Indian Classical Music Provides A Particularly Important Role

Indian music has developed through very complex interactions between different people of different races and cultures over several thousand years including the Vedic chant tradition dating back to approx. one millennia BCE, the equally ancient Persian tradition of Musiqi-e assil, and also the existent folk traditions prevalent in the region.However, references to music in ancient texts, aesthetic formulations, and depictions and written discussions of musical instruments offer clues to the Indian music history.

Indian classical music allows for a much greater degree of "personalization" of the performance. Thus they do not represent mind of the composer but a universal idea of the world. They transmit not personal but impersonal emotion.A difference with the western classical music is that Indian music is monodic, not polyphonic. Hindustani (North Indian) ragas are assigned to specific times of the day (or night) and to specific seasons. Many ragas share the same scale, and many ragas share the same melodic theme.

For most historical eras and styles, surviving treatises explaining musical scales and modes provide a particularly important means of recapturing at least a suggestion of the music of former times. Tracing the musical theory of the past makes clear the position of the present musical system.

Khayal literally means imagination, thought or fancy. Khayal is that vocal genre of all North Indian vocal styles which gives its performers the greatest opportunity and also the greatest challenge to display the depth and breadth of their musical knowledge and skills. Khayal has dominated the performing art for past 150 years. Khayal is the genre of improvisational music, and hence it is the study of artist's creative individuality and ability to render a unique khayal at each performance. Despite the presumed freedom in khayal singing, it is structured upon three main characteristics: (i) the raga (melodic mode), the taal (meter) and the cheez (composition), (ii) the types of improvisation which are acceptable for khayal such as alap, taan, boltaan, sargam and nom-tom, and (iii) the placement of these material for creation of aesthetically and technically balanced performance. Khayal is not only a distinguished, richly evolved improvisational music genre, but also a study of cultural history of India since thirteenth century onwards.

Legend, scattered commentary, and speculations suggest that khayal originated with Amir Khusrau (1251-1326). Born in North India, Amir Khusrau was a poet as well as a composer and a great musician of his time. He enjoyed importance at the courts of the Khilji rulers in Delhi. Khayal's origin may have been attributed to Khusrau because of the rapid fusion of Perso-Arabic and Indic musical systems during his lifetime. After Khusrau, the next prominent figures in the history of khayal are the sultans of Jaunpur - Muhammad Sharqui (1401-40) and Hussain Sharqui (ruled 1458-99), who were contemporaries of Babur, the first Mughal ruler in India. The precise role of the Sharqui sultans with respect to khayal is unclear; some scholars suggest a patronage role for them. Most historians are of the opinion that neither Amir Khusrau nor any of the Sharqui sultans was the innovator of khayal, but that khayal was an outcome of the gradual process of evolution that was at work during an era of Indo-Persian amalgamation.

For khayal, the first musical evidence of court support is noted at the Delhi darbar (court) of the eighteenth century Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah Rangile (ruled 1720-48), where the musicians Nyamat Khan (Sadarang) and Firoz Khan (Adarang) composed songs that have been transmitted to the present time. It is believed that Sadarang and Adarang also formalized the structure of modern day khayal. As khayal continued to evolve in the courts throughout North India, distinct performing styles emerged into different gharanas. Three major khayal gharanas carrying the names of the princely states in which they were originally fostered, are Gwalior, Rampur (Sahaswan) and Patiala. Later Agra, Kirana and Jaipur gharanas also became prominent centers of khayal singing. Today this style of classical vocal music is even adopted by some of the instrumental gharanas such as Ithawa. Throughout most of its existence khayal has always been the music of elite patrons. Only in the twentieth century has any other group attained significant involvement in khayal.

The rendition of a khayal recital is typically divided into two parts: Bara (great) khayal and Chhota (small) khayal. During bara khayal, the artist is expected to cover a range of subjects, ideally giving importance to all musical elements such as melody, rhythm and technique, with a slow and contemplative beginning to invoke the very mood of the raga. The lyrical as well as melodic content of bara khayal compositions are devotional or romantic, and they are set in vilambit laya (slow tempo). Bara khayal is followed by a madhya or drut laya (fast tempo) in chhota khayal. Here the artist carries the mood created during the earlier part of the recital to its crescendo. The acceleration is maintained during the performance with increasing complexity of taans and interplay with rhythm. The compositions written for chhota khayal have syllabic text settings appropriate for the faster tempo. The performing ensemble for khayal consists of a lead soloist, an accompanist on a melody producing instrument such as harmonium or sarangi (bowed lute), a tabla (drum) player and one or two tanpura players to provide continuous drone. A possible addition to the basic ensemble would be a supporting singer. The role of the accompanists is to complement the lead vocals by repeating ends of phrases during short breaks.