India’s musical culture is divided between the Muslim north and the Hindu south. The differing traditions use different names for instruments and have different terminologies. They do have in common, though, the philosophy that music is intimately connected with the spiritual world. The text focuses its discussion of Indian music on the Hindu tradition of the south.
The basis for Indiana melodies extends to the religious music of the Aryan settlers who came from western Asia around the third or fourth century B.C.E. These melodies began to be collected in sacred Vedas (books of knowledge). An early treatise on classical Hindu music theory, the Natya Sastra, helps connect the ancient traditions with forms of music still in use.
Central to Hindu music is the raga, or mode. Each raga is related to a certain time of day and with a specific mood, color, festival, deity, and natural event. Indian cosmology separates these modes into male (ragas) and female (raginis).
The music teacher is a true guru, responsible for the student’s spiritual a well as musical development. The student binds himself to the guru, who accepts no money for his services. The student is expected to memorize a number of ragas and rhythmic cycles, called talas.
Ragas are based on a scale of seven tones, which can be altered to create even more pitches. Hindu music allows for pitch fluctuations. Added to the melody is a drone that provides a frame of reference. Rhythmic improvisation within the tala is a regular part of the approach, too. Two composers who have been strongly influenced by Hindu music are Terry Riley and Philip Glass. They are considered minimalist composers.
Terry Riley at first did a lot of work with tape loops. His approach was to create layers of sound on tape. Eventually, though, he decided to work with live musicians. His most famous work is In C, which is made up of 53 melodic patterns based on the C major scale. This piece has an aleatoric aspect , too, because the musicians have options about when to begin, which instrument to play, and how often to repeat a pattern. The Hindu influence is more clearly present in his 1978 composition Shri Camel, which uses electric pianos and organs tuned to Hindu scales.
Philip Glass was educated at the University of Chicago and the Juilliard School. He also studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. He was introduced to Indian music when a French filmmaker asked him to transcribe Ravi Shankar’s music so that Western musicians could play it. He developed an approach of creating small cells of sound that form hypnotic cycles.
Glass was always interested in theatre and created many works for avant-garde playwrights like Samuel Beckett and Bertold Brecht. His opera Einstein on the Beach is considered his masterpiece. It is not an opera in the traditional sense, but rather a musical portrait. Similar works followed, notably Gandhi and Akhnaten.
QUESTIONS AND TOPICS
1. Terry Riley’s In C basically launched the minimalist movement and strongly influenced the composers Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and John Adams. His influence didn’t stop there, though. His music also had an impact on rock groups like the Who, Tangerine Dream, and others.
2. Many of your students will be familiar with the 1992 horror movie The Candyman. Few probably realize that Glass wrote the score for this film or its sequel. Likewise they have probably seen a good many films without realizing that a noted composer wrote the score or that the music for the score was from a preexisting work by a great composer. Does this make Glass a film composer? Or is film scoring simply another performance medium for the composer?
3. A raga is more than a scale or mode. Ragas specify specific ways to move up and down the scale. They also specify which notes should be played more and which less prominently. They create a framework within which a performer can improvise melodies.
FURTHER TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Many of the composers mentioned in this chapter and their contemporaries have experimented with synthesized music, but opted to return to work with live musicians. Why?
2. Minimalist music features short, repetitious phrases and rhythmic patterns, which create a hypnotic effect. Ask your students if this appeals to them. Ask them to explain their answers.