Ustad Asad Ali Khan Beenkar

Guest Post by Jon Barlow^[1]

Like so many music lovers in India and abroad I was saddened at the news of the demise of Ustad Asad Ali Khansaheb, the great Beenkar. I want to share these memories and thoughts about him.

My first recollection of Ustad Asad Ali Khan is from around 1972/73 when I saw him play in a small theatre in Calcutta. Khansaheb was at that time about 35 years of age but he was not well known in Calcutta and Beenkars, scarce for many years, had become a rarity in the musical world. He belonged to an hereditary musical family and, his father, Sadiq Ali Khansaheb had been one of the deeply respected musicians in the decades straddling independence, but was a remnant of the 'ancien regime' of Alwar and Rampur, that courtly musical culture that had receded into a semi mythic domain (A Google search will give details of the family). Beenkars, though given a reflexive acknowledgement, were not the darlings of the box-office and with the erosion of the older patronage times were tough.

Khansaheb was very slim and straight and had a look of slightly defensive pride and was firmly buttoned into a black sherwani, shiny with age and meticulous care. It was still the polite mode for musicians to wear white kurta-pyjama, maintain a modest demeanour and, in the cold of winter add a black sherwani or Kashmir shawl and I have the impression that Khansaheb kept to this dress throughout his life. As I got to know him better in the following years I realized his slightly haughty distance was a customary, if awkward, formality that served to shield an otherwise shy, simple and kindly man. His compact face and firm expression would suddenly give way to a luminous smile and his vices were confined to consuming small quantities of rich mughlai food and smoking 555s.

I found his Been playing fascinating to watch. The technique was powerful and demanding but he achieved a wonderful balance with long strong fingers, but perhaps the most remarkable thing was how he tuned his Been to his body, using his breath to expand against the tumbahs and regulating and inflecting his Sa the subsequent swaras Before his performance, as he circulated a little among the gunis and rasikas and patiently listened to several of the junior artistes, he appeared singular and a little lonely.

I don't remember what Raga he played that first time but once I had understood that the Been, when amplified through pretty crude PA systems, such as may still be found in many concert venues in India, presents acoustic problems that demand an extra element of participation from its listeners, I was impressed with the sense that I had just encountered some sort of revelation of what lay at the heart of the instrumental music of North India. It was partly a compelling fullness in the articulation of the swaras despite what might otherwise be characterised as a twangy sound; strong in the base and thin in the higher registers. With this instrument he played the Ragas with a pure simplicity, quite free of arbitrary flourishes, that allowed the subtlest inflections of swaras to be filled with the moving energy.

Later when I heard his Been un-amplified and was even able to put my ear to its gourds the incomparable richness of the sound became evident. It inspired me to make a Been and, although I had no expertise, it actually turned out to be OK and became part of a barter in which I got a Vicky 50cc moped, Manfred Junius took my Been and Peter Row acquired Manfred's Kanai Lal Been. It was also an element in my early friendship with Khansaheb. After that first concert I had gone to meet him to ask about the instrument and how to make it, taking measurements and peering at the jovari. Despite his profound initial scepticism he was chuffed that I had tried and we agreed that I should try to make a good instrument for him one day. Unfortunately this never happened, largely because I was never convinced that I had any way of improving on the traditional instrument and I procrastinated in the expectation that one day I would have a brain-wave or two on the subject.

In 1975 Asad Ali Khansaheb stayed with me in my apartment at Lake Market for about ten days during which time I was able to observe his playing and the instrument in some depth. During that time Fahimuddin Dagarsaheb often dropped by as they were old friends and had much in common musically. One memorable evening they played and sang a very extended and vilambit Khamaj, full of beautiful vistars that showed fresh pathways into the Raga.

In this context I recall Dr SK Saxena recounting an impromptu meeting in his Friends Colony apartment in Delhi in the late '50s early 60's, when Rahimuddin Dagar was requested by Sadiq Ali Khansaheb to listen to his son, the young Asad Ali, and comment on his playing. He began playing Bhimpalashi and after some time Dagarsaheb's mood came and he began to sing, becoming deeply immersed in the raga. Dr Saxena claims that the music was so powerful and profoundly beautiful that it became overwhelming and after some time he had to beg Dagarsaheb to stop. Sadiq Ali Khansaheb was in tears and exclaimed 'Arre! This is Been ang Beta . . this is how one should try to play!'. Although it was not spelt out as a formal arrangement I was led to believe that Asad Ali Khansaheb had benefitted from repeated musical contacts with Dagarsaheb and had absorbed fundamental ideas from him which changed his baaj, giving the Seniyah base of his family parampara a Dagar vocal quality in its presentation.

In 1978 our friend Brad Warren, who was learning sarode with him, took Asad Ali Khansaheb on an extensive tour of Australia for six weeks. He played lots of concerts and was in fantastic form. The performance in the Sydney University chapel was particularly memorable for me as I had dragged along uncles and aunts who, while avid classical music fans, were mildly indifferent to Indian music. After two hours of one raga (again Bhimpalashi and wonderfully played) they surfaced at the interval a little glassy-eyed but convinced that he was one of the greatest musicians they had ever heard. Nevertheless, they pleaded, two hours was enough for the time being.

Khansaheb was not one to happily compromise on form or content but he was a regular artist at AIR in Delhi where time constraints had to apply. The Office and studios at AIR, which had assumed many of the functions of the Gunijankhanas of the princely courts, were blessed zones in those days, before Mrs Gandhi's assassination and the brutish security regime that followed. The director for classical music through the time I used to visit was Sunil Bose, a thumri singer, whose office overflowed with musicians coming and going from work or just dropping by to share gossip and songs and consuming vast quantities of tea and cigarettes and if you were a music lover you were welcome. I was invited into the spaciously minimalist and relaxed studios to listen to someone or others recording session several times but the most memorable was in 1981. I met Khansaheb at AIR he called me into the studio and proceeded to play a brilliant Darbari Kanhra for 25 minutes followed, I think, by Desh.

I rarely saw him after that and never again had a chance to confer with him about Beens and music but he has remained prominent in my mind for all his qualities and because his vani stands clear as a realisation of the Veena-ang paradigm that has informed music in India for millennia. The fine point, the bindu, where breath and vani meet, humming like a bumble-bee, moving freely along the dandi from tumbah to tumbah, revealing in ahata naada the subtle and majestic dynamic of prana moving as musical thoughts and emotions.

Notes:

1. Jon Barlow has been involved with Indian art music for over forty years as a practitioner, instrument designer, and chronicler of his times. He is a pupil of the Sarode maestro Pt. Radhika Mohan Maitra and the vocalist Ud. Aslam Khan of the Khurja-Agra-Jaipur Gharana. Many thanks Jon, for writing this sensitive tribute in such short time. Thanks are due to Arnab Chakrabarty as well, for persuading him to contribute this piece and also for minor copy-editing. [back]

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The Hoax of the Century - IV

[Continued from Part III]

Q. “Gosh, is it really that bad?”

A. “Indeed, once you admit any art without meaning, you open the door to all kinds of aberrations. So you may have singers braying and bellowing, crooning and cackling, moaning and mumbling, shouting and threatening all because they had nothing to say.”

Q. “Now that you put it that way, the moaning of Gangubai Hangal becomes explicable. And she has won no less than 9 awards for her music!”

A. “That’s a matter for bemoaning our national brains. And I have not mentioned the gesticulations and the theatrics of singers such as Bhimsen Joshi or the grimaces of the tanbaji-wallahs. Have you noticed how these pseudo-Khyaliyas got worse and worse as they advanced in age? Faiyaz Khan and Bade Ghulam Ali Khan were shouting hoarse during their latter recitals and Omkarnath Thakur had just descended to bathos during his last years. If all these were to have audience before Muhammed Shah of yore, they would have been despatched immediately to the world to which their music belonged.

In contrast consider the two genuine representatives of their respective music – the late Siddheswari Devi in North India and M.S. Subbalaxmi from the south. Their music attained a mellowness with their age because they were each on the right track to begin from the start. Such musicians were must have been the rule in the last centuries rather than the exception they are now.

No music can devolve only on its technicalities for too long. You may find on a fair examination that the Dhrupad and the Khyal and the Tappa are already extinct modes of Hindustani music. Thumri survives rather precariously in some of the Kathak schools of dancing and with a fast diminishing number of singers. It is the Ghazal that is now in the forefront.And Indian cinema music ceased to be ‘Indian’ quite some decades ago. Even the notes they employ now are not to be found in our musical scale (saptak).”

Q. “Do you any chance for a revival of North Indian classical vocal music?”

A. “Yes, when our Industrial-Commercial economy turns back to a handicrafts economy and when music may once again be regarded as a legitimate are rather than a drawing-room luxury, inflating the egos of the musicians. The restoration of the meaning and purpose is the first step in the revival of any art or civilisation. The present climate of our national life does not auger well for any cultural values, hell bent as we are in ‘catching up’ with the mechanically advanced countries, our ‘Festivals of India’ notwithstanding.

In such a climate the representatives of genuine art are in a minority and at a discount. One cannot hope to find the required patronage or the audience for genuine classical music, though curiously, it makes far less demands on one’s patience or tolerance than the counterfeit varieties. It is amazing how audiences throng to attend the most atrocious buffoonery in classical Hindustani music lured merely by ‘famous names’. It is the fear of the beautiful and the fascination for the grotesque that brings all the rewards for the hoaxes. Nor does any one have the patience and perseverance to cultivate a music like the Khyal which needs at 20 years of training before taking to the public platform. What you will see more and more will be the much publicised experiments of musicologists to amalgamate the music of the North and the South and the West and East too, so that no recognisable Indian music will be left any longer.

Once upon a time you could have seen a singer facing the Lord in a temple pouring out his song in devotion. You can now see the back of an Indian conductor before a group of mannequins drooling out what is supposed to be Indian music, sung in different keys! And this is supposed to be progressive modern music for you, instead of the stereotyped linear melodic devotional music of yesterday. Be that as it may. We have come a long way from what was once gandharva music with the ragas as deities.”

Q. “I see it all now, rather a sad situation. And what would you take to listen to an hour of Kumar Gandharva?”

A. “Say around Rs. 2000/-. But to witness the scene of Balakrishna drinking in the music of the blind Surdas, I would give my very life!”

[Concluded]

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The Hoax of the Century - III

[Continued from Part II]

Q. “What makes the Khyals of Sadarang so unique?”

A. “Because Sadarang (who was initially a beenkar in the court of Muhammad Shah (1719-48), by name Niyamat Khan) was a true reformer of vocal music, one who restored the essential form of Hindustani music from its decadent Dhrupad form of the time. In the compositions of Sadarang, you see the themes of Hindi love-poetry (which are anything but sensual), the whole heritage and dignity of Dhrupad, the fluency of the Hindi and Persian languages and the manner (paddhati) of the been in its glide or meend, plus a number of musical alankars that were introduced into the body of the composition.

One could make a life-long study of the compositions of Sadarang with respect to their musical form, how each alankar is exactly suited to the meaning of the word it embellishes. This was a music at once attractive and meaningful, as much in its original compositions (by Sadarang and his associates) as in its subsequent improvisations, like in the Thumri. No wonder that rasika Muhammad Shah was impressed, - impressed enough to accord royal status (darbar gayaki) to the Khyal immediately, without waiting for an ‘expert’s committee’. There are many more subtleties of the Khyal which one may observe from its authentic exponents rather than from the “reviews” of Hindustani music from newspaper critics.

Just ask yourself if the music of anyone of the current Khyal singers would be accepted by Muhammad Shah. More likely, they would be sent out immediately without their necks. But absolutely no one seems to entertain the slightest curiosity, to ask about any singer – “is the Khyal that once displaced the Dhrupad from the royal courts of Delhi and Gwalior?” There seems to be a general ‘paralysis of the critical sense’ in the arts and a mortal fear, as if all comparisons with previous models were anathema.

If you have encountered the original compositions of Sadarang, you could see that they were not easy to compose even by a seasoned musician, though they appear deceptively simple. It is not just a matter of allotting svaras to words as per the grammar of the raga. A composer like Sadarang comes once in a century. Consequently the music of Sadarang could not be copied or multiplied in every royal court of North India. And the Dhrupad having lost its pride of place, many would be vocalists “took to the Khyal”

About the beginning of the 20th century, there appeared two unfortunate influences in Hindustani music – Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande in the field of ‘theory’ and Vishnu Digambar Paluskar in the field of ‘practice’. They thought they were fulfilling the role of Vishnu the preserver. With all his monumental work in classifying and naming ragas, Bhatkhande failed to notice the unique quality of the Khyals of Sadarang. His obsession was with the nomenclature of ragas. With the result, he made it appear as if any musician with the knowledge of the grammar of a raga could be a composer of Khyals. In all his six volumes of “Hindustani Sangeet Paddhati” he finds no place even to mention the unique qualities of the Sadarang’s musical compositions though he had the opportunity of listening to and putting into notation the authentic rendering of the Gwalior Khyals. And witness the brilliance of the products of his Marris College at Lucknow. They are all caricatured copies of the pseudo-Dhrupad-Dhamar of Faiyaz Khan passing of as Khyals.

And Vishnu Digambar Paluskar with his obsession to “popularise” the classical music of North India, succeeded only in popularising himself. One may these facts if one compared the rendering of Sadarang’s compositions by Vishnu Digambar’s line from Hassu Khan, with those of the line of Natthu Khan who remained in Gwalior. These latter singers were in a microscopic minority.

Q. “Who then were in the majority camp of Khyaliyas?”

A. “The ‘Khansahebs of the Khazana’ and the ‘Pandits of the Raga’. Either from Bhatkhande or elsewhere these pseudo-Khyaliyas got the idea that the words (sahitya) of the Khyal were of little or no importance. What mattered to these (mis-)leaders of classical music was the raga. And you have all the music critics blindly following this lead. Even if you mumbled the words as Ameer Khan used to do, or indicated them by a wave of the hand (how symbolic!), it was alright, as long as you somehow gave the impression that you were “producing classical music”.

Have you ever heard from any singer an astai and antara clearly and consistently articulated and set perfectly to the matras of the tala? And what about the consistency of the meaning? That’s only for folk music, not for the higher classical categories as Bhatkhande pontificated! It was with this background that you got the whole horde of pseudo-Khyaliyas – Alladiya Khan of the Jaipur Gharana who could grind out a raga for hours without reaching the tar saptak, or Faiyaz Khan of the Agra Gharana who passed off his pseudo-Dhrupad-Dhamar as Khyal or Abdul Karim Khan of the Kirana Gharana ( and of the Sarangi line – nothing wrong in that by itself) who imagined he could imitate Rehmat Khan when nobody was looking, or Bade Ghulam Ali Khan of Sabrang Gharana who thought he could get the colour of the Khyal by mixing in colours of Qawwali, Thumri, Ghazal and the rest with sargamlocutions!

A Gharana of Khyal implies an original composer of Khyals and not a ‘style‘ of representing classical non-music under the excuse of a raga. If you think I’m exaggerating, do examine what the Khansahebs and their sisyas give out as Khyal. Do they render the words of the Khyal clearly, so as to bring out its meaning, as in the Thumri, Dadra, Ghazal, etc. Are they really singing the whole composition “in tala” or they concerned only with the coincidence of the sam of the tal or the cheez? Are there any alankars as an integral part of the composition or is that all as a show of vocal acrobatics, and most important of all – what is that they are elaborating for hours – the raga or the cheez with respect to its theme? If you find positive answers to all these questions, then you may say they are genuine representatives of the Khyal. But what do you find our current ‘big names’ of Hindustani music doing, like – Bhimsen Joshi, Mallikarjun Mansur, Jesraj, Parween Sultana, Kumar Gandharva, et al? What part of their performance can you admit as real and enjoyable music? And why do you think the Ghazal is now in the ascendant in Hindustani music?”

Q. “Probably because of the rapport the singer can establish with the audience?”

A. “Precisely, and rapport means artha and bhava. The ‘names’ I mentioned above are not to blame. It is what they received as ‘classical music’ from their teachers and it is what they will pass on to their students, even more denuded of content because there was neither form nor content to begin with, but only the grammar of the raga. Alladiya Khan and Company were the leaders of such classical non-music. By their time, the last generation of authentic Muslim singers of Khyal – Rehmat Khan and Nissar Hussain of Gwalior – were no more. There was no one influential enough to question the authenticity of these pseudo-Khansahebs. One could write a whole thesis on the changing patterns of patronage in North Indian music from the sacred setting of the temple and the aristocratic assemblage of the royal courts of North India to the present democratic (maifils) and the AIR and Sangeet Natak Akadamies.”

[Continued in Part IV]

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The Hoax of the Century - II

[Continued from Part I]

Q. You just mentioned three forms of the North Indian music. Are they all counted as classical music?”

A. “That depends on how refined an example of each type may be and how excellently it may be presented by any particular singer. There may be a ‘classical’ performance of a ‘Natyasangeet’ or a pedestrian performance of the finest of Khyals.”

Q. “What are the lakshanas of the Khyal in Hindustani music?”

A. “The Khyal is one among several extant types of North Indian music, like the Dhrupad, Dhamar, Hori, Kajri, Thumri, Dadra, Tappa, Qawwali and others. It is certainly the most difficult type of North Indian music to perform adequately and yet it has become the most popular form of North Indian classical music, because out of the five essentials, the pseudo-Khyaliyas have simply eliminated sahitya, rasa and tala and made an efficacy from svara and raga, camouflaged with the cover of tans (alankars) with no reference to the image of the cheez or composition. To carry the simile further: a single match stick could burn the effigy down in a trice. Just ask a Khyaliya “What are you singing about?” If he had a sense of humour, he might answer – “Five thousand rupees”, or whatever his fee was. But they don’t have a sense of humour, nor do their dumb patrons have any and that’s how the farce of “Classical Hindustani music” flourishes and grows. You remember the little child in Hans Anderson’s “The Emperor’s new Clothes”? We have long since passed that age when an innocent little child could show up the farce by saying – “Look, the Khansaheb isn’t singing any cheez at all, he is just exercising his lungs”. Today we need the sword of Mansurji, heralding the end of a yuga, to put all bogus artists in their place and to stop them fooling everyone.”

But we are living are living in a world of ‘make-belief’ from bogus swamis and bogus beggars even – ‘Ersatz culture’ all the way down. There’s nothing our mechanical world cannot simulate – ready- made heroes, ready-to-swallow opinions and ready-made awards and instant glory.

But let us for a moment pull ourselves back from the jetset age to that of the horse and the buggy and the palanquin. No media men to manufacture ‘messages’ and opinions. It is rather the sophisticated age of the later Moghuls. The scene of classical music had shifted from the temple to the Moghul court. The audience could be counted on one’s elbow tips, but they were men of learning and taste. By Muhammad Shah’s time, the Dhrupad had already declined to a duel between the singer and the drummer – a denudation of all rasa and bhava. It was at that

point that the Khyal emerged as a reaction to the soulless Dhrupad. The time-filling alap of the Dhrupad was dispensed with and many alankars were introduced into the body of the composition, always consistent with the meaning of the words of the composition. In place of the four parts of the Dhrupad, the Khyal consisted of only two parts – the astai and antara. The tals of the Khyal were simpler than those in Dhrupad. Otherwise the essential dignity of the dhrupad was preserved in full.

But the forte of the Khyal was the manner of its improvisation. An authentic singer of the Khyal had to be quite as musically versatile as its composer. He had to virtually create new compositions (bandishes) with the cheez in all his improvisations and not merely mechanical permutations and combinations of the notes of the raga. Just imagine what this involves by way of training and skill. You cannot have teenage prodigies giving public recitals of Khyal as you may have youngsters making a mark in instrumental music. Here to a knowledgeable rasika can easily distinguish between mere ‘control of an instrument’ and real depth of exposition.

Then, the singing of the sargam in a Khyal recital is the most infantile of inanities in Hindustani music. It was probably introduced by Abdul Karim Khan to flatter South Indian audiences, and Parween Sultana has built her reputation from this infantilism and no one has pointed out how ridiculous it is. But in the traditional school of the Khyal, the names of the svaras are not mentioned even in the tuition stage and yet they have the finest of Khyal compositions with the subtlest modulation of svaras.

In the Khyal you see the art of musical improvisation at its best, something you do not meet in any other form of North Indian vocal music. Yet it must all seem effortless and not as if the singer was contesting in a tournament of tans and tals as Krishnarao Shankar Pandit gives the impression he was.

The proper facility for vistara (improvisation) requires first the foundation of a few hundred merited compositions learnt by talim, from a guru in the Khyal tradition and not merely from a graduate of the Bhatkhande School. After a few decades of practice based on those compositions, so that the vistara will be not just a grammatical elaboration of the raga but a thematic elaboration of the cheez, through new bandishes in every avartana. Such an elaboration cannot be extended beyond 15 to 20 minutes for a cheez, if repetition is to be avoided. I marvel at the tolerance of our audience who are prepared to sit grimly through the “systematic grinding of a raga” by the pseudo-Khyaliyas, in imitation of the inferior instrumentalists.”

Q. “Now that you mention it, it did not strike me that the present day Hindustani vocalists are actually imitating the manner of the instrumentalists who are “free from the tyranny of words!”

A. “Not merely that; when instrumentalists were exposed to good vocalists, their instrumental music likewise had the quality of bandishes – whole and complete phrases – as represented by that greatest of instrumentalists of this century – Ustad Bundu Khan.

That quality now, belongs to the past. Unfortunately our present day musicians have never heard either vocal or instrumental music of that quality, which goes by the name of gayaki ang. Today this term is not understood (or represented) even by reputed masters like Ravi Shankar because they simply have not heard vocal music of the gayaki ang.”

Q. “Then where would one encounter the real gayaki ang in the Khyal?”

A. “Eminently in the music of Sadarang. There are scores of Khyal compositions of Sadarang, in which a single astai contains more beautiful bandishes than one would hear in a whole concert of the pseudo-Khyaliyas.”

[Continued in Part III]

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The Hoax of the Century - I

THE HOAX OF THE CENTURY
- THE CLASSICAL MUSIC THAT NOBODY HEARD

- K N Ienger

[Sh Keshavram N Iengar, professor of architecture and a keen sangeet rasik, studied music under Dr H G Moghe, a disciple of Eknath Pandit of Gwalior. Sh Iengar penned this lengthy article in December 1985, shortly before his death. It was sent to us by his student and DSS regular Suvir Misra. Abubakr Khalidi, another regular, kindly undertook to re-type and format the original scanned manuscript. Many thanks, Suvir and Abubakr!

[A caveat: Many aspects of the article are controversial. Sh Iengar's viewpoints are keyed to a bygone era, and present-day readers might not relate to them easily. Parts of the article may seem outmoded, even idiosyncratic. This is especially true of his very strong views on performers many of us venerate. Readers are requested to treat the article in its proper spirit, and exercise due moderation in their responses. It goes without saying that the opinions expressed are solely the author's own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the DSS blog or its members.]

“NOTICE”
GRAND HINDUSTANI MUSIC FESTIVAL
Benefit Programme by SURSAGAR

Q. “Aren’t you going to attend the concert of Bhimsen Joshi?”

A. “They couldn’t afford it.”

Q. “What do you mean?”

A. “You see, I have a rate for most of the Hindustani classical vocalists. I must be paid so much an hour for listening to them. For Bhimsen Joshi I would charge Rs. 1, 000/- per hour.”

Q. “You are kidding.”

A. “I am not. If only you knew how little of music these reputed ‘names’ had with them. Why, even the simplest of ‘folk music’ has more elements of genuine music than these ‘classical festivals’ so fervently advertised. “

Q. “Aren’t you taking an extreme view – rather airing your prejudices too blatantly? Bhimsen Joshi is a box-office draw, you know.”

A. “That’s one of this century’s hoaxes. Have you observed how these vocalists get worse and worse as they grow in age?”

Q. “It may be the strain of years and from failing faculties.”

A. “Not quite. It’s because they must progress; and if you have set out on a wrong track to begin with, you must grow wronger and wronger as you go along. Can you imagine any of our saint-musicians singing more and more abhorrently as they grew older?”

Q. “That’s because they had fewer aspects of music to contend with. They were immersed in their bhakti and their words and notes (svara and sahitya) flowed from the fullness of their hearts.

A. “You’ve hit the nail on the head. And what are the greater aspects our classicists are contending with? “

Q. “The raga exposition, the tala gymnastics, their vocal acrobatics, their public image , kowtowing to the A.I.R., the Music Academies, the Media people, and……”

A. “Perfectly right. You have exposed the case already. And where do bhakti and sahitya find a place in this music? Would you not agree that ‘folk-music’ has more rasa than the Hindustani classical music of today?”

Q. “Yes. How then did it get the label of ‘classical music’ at all?”

A. “Indeed. Should not all the patrons of ‘Hindustani classical music’ raise the same question? Does classical literature have less meaning than non-classical literature, or is classical architecture less useful and beautiful than ordinary architecture? How does any art get to be ‘classical’? The ‘classic’ or ‘classical’ in any art represents a ‘standard of excellence’, achieved over generations of application and which is long lasting. In classical art the elements of form and meaning are perfectly blended, as in Nature, whence we have excellence of form and nobility of content. Such classical human works approach the perfect beauty of Nature. This does not mean that human art should imitate the outward form of Nature. “Art imitates Nature in Her manner of operation”, as St. Thomas Aquinas said. Accordingly, there is more perfection in the padmasana of the stone and metal images of our deities than in the realistic lotuses of Ravi Verma. How could a botanical lotus support a buxom woman?

In Indian vocal music the constituent elements are – svara, pada and laya or notes, words and rhythm; or more completely – svara, sahitya, raga, rasa and tala. Svara is the mathematical correctness of musical notes and also the constituent notes of the melody. The combination of certain consonant notes (samvadi svaras) taken in a scale, constitute a raga. Each valid raga has a distinct atmosphere and the several raga-modes become the means of expressing a mood or bhava more powerfully than if the song did not have the atmosphere of a raga. Remember that a raga is an aid to bhava and does not express a distinct bhava independent of the words of the song. The sahitya and the svaras raga together become the means of communication of bhava or rasa. There is no bhava or rasa in instrumental music, contrary to what many people believe. As for talas, there is no music without rhythm, and the rich Indian patterns of rhythm (talas) are a special feature of Indian music.

The various talas provide the gait and tempo to each song – like the gait of an elephant, camel, a horse and so on; that is, provided the words of the composition (cheez) are at all articulated. There is no significance of tala with Hindustani vocalists who do not have a literary composition to present, but refer to the tala only to return to arrive at the sam, in the refrain. For such rendering, one tala would be as good as any other, and the vocalist and tablist could go their separate ways most of the time.

There’s another element in addition in vocal music – the alankars – musical embellishments that must be appropriate to the text and the dignity of the theme of the particular song. How can you have a cascade of tans in a song that says: “Karim nam tero” or “Pida na jani”? Musical alankars do no pass muster by themselves independent of the composition. But what do you

find with this element currently? At certain point in the recital of a cheez, the singer begins his battery of tans. This is just like saying: “You can begin laughing after I have told you all the jokes of the evening.”

Musical alankars must be taken with the sahitya or not at all. There is really no place for tanbaji (an indulgence of tans for their own sake) in the rendering of the Khyal or Thumri or Tappa. It may go if at all, with a Tarana. But it seems to be feature borrowed from the instrumentalists, while playing fast gats.”

[Continued in Part II]

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