Hindustani music

Historical development and cultural setting

Hindustani music developed across northern, western, central and parts of eastern India. Its history cannot be reduced to either an exclusively ancient tradition or a foreign import. Vedic chanting, early theories of sound and melody, regional performance practices and medieval cultural exchanges contributed to its formation. Bharata’s Natyashastra discusses music within the performing arts, while Sharngadeva’s thirteenth-century Sangita Ratnakara represents an important shared textual inheritance of the later northern and southern classical traditions.

The differentiation between Hindustani and Carnatic music was gradual, becoming clearer during the medieval and early modern periods. Sultanate and Mughal courts encouraged interaction among Indian and Persian-speaking musicians. Bhakti traditions, Vaishnava temple music and Sufi cultural settings also sustained musical creativity. Thus, court, temple and devotional institutions were interconnected sources of patronage rather than mutually exclusive traditions.

Raja Man Singh Tomar of Gwalior, who ruled from 1486 to 1516, is associated with the development and patronage of dhrupad. Tansen, initially associated with the Rewa court, became a celebrated musician at Akbar’s court in the sixteenth century. In the eighteenth century, Niyamat Khan Sadarang and Firoz Khan Adarang helped establish an influential khayal repertoire under Mughal patronage. Later, regional courts, hereditary families, public concerts and broadcasting widened its institutional base.

• Amir Khusrau symbolises Indo-Persian cultural interaction, but many specific musical inventions attributed to him rest on later traditions rather than secure contemporary evidence.

Musical grammar: swara, raga, tala and improvisation

The seven basic swaras are Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha and Ni. Sa is the reference tonic, chosen to suit the performer; it is not a universally fixed pitch. Sa and Pa are treated as achala, or invariant, swaras. Re, Ga, Dha and Ni may take komal forms, while Ma may take a tivra form. Together with the shuddha forms, these provide twelve commonly recognised pitch positions within an octave. Indian theory also discusses twenty-two shrutis, which should not be mistaken for twenty-two equally spaced notes.

A raga establishes a recognisable melodic identity through permitted notes, ascending and descending movements, characteristic phrases and rules of emphasis. Aroha and avaroha indicate ascent and descent; pakad identifies a characteristic phrase. Vadi and samvadi denote especially important notes in conventional theory. Two ragas may share a note collection but differ in melodic movement, emphasis and ornamentation. Many Hindustani ragas have conventional associations with times of day or seasons, such as Malhar varieties with the monsoon.

Tala organises musical time into recurring cycles of matras, grouped into vibhags. Sam is the first beat and a crucial point of return; tali marks clapped divisions and khali a contrasting division indicated by a wave. The theka is the characteristic pattern of percussion syllables articulating a tala. Teental has sixteen beats in four divisions of four; jhaptal has ten, ektal twelve and rupak seven. Tala must be distinguished from laya, or tempo.

Improvisation unfolds within these constraints. Alap explores a raga without a regular percussion cycle, although it need not lack all pulse. Bol-alap develops the words of a composition, while taan uses rapid melodic passages. Meend connects pitches through a glide; gamak involves pronounced oscillatory or forceful movement. These devices shape expression rather than merely demonstrate speed.

Principal vocal and instrumental forms

Dhrupad is among the oldest surviving major forms of Hindustani classical vocal music. It emphasises controlled intonation, systematic raga exposition and rhythmic development. Performances commonly begin with an extended alap, often using syllables associated with nom-tom, followed by a composition accompanied by pakhawaj. The traditional dhrupad composition has four parts: sthayi, antara, sanchari and abhoga, although all four are not necessarily sung in contemporary practice. The Dagar tradition is especially associated with detailed alap.

Khayal, literally meaning imagination or conception, is the dominant form in modern Hindustani vocal concerts. A typical presentation combines a slow bada khayal with a faster chhota khayal, allowing extensive improvisation around a bandish, or fixed composition. Tabla accompaniment is usual. Tarana employs rhythmic and melodic syllables, sometimes alongside Persian words or phrases. Dhamar is associated with the fourteen-beat dhamar tala and frequently with Krishna and Holi themes.

Thumri gives special importance to poetic expression, subtle ornamentation and emotional interpretation, often drawing on Radha-Krishna imagery. Lucknow and Banaras are important centres. Dadra denotes both a six-beat tala and a related light or semi-classical song form; the genre is not rigidly restricted to that tala. Tappa, conventionally linked to northwestern camel-driver songs and refined by Shori Miyan, features agile, intricate melodic turns. Ghazal and qawwali overlap with the wider musical environment but are not interchangeable with khayal or dhrupad.

Instrumental concerts often use alap, jor and jhala before or around measured compositions called gats. Jor introduces a regular pulse without a tala-based percussion accompaniment; jhala creates a rapid, rhythmically emphatic texture, especially on plucked strings. This sequence is particularly characteristic of sitar and sarod performance, not a compulsory template for every Hindustani instrument.

Gharanas, instruments and leading musicians

A gharana is a stylistic lineage sustained through teaching, repertoire and performance conventions. It is not simply the birthplace of a musician. Gwalior, commonly described as the oldest major khayal gharana, is associated with clarity of composition and balanced development. Kirana stresses intonation and sustained melodic elaboration; Agra reflects a strong dhrupad-related inheritance and rhythmic treatment; Jaipur-Atrauli is known for intricate raga architecture and complex combinations. These are broad tendencies, not rigid definitions applicable to every exponent.

Useful associations include Abdul Karim Khan and Bhimsen Joshi with Kirana, Faiyaz Khan with Agra, and Alladiya Khan and Kesarbai Kerkar with Jaipur-Atrauli. Bade Ghulam Ali Khan is associated with Patiala. Hindustani instruments include the sitar, sarod, rudra veena, sarangi, bansuri and shehnai. Ravi Shankar is associated with the sitar, Ali Akbar Khan with the sarod, Hariprasad Chaurasia with the bansuri and Bismillah Khan with the shehnai.

The tanpura supplies a continuous drone rather than a melody or rhythmic cycle. Tabla is central to khayal and much instrumental music, whereas pakhawaj is closely associated with dhrupad. Sarangi and harmonium commonly accompany vocalists. Instrument families also matter: sitar is a plucked string instrument, sarangi a bowed string instrument, bansuri and shehnai wind instruments, and tabla and pakhawaj membrane percussion instruments.

Classification, transmission and examination distinctions

Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande organised ragas into ten thaats: Bilawal, Kalyan, Khamaj, Bhairav, Purvi, Marwa, Kafi, Asavari, Bhairavi and Todi. A thaat is an abstract seven-note classificatory framework, whereas a raga has a performable melodic personality. The system is pedagogically influential but does not perfectly accommodate every raga. Vishnu Digambar Paluskar founded the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya at Lahore in 1901, helping extend systematic music education beyond exclusively hereditary settings.

Guru-shishya transmission remains important, but music colleges, notation, recordings and All India Radio broadened access and helped preserve repertoire. Compared with Carnatic music, Hindustani music generally foregrounds extended raga exposition around relatively brief compositions. Both traditions, however, combine composition and improvisation. Avoid absolute claims that one is entirely devotional, the other entirely secular, or that instruments such as violin belong exclusively to one tradition.

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