Music & Vocal Traditions

Hindustani Music North India

History

Hindustani music took its distinct shape in the medieval period as North Indian music absorbed Persian and Central Asian influences under the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal courts. The 13th–14th-century poet-musician Amir Khusrau is traditionally associated with many innovations of this synthesis, and Tansen — the legendary singer at Emperor Akbar's 16th-century court — became the fountainhead figure to whom many lineages trace themselves. Stylistic schools called gharanas (Gwalior, Agra, Kirana, Jaipur-Atrauli, Patiala and others) preserved distinct approaches through family and teacher lineages.

Details

A performance typically unfolds a single raga at length — from the unmetered, meditative alap into composed pieces (bandish) set in talas kept by the tabla, with extensive improvisation. The tanpura's drone underpins everything. Vocal music is regarded as the model that instruments emulate.

Significance

One of the world's great improvisational art musics; through figures like Ravi Shankar it profoundly shaped global appreciation of Indian culture.

Carnatic Music South India

History

The southern system retained a more direct continuity with older Indian theory while developing its own rigorous framework — the 72 melakarta parent scales codified in the 17th century (associated with the scholar Venkatamakhin). Its golden age came with the "Trinity" of composers, all born in or near Thiruvarur in Tamil Nadu in the 18th century: Tyagaraja, Muthuswami Dikshitar and Syama Sastri, whose thousands of devotional compositions form the heart of the repertoire. Earlier saint-composers such as Purandara Dasa (often called the "father of Carnatic music pedagogy") and Annamacharya laid the devotional and pedagogical foundations.

Details

Centred on the kriti — a composed devotional piece with structured sections (pallavi, anupallavi, charanam) — elaborated with improvisational forms such as raga alapana, niraval, kalpanaswara and the tour-de-force Ragam-Tanam-Pallavi. Concerts (kutcheri) feature voice or melody instrument with violin, mridangam, and often ghatam or kanjira. The December "Margazhi" music season in Chennai is among the world's largest classical music festivals.

Significance

A tradition where devotion, mathematics and virtuosity meet; its solfège-based pedagogy (sa-ri-ga-ma) trains musicians across the world.

Dhrupad the oldest surviving classical vocal style

Dhrupad is widely regarded by musicologists as the oldest surviving major style of Hindustani classical singing, flourishing in temples and at courts such as Raja Man Singh Tomar's Gwalior (15th–16th century). A long, slowly unfolding alap using syllables like "nom-tom" leads into a composition accompanied by the deep pakhawaj drum. Its most famous modern carriers are the Dagar family (whose style is called Dagarvani) and the Gundecha Brothers, along with the Darbhanga (Mallik) tradition. Dhrupad's meditative severity has found a devoted global audience.

Khayal the dominant modern concert form

Khayal ("imagination" in Persian-derived usage) rose to prominence in the 18th century — court musicians Niamat Khan "Sadarang" and Adarang of the Mughal court of Muhammad Shah "Rangila" are traditionally credited with shaping its repertoire. Freer and more ornamental than dhrupad, a khayal performance pairs a slow (bada) and fast (chhota) composition, elaborated with taans (rapid melodic runs), bol-taans and sargam. Virtually every great modern Hindustani vocalist — Bhimsen Joshi, Amir Khan, Kesarbai Kerkar, Kishori Amonkar, Rashid Khan — has been primarily a khayal singer.

Thumri, Tappa & Tarana the lighter classical forms

Thumri, the great "light-classical" form, blossomed in 19th-century Lucknow (associated with the court of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah) and Banaras; its texts — usually Krishna-and-Radha romance in Braj Bhasha — are savoured word by word with tender melodic inflection. Girija Devi, Begum Akhtar, Siddheshwari Devi and Shobha Gurtu were among its queens. Tappa, with its dazzling knotted ornaments, is traditionally traced to Shori Mian and the camel-riders' songs of Punjab. Tarana spins rhythmic syllables (ta-na-dere-na) into ecstatic fast-tempo display, traditionally associated with Amir Khusrau.

Ghazal Urdu poetry in song

The ghazal is a poetic form — rhymed couplets of love, longing and philosophy, perfected in Urdu by poets such as Mir Taqi Mir and Mirza Ghalib — that became one of the subcontinent's most beloved song genres. Begum Akhtar raised ghazal singing to classical stature; Jagjit Singh brought it to modern popular audiences, and Mehdi Hassan and Ghulam Ali (from Pakistan, adored across India) deepened its melodic art. It bridges classical raga discipline and popular song.

Bhajan & Kirtan pan-India

The bhakti (devotion) movements of medieval India turned poetry into congregational song. Bhajans — devotional songs by saint-poets such as Kabir, Mirabai, Surdas and Tulsidas — are sung from home shrines to concert halls, while kirtan is call-and-response singing of divine names. Related regional streams include Bengal and Odisha's Vaishnav kirtan and the Sankirtana of Manipur (UNESCO-inscribed, 2013). M. S. Subbulakshmi's bhajan recordings and Anup Jalota's concerts carried the form to mass audiences.

Qawwali Sufi shrines of North India

The ecstatic devotional music of South Asian Sufism, traditionally traced to Amir Khusrau and the Chishti order in the 13th–14th centuries. A lead singer and chorus with harmonium and driving handclaps-and-dholak rhythm repeat and intensify mystical verses toward spiritual transport. It lives at shrines such as Nizamuddin Dargah in Delhi and Ajmer Sharif in Rajasthan; the Sabri Brothers and, above all, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (Pakistan) made it a world music phenomenon.

Baul Bengal

The Bauls are wandering mystic minstrels of Bengal whose songs — sung to the one-string ektara, the drum duggi and ankle bells — teach that the divine dwells in the human body, beyond caste and creed. Lalon Fakir (19th century) is their towering poet-saint. Baul songs were inscribed by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage (2008) and deeply influenced Rabindranath Tagore, who acknowledged their imprint on his own songs.

Abhang & the Varkari tradition Maharashtra

Abhangs are Marathi devotional songs addressed to Vitthal (Vithoba) of Pandharpur, sung by the Varkari pilgrims who walk annually to his shrine. Composed by saint-poets such as Dnyaneshwar, Namdev, Eknath and Tukaram (17th century), they are sung to cymbals (taal) and mridanga/pakhawaj in swaying congregational ecstasy. Bhimsen Joshi's abhang recordings ("Santavani") are modern classics beloved across Maharashtra.

Shabad Kirtan Punjab — Sikh tradition

The singing of hymns (shabads) from the Guru Granth Sahib, whose verses are themselves organised under prescribed ragas — making Sikh scripture one of the world's great raga-organised song collections. Performed daily in gurdwaras, most famously at the Golden Temple, Amritsar, traditionally with instruments like the rabab, taus and dilruba alongside the harmonium and tabla; a revival movement today restores the older string instruments.

Rabindra Sangeet Bengal

The roughly two thousand songs of Rabindranath Tagore — Nobel laureate poet — form a genre of their own, blending classical ragas, Bengali folk (including Baul) melodies and his own poetry of nature, love and the divine. Two of his songs became the national anthems of India ("Jana Gana Mana") and Bangladesh ("Amar Shonar Bangla"). Rabindra Sangeet remains the emotional soundtrack of Bengali life.

The Kannada Song Traditions Karnataka

Karnataka carries an unbroken river of song in Kannada. The 12th-century Vachanas of Basavanna, Akka Mahadevi and the Sharana poets — free-verse spiritual utterances — are sung to this day; the Devaranamas of the Haridasa saints (Purandara Dasa, Kanaka Dasa) became the bedrock of Carnatic pedagogy itself; and the Tattva padas of mystics like Shishunala Sharif carry philosophy in village metaphor. Folk streams run alongside: the witty, improvised Gigi pada song-duels of North Karnataka, Sobane wedding songs, and a vast janapada geete (folk song) repertoire. In the 20th century, Bhavageete ("emotion song") set the modern poetry of Kuvempu, Bendre and others to melody — pioneered by P. Kalinga Rao and carried by Mysore Ananthaswamy and C. Ashwath — creating the beloved genre also called Sugama Sangeetha.

Sopana Sangeetham & Haveli Sangeet Kerala & Rajasthan-Braj

Two precious temple-song streams: Kerala's Sopana Sangeetham is sung at the sopanam (the steps of the sanctum) to the hourglass edakka drum — a slow, deeply ornamented style whose great modern voice was Njeralattu Rama Poduval, and whose idiom colours Kathakali music and Kerala's ashtapadi singing. Haveli Sangeet is the dhrupad-rooted devotional singing of the Pushtimarg temples (havelis) of Shrinathji at Nathdwara and the Braj region — seasonal ragas and kirtans offered to the deity through the day's eight darshans.

The wider folk songbook across India

Every region sings its own genres: Rajasthan's Manganiyar and Langa hereditary musicians with the kamaicha and sarangi; Bhojpuri wedding and seasonal songs; Assam's Bihugeet; Kashmir's Sufiana and Chakri; the Bhatiali boat songs of Bengal's rivers; Tamil lullabies and temple songs; the powada heroic ballads of Maharashtra. Folk melody has always fed the classical and film traditions — and film music, in turn, is now India's most widely heard musical form.