhythm of the sarod. [running 1’18”]
* Question-answer section begins, with sarod's melodic phrases imitated (or varied) by
the tablā. Phrases are a tīntāl 16-beat cycle in length. [running 1’29”]
* Question-answer phrases are reduced by half in length, to 8 beats. [running 0’25”]
* Question-answer phrases are reduced by half in length, to 4 beats. [running 0’13”]
* Question-answer phrases are reduced by half in length, to 2 beats. [running 0’02”]
* Question-answer phrases are reduced by half in length, to 1 beat. [running 0’30”]
* Tempo quickens, sarod's drone strings are prominent.[running 0’20”]
* Closure comes through repeated phrases sounding together by sarod and tablā.[running
to the end]
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(7) AA
CD Track 37
Nikhil Banerjee plays sitār gat in Rāg Sindhūr Khammāj
1. Play selection. Identify the melodic instrument as the sitār, the preeminent
melodic instrument of India. Note that the standard trio of instruments can be heard:
sitār, tablā, and tānpura.
2. Listen to and feel the rocking rhythm of 16 beats, or tintal, by first swaying
right and then left. Then, clap the strong beats and then sway. (The current selection is
gat-torā style, which is important for its use of structures of bols (plucking patterns.)
3. Listen to the pitches of the recurring melody, and sing them. This melodic phrase
sounds four times in the first minute of the rāg.
4. After a short break, there appears the jhālā, a section that features the fast
stroking of the drone strings. The 16-beat tāla is quite fast, and the steady pulsing of the
drone is prominent.
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CD Track 38
Shivkumar Sharma plays sāntur in Rag Rāgeshri
1. Play selection. Guide students in identifying the melodic instrument as the
sāntur, a hammered dulcimer similar to those found in the Middle East, China,
Scandinavia, and the Appalachian Mountains of the eastern U.S. Explain that the
instrument consists of strings stretched from one end of a trapezoidal sounding board to
the other, which sounds when slim felt-tipped dowels are bounced upon them.
2. Listen to the tān, and ask the following questions:
* What instruments can be heard? (Sāntur, tablā, tānpura)
* Does the sāntour's improvisation consist of a narrow or wide range of pitches? (A wide
range spanning three octaves)
* Does the sāntour's improvisation feature a consistent and unchanging or changing
dynamic level? (Changing, as this is one of the distinguishing features of the sāntour [and
not the sitar or sarod])
3. Following Figure 6.7, Page 76, sing the theme from the sāntur solo.
4. Challenge students to follow the tablā player's performance in the 16-beat tīntāl.
(Count, clap and wave the sixteen beats. It is challenging, as the sāntour plays
rhythmically 1-2-123’1-2-123’123123 (offbeat from the 14th beat) unique structure but
Zakir Hussain picks it up!)
5. At about 1'25", Ask “Do you hear the increasing tension that is built by the tablāa's
tihāī (cadential ending)?” (Note that the sāntour repeatedly plays a melodic phrasethat
supports rather than overshadows the tablā's part.)
6. At about 1'50", ask “Do you hear the release of tension created by the tablā's dramatic
finish of the tihāī at the beginning of sāntour's melodic theme?
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CD Track 39
Sultan Khan plays sarangī Rajashthani folk song
1. Play selection. With students, identify the melodic instrument that sounds in
the second half of the piece, playing the same melody the singer sang in the first half, as
the sarangī. Note that the sarangī is a small bowed lute with thirty-five sympathetic
vibrating strings which is played with the cuticle of the nail of the left hand sliding up
and down the string to the pitches of the melody.
2. Listen to the singer's ornamented melody rise and fall and surround a tonal center
without venturing very far above or below it. Observe how closely the sarangī parallels
the sung melody. Consider the tablā and tānpura as ever-present in providing a solid
sonic texture against which the melody is set. Imagine the technical nature of playing
this melody on the sarangī, making contact with the string with the cuticle of the nail!
Consider the power of the caste system, such that even with the artistic sophistication of
the sarangī's performance it is yet viewed as an instrument of the lower class. The
sarangīs accompanied the baijīs, the courtesan class (as well as associating with classical
khyālists).
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(10) AA
CD Track 40
Hariprasad Chaurasia plays bānsurī in Rāg Jahashri
1. Play selection. Identify the melodic instrument as the bānsurī, or keyless bamboo
flute that plays the microtonal pitches and slides of a rag through a series of intricate
whole- and half-hole fingerings.
2. Sing the rāg upon which the selection is based. In sārgām, it is as follows:
S r G P s-D S (ascending), S D P G r S (descending).
3. Follow the peshkar, or presentation of the rag by the flute, played in a staccato manner
(Provide notation for D P DP G P R-b G). Listen for the tans of running passages and
variations, and the return of the original melody.
4. Follow the seven-beat rupak tāl played by the tablā, waving on 1 and clapping on 4
and 6. Notice how the melody sometimes follows precisely the length of the tāl, and also
overlaps it.
5. Try playing microtones on a flute or recorder, whole- and half-holing from one pitch to
the next.
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(11) C/U
Pages 79-80
Instrumental Adaptations
Challenge students to listen for the sound of the harmonium, a kind of pump organ
frequently used to accompany singers, on CD track 25. Likewise, listen to the use of the
guitar as played with a steel slide, on CD track 3. Comment on the journey of these
instruments from the West to India, and of their adaptation and acculturation by Indian
musicians.