Hindustani Classical Music

An Introduction to Hindustani Classical Music: A Guidebook for Beginners is Vijay Singha's comprehensive guide to savour and appreciate classical music. Written in a simple and easy-to-comprehend style, this book delves into the understanding of raga sangeet, semi-classical and fusion music, raga sangeet in Hindi films, as well as the future of classical music in India.

In this book the author has dealt with the musical terms as found in the old sastras and are also in common use. He has explained these terms in simple language with reference to their history of origin. Description of seventy-eight different musical instruments and forty-seven different Talas are also there. An essential aid to research-scholars and students of music. The Bengali version of the book Bharatiya Sangeetkosh earned for him Sangeet Natak Academy award as the best book on music published during the period from 1960 to 1968. Bimalakanta Roychaudhuri was born in 1909 in all illustrious family of musical heritage. He had his training in music from Sitalchandra Mukhopadhyay, Sitalkrishna Ghosh, Amir Khan (Sarod) and then from Inayet Khan, the foremost Sitar players of those days. He also had his musical training from his maternal uncle Birendrakishore Roychaudhuri and maternal grandfather Brojendrakishore Roychaudhuri. He took part in the translation of Sangeet Ratnakara from Sanskrit to Bengali under the patronage of Brojendrakishore Roychaudhuri. He was Chairman of the Board of Musical Studies of the University of Calcutta. His work Raga Vyakarana (in Hindi) has been published by the Bharatiya Jnanpith.

An Introduction to Hindustani Classical Music: A Guidebook for Beginners is Vijay Singha's comprehensive guide to savour and appreciate classical music. Written in a simple and easy-to-comprehend style, this book delves into the understanding of raga sangeet, semi-classical and fusion music, raga sangeet in Hindi films, as well as the future of classical music in India.

This work aims to address the historical development of the great Indian raga tradition, enhanced by computational approaches, and to use computational strategies to analyze aspects of contemporary Hindustani classical music (HCM). It is divided into two parts with Part 1 focusing on the history and aesthetics of HCM and Part 2 covering its computational aspects. The historical development of HCM in the ancient, medieval and modern periods; its terms and genre; and its Khayal gharanas are covered in Part 1. The subtopics include essential concepts such as raga, tala, shruti, thaat, gharana, khayal, dhrupad, thumri, tappa, etc. Part 2 covers the state-of-the-art in computational musicology, raga analysis and song analysis using statistics. The subtopics include statistical modeling, inter onset interval, note duration analysis, pitch movement between the notes, rate of change of pitch (pitch velocity) and probabilistic analysis of musical notes. The author concludes the work with reflecting on the lives of a few renowned musicians and musicologists with an account of hilarious moments taken from their lives to excite the reader to know more about HCM. This book would be useful for musicians, musicologists, researchers in music history, aesthetics, computational musicology, and advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of music and musicology.

A Times, Spectator, TLS and BBC Music Magazine Book of the YearOver eight decades, Ravi Shankar was India's greatest cultural ambassador who took Indian classical music to the world's leading concert halls and festivals, charting the map for those who followed. Renowned for his association with The Beatles - teaching George Harrison sitar - Shankar turning the Sixties generation on to Indian music, astonishing the crowds at Woodstock, Monterey Pop and the Concert for Bangladesh with his virtuosity. He radically reshaped jazz and Western classical music as well as writing film scores, including Pather Panchali and Gandhi, and transformed awareness of Indian culture in the process.Indian Sun is the first biography of Ravi Shankar. Benefitting from unprecedented access to family archives, Oliver Craske paints a vivid picture of a captivating, restless workaholic, who lived a passionate and extraordinary life - from his childhood in his brother's dance troupe, through intensive study of the sitar, to his revival of the national music scene; and from the 1950s, a pioneering international career that ultimately made his name synonymous with India.

…A concise yet extensive coverage of various aspects of Hindustani Classical Music. …48 well-crafted chapters… …Different terms used in Hindustani Music are defined in simple terms… …A lucid explanation of the science behind music, including vibratios, frequency, naad, shruti, swar, raga, thaat and various musical compositions… …The journey of Hindustani Music from the Vedic ages to the modern age explored, including a commentary on the important musical treatises and a brief look at the gharana system of the Hindustani Music… …A section devoted to the practical performance of Hindustani Music… …Detailed information given about 22 taal and 55 raga popular today…. … “a flow of information of music, useful to all students of Hindustani Music, whatever their level of expertise”… … “a boon to the … students pursuing Visharad in Hindustani Music”

One of the two branches of Indian classical music, the Hindustani (North Indian) music tradition has evolved over thousands of years into the complex ecosystem it is today. From its movement across geographical and class boundaries, its purpose in national identity, its facilitation by governing bodies and representation in broadcast and visual media to its corporate involvement and presence in educational institutions, Chasing the Raag Dream analyses Hindustani music from multiple perspectives to trace its modern-day evolution and find possible pathways to ensure a healthier future for it.