In spite of the fact that these tunings are based on the physics of the
harmonic series , Indian music can sound oddly out of tune to someone accustomed to
equal temperament , and even trained Western musicians may have trouble developing an
ear for Indian tunings. As of this writing, one site devoted to helping Western listeners properly hear Indian tunings was
The Perfect Third .
Note names
As mentioned above, Indian music, like Western music, recognizes seven notes that can be sharped or flatted to get twelve notes within each octave. A flatted note is called
komal . A sharped note is called
teevra .
Indian note names
Since Indian scales are not fixed to particular
frequencies , remember that it is more accurate to consider these scale names as being compared to a "moveable do" system (in which "do" may be any note) than a "fixed do" (in which do is always the C as played on a Western piano).
Acknowledgements and suggested resources
The author is grateful to Dr. S. S. Limaye, a professor of electronics at Ramdeobaba Engineering College and amateur musician, who provided much of the information on which this module is based. Thanks also to other corespondents who have offered encouragement as well as further explanations and clarifications. Any insights provided here are thanks to these very kind contributors. Any errors due to misunderstanding are my own.
Suggested reading
B. Subba Rao's 4-volume
Raga Nidhi (Music Academy, Madras, 1996) is an encyclopedic resource that describes in detail both Hindustani and Karnatak ragas.
Online resources available as of this writing
This
Hindustani Classical Music site included audio examples closely linked to explanations intended for Western musicians, as well as to Western-style notation of the examples. Although Western notation is not ideal for capturing Hindustani tunings or ornaments, musicians who are very accustomed to
common notation may find the extra "orientation" to be very helpful.
This
Introduction to Indian Music has extensive audio and video examples, as well as easy-to-understand discussions of the subject.
A site dedicated to Hindustani musician
Ustad Amir Khan includes an extensive list of links to online recordings. The beginning of each item on the list is the name of the raga in the recording.
Search suggestions
If you would like to listen to a particular raga, try searching for it by name (for example "bhairav") on YouTube, or a general search for audio or video of that raga ("bhairav audio" or bhairav video").
Taking lessons
As globalization proceeds, it also becomes more and more possible to study Indian music in face-to-face lessons outside of India. As hinted above, the traditions that are included within the term "Indian classical music" are many and varied. This may be at least partly due to the powerful influence within these traditions of the most well-respected musician-teachers. Unlike Western music teaching, which emphasizes standardized approaches to theory and performance practice, Indian music teaching rests more within specific schools of practice and teacher-student relationships. Consider the connotations of the word "guru" (the fundamentally-influential teacher) when it is borrowed into English. If you decide to actually pursue this topic by studying with an Indian music teacher, you may want to choose the teacher at least partly based on his or her school/genre/tradition, which will probably strongly influence your understanding and approach to Indian music as you learn about it from within that tradition.
