On Hindustani Music - The Experience Of Melody: From Dhrupad To Santoor

Whether we hear Malkauns in a dhrupad recital, or in a khayal performance, or on the sitar, sarod, or santoor, we relate easily to the raga in each of these modes of presentation. This is more remarkable than it seems at first sight; for, each of these is a different genre, with not only its own architecture, its own way of relating the melody to the non-melodic facets of music—the poetic, the rhythmic, and the acoustic—but also a substantially different treatment of melody. Collectively, these genres add to the overall richness of the melodic experience of contemporary Hindustani music. And, as alternatives available to our generation of listeners, they oblige us to acknowledge the robustness of our raga-s, which sustain their raga-ness across several categories of melodic experience.

But, there is yet another way of looking at this diversity. It did not evolve simultaneously, but sequentially. Considering the phenomenon in a historical perspective, starting from the dhrupad dominated period (13th to 18th centuries) and approaching the santoor-dominated era towards which we may be heading, we can observe some patterns in the changing music-scape. These patterns suggest a progressive fragmentation of the melodic experience, and a growing emphasis on non-melodic facets of music. This trend has implications for the direction Hindustani music can take in the future.

Such a perspective can be aided by recognising five significant stages in the evolution of the melodic experience in Hindustani music. * The first is, obviously, the era dominated by dhrupad as a vocal art form— upto the early 19th century. * The second stage— mid 19th to mid-20th centuries— is defined by the khayal as the dominant interface between musicians and their audiences. * The third stage is defined by the emergence of the fretted lute, sitar, as the major force in Hindustani music— late 19th onwards. The fourth stage is characterised by the awesome influence of the semipolychord, sarod— starting from the 1950s. * And, the most recent stage was heralded in the mid 1970s, with the meteoric rise of the santoor, a polychord.