Tag Archives: Music of India

Music of India: Ravi Shankar

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Ravi Shankar
(April 7, 1920 – December 11, 2012)

Ravi Shankar

Ravi Shankar was a master of the sitar and composer and one of the best known Indian musicians in the world. His rich musical career spanned nine decades and he spent much of his career bridging the gap between the musical cultures of West and East.

Born in 1920 to a Bengali Brahmin family, Shankar was the youngest of seven brothers. At the age of 13, he joined his brother Uday Shankar‘s Compaigne de Danse et Musique Hindou (Company of Hindu Dance and Music) as a dancer and spent several years touring India and Europe with his brother’s group. The extensive touring allowed Ravi to learn about Western classical music and jazz while he travelled.

In 1938, Shankar gave up dancing to study sitar playing under court musician Allauddin Khan. After completing his studies in 1944, Shankar worked as a composer – working several genres including for Indian films like The Apu Trilogy and serving as musical director of All India Radio.
During this period, Shankar founded the Indian National Orchestra, and composed for it; in his compositions he combined Western and classical Indian instrumentation.

Ravi Shankar's sitar

Sitar of Pandit Ravi Shankar (1920–2012). Commissioned by Shankar from the instrument maker Nodu Mullick in Calcutta. Made in 1961. (Gift to the British Museum from Shankar’s family )

Concurrently, Shankar’s international fame was on the rise. In 1954, he performed in the Soviet Union. In 1956, he played his debut solo concerts in Western Europe and the U.S. Within two decades, he was probably the most famous Indian musician in the world.

Shankar was not one-dimensional and his great genius was his openness to other musical traditions. His liberal musical outlook brought him into musical collaborations with a diverse set of musicians. He was so confidently grounded in his own tradition, that he felt unthreatened and completely secure in presenting it to the world as well as by collaborating with others. This is most remembered in his teaching of, and collaboration with the Beatles, above all George Harrison (who became Shankar’s student).

Ravi Shankar and George Harrison

Guitarist George Harrison poses for a portrait with Indian sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar in circa 1975. Credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Ravi Shankar also worked with classical musicians like Yehudi Menuhin, Zubin Mehta and Philip Glass. He composed music for several films, including Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi, for which he received an Academy Award nomination and also composed three concertos and a symphony for sitar and Western orchestra as well as pieces pairing the sitar with the Western flute and the Japanese koto.

Shankar received many honors and awards during his lifetime including the Bharat Ratna (India’s highest civilian honor) in 1999, an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) for “services to music” in 2001, the Fukuoka Prize and five Grammy awards.

Ravi Shankar

Here is a sampling of library resources featuring Shankar from our collection:

– My Music, My Life by Ravi Shankar (1968) (Book)
– Yehudi Menuhin and Ravi Shankar West Meets East (1999, p1966) (CD)
– Pandit Ravi Shankar (2002) (DVD)
– Ravi Shankar: The Concert for World Peace (2007) (DVD)
– The Concert for Bangladesh – George Harrison and Friends (2005) (DVD)
– Rāgas & Tālas Ravi Shankar (2000, p1964) (CD)
– Orion Philip Glass (2005) (CD)
– Pandit Ravi Shankar: A Portrait of the Maestro of the Sitar (1986) (Streaming video via Medici.TV)
– Sitar Concertos Etc (2005) (Streaming audio via Alexander Street)

Music of India

Music of India: Lata Mangeshkar

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Lata Mangeshkar
b. September 28, 1929

Lata Mangeshkar

Lata Mangeshkar is the best-known and respected female singer in the history of Indian film music. She is probably best known as a playback singer for Bollywood films. Playback singers often record songs for use in films.

The Indian Hindi-language film industry is referred to as Bollywood and is based in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) and is one of the largest centers of film production in the world. The word is a portmanteau of “Bombay” and “Hollywood”. The most popular commercial genre of Bollywood is the masala film, which freely mixes action, comedy, drama, romance, and melodrama along with musical numbers. Masala films can generally be considered musicals. Indian cinema has been the largest producer of musicals in the world since the 1960s, when it exceeded America’s musical film output. Playback singers record songs for the film soundtracks, and the actors lip-sync said songs for the cameras.

Aap ki sewa mein poster

Poster for the 1947 Hindi film Aap ki sewa mein which features an early example of Mangeshkar’s work

Lata Mangeshkar is said to have recorded more film songs than any other singer. She has recorded songs in over a thousand (!!) Hindi films and has sung songs in over thirty-six regional Indian languages and foreign languages, though primarily in Marathi, Hindi and Bengali.

Music really has been the driving force in Mangeshkar’s life. Her father Pandit Deenanath Mangeshkar was a classical singer and theatre actor. She received her first lessons in music from her father and was performing as an actress in her father’s plays by the age of five. She is the elder sister of singers Asha Bhosle, Hridaynath Mangeshkar, Usha Mangeshkar and Meena Mangeshkar, all accomplished musicians and singers in their own right.

In 1942 when Mangeshkar was 13, her father died of heart disease and Lata immediately joined the Bollywood film industry as an actress-singer to help support her family.

Here is a Youtube clip from Azaad a 1955 film which features Mangeshkar’s voice:

Lata Mangeshkar has received many awards and honors during the course of her career. India’s highest award in cinema, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, was bestowed on her in 1989 by the Government of India. She also has been awarded the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honor.

In 1974, The Guinness Book of Records listed Mangeshkar as the most recorded artist in the history, stating that she had reportedly recorded “not less than 25,000 solo, duet and chorus backed songs in 20 Indian languages” between 1948 and 1974. (The actual number of songs she has recorded is a matter of some dispute. Regardless, she is certainly ONE of the most recorded artists in the world.)

Here is a Youtube clip of the song “Tujhe Dekha To Ye Jaana Sanam” (“My love, when I saw you then I realized” per Google translate) sung by Mangeshkar and Kumar Sanu from the 1995 Bollywood film Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (transl. The Big-Hearted Will Take the Bride, per Wikipedia):

In addition to singing, Mangeshkar has composed music for five films and also produced four films. Her career spans over seven decades now and she has only recently begun to show signs of slowing down (a bit) at the age of 91. Her influence on Indian film and popular music is profound.

Here is a small sampling of library resources concerning Lata Mangeshkar, Bollywood, and Indian popular music:

– “Lata Mangeshkar”, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2001) (Reference entry)
– Global Divas: Voices from Women of the World (1995) (CD)
– “Lata Mangeshkar”, The Palgrave Dictionary of Women’s Biography (2005) (Reference entry)
– Bollywood Sounds: The Cosmopolitan Mediations of Hindi Film Song by Jayson Beaster-Jones (2015) (Book)
– Rough Guide to Bollywood (2002) (CD)
– There’ll Always Be Stars in the Sky: The Indian Film Music Phenomenon (2003) (DVD)
– More Than Bollywood: Studies in Indian Popular Music edited by Gregory D. Booth and Bradley Shope (2014) (Book)
– Focus: Popular Music in Contemporary India by Natalie Rose Sarrazin (2020) (Book)

Music of India

Music of India: Indian Classical Music

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Indian classical music is the classical music of the Indian subcontinent. It has deep roots in Hinduism.

Saraswati

Saraswati is the goddess of music and knowledge in the Hindu tradition.

In general, Indian classical music has three foundational elements:

1) Raga: a series of five or more musical notes used to form a melody — similar to modes or scales in Western music. Raga make much more use of microtones than Western music (many notes fall in between notes in Western scales in terms of pitch). Raga are often associated with specific times of day and/or seasons.

2) Tala: a rhythmic pattern that determines the larger rhythmic structure of a piece. Tala literally means “clap”.

3) Improvisation around a raga is the basis for most Indian classical music.

Indian classical music has two major traditions:

* North Indian music is also called Hindustani is influenced by Arabic and Persian musical practice as a result of the Islamic conquest of the region in the Middle Ages. Hindustani music emphasizes improvisation and exploration of all aspects of raga and gives slightly more prominence to instrumental forms.
Here are a couple of links to catalog records for Music Library resources featuring Hindustani music:
– India: Hindustani Music (streaming via Alexander Street)
– North Indian Classical Music (CD)

* South Indian music is also called Carnatic music. It is much more oriented toward vocal music (even when instruments are played alone, they are played in a style meant to imitate singing). Improvisation is employed but Carnatic music also makes use of composed devotional pieces.
Here are a couple of links to catalog records for Music Library resources featuring Carnatic music:
– Flowers of Southern Indian Classical Carnatic Music(CD)
– Ragas from South India (streaming via Alexander Street)

The types of instruments used in North and South Indian music also differ.
Hindustani music makes use of the sitar, sarod, tabla and tampura.

Hindustani instruments

A sampling of instruments most commonly used in Hindustani music

Carnatic music makes use of instruments like the vina, mridamgam, and shruti.

Carnatic instruments

A sampling instruments most commonly used in Carnatic music

Here are a few more resources the on Indian classical music that can be found in the Music Library’s holdings:
– Indian Classical Music (DVD) (also available streaming via Infobase)
– The Illustrated Companion to South Indian Classical Music (Book)
– The Raga Guide: A Survey of 74 Hindustani Ragas (Book)
– Classical Music of India (Book)
– “Music and Emotion: A Case for North Indian Classical Music” (journal article)
– “Perception of Modulations in South Indian Classical (Carnātic) Music by Student and Teacher Musicians: A Cross-Cultural Study” (journal article)

One might also stop by Parsons Music Library and check out our current display on the Music of India which will be available to visit until the end of February!

Music of India