The alchemy of Indian classical music is a very interesting part of Indian Classical Music. Before going into details lets read out the below lines :
नादाब्धेस्तु परं पारं न जानाति सरस्वती।
अद्यापि मज्जनभयात् तुम्बं वहति वक्षसि ॥
Even goddess Saraswati does not know
the other shore of the ocean of Nada;
therefore she carries her Veena,
anxious not to drown.
Table of Contents
The Alchemy of Indian Classical Music
Beyond the Rules and the Shastras
The purpose of Indian music is not to create a fine singer, or artist, or performer, but a new type of person. With the singer who has attained Swara, the music grows and opens into new dimensions. He steadily loosens the stranglehold of the rules of music a subtle way. He does not flout them. He merely interprets them in a new way. Suddenly the tension of having to look out for transgressions of our music’s pervading grammar is gently removed and in its place wondrous bliss takes over. There comes the wisdom that Raga and its grammar are only means and not ends in themselves.
The singer is not compelled to express himself through the accepted canons of musical orthodoxy or the special style of his Gharana, although most of them do so most of the time. Their voice and the sound of their instruments become transparent. A creative economy pervades their style and provides compelling authority music, that transcends traditions and inheritance, even of the families that have reared them. Their art is larger than rules musical laws and formulas. Their truth their own law and their own right.²
The specious note: Indian Classical Music
Along with this liberation, the musician attains another freedom. He practices years hold one note, without the least tremor, ornamentation, or distraction. With the opening of Swara, a single which looked closed and narrow becomes spacious.
We find that in each note there are directions such as up-down, sides and depths, curves and textures of every kind, from grainy rough surfaces to velveteen to those that shine like shot silk. There are various facets of each note and even moods. It now becomes a fit vehicle to express the musician’s inner reaches. The musician can move in with utmost ease, without least tension. It is no more mere note. There is a feeling of eternity poised on it.”
The Magic in the Voice: Indian Classical Music
The effort to develop Swara, however mechanically begun, imperceptibly becomes a spiritual effort at some point in the journey. The longing to attain Swara is like pain in the devotee’s heart. The student himself is never sure what lies ahead, except a curious trust his fate. He realizes that the obstacles in his path are within himself, both in a psychological and in a spiritual sense. But once begun there is no turning back.
While the voice is the student’s immediate goal, he becomes aware, as he goes along, those trap doors are opening all around him and that more is happening to him than the mere thrill of a winged and clarified voice. He begins to understand that he can reach his goal only after a long and untiring effort.
Then, one day, when the fever has passed from him and he is lucid again, he knows that he has arrived. The world is not the same again. He brings a strange sadness and joy, a disquiet too, into the lives of those who hear him, a strange sense of the awesome meaning of life. His voice begins to prefigure the tragic transience of life, its unceasing flux, but also that which is behind life, unchanging, eternal, tranquil, and blissful.
The singer communicates all these not intellectually or verbally but as living truths, through his music, through the resonance of simple words which, apparently, seem to be dealing with mundane concerns like love, longing, or separation and, most of all, through a conviction in his soul. The effect on the listener is often unsettling.
The late Faiyaz Khan used to describe how Unnao, a little more than a village in the early years of this century, was paralyzed for some time when, one winter dawn, a singer merely passed through the village, singing. The sound of the music sent the inhabitants into a state of reverie and bliss. No one worked in the fields for days, women neglected their domestic chores and the harvest was only half gathered that year.
On the listeners, the effect of such a man can be baffling and disturbing. Some, unable to understand what is happening to them and unwilling to let go of their usual moorings, reject the singer completely. A few, drawn by the irresistible power of his music, are willing to follow him everywhere and even become his slaves.
It is said, in the Shastras, that each Raga has its own Deity. When the true musician sings, this Deity of the Raga stands out in the fullness of its being and splendor. Stories abound of how flowers bloom, animals are drawn near, rains come, the unlit lamps light up on their own and the goddesses manifest themselves.
Beyond all Divisions :
Sadhana pulverizes and recreates a person’s inner world. Any Sadhana undertaken seriously does this, but the musical Sadhana does this more simply and directly. It is so all-consuming that at the end of it the student is a changed man. He is now aware that while he was trying to become merely a good musician, he had also undertaken a spiritual journey unwittingly, and arrived in two places at once, a musical high land and a spiritual highland. He sees and feels the oneness behind all created things. There are no more religious and national frontiers, no bigotry, no intolerance.
There are several Muslim singers who begin their Riyaz with a prayer to the Hindu goddess Saraswati. Bade Ghulam Ali Khan sang “Hari Om Tat Sat”. Faiyaz Khan sang the songs of the Brij. Bismillah Khan often wakes up the sleeping Ganga at dawn with his Shehnai.
The Bhajans of Kabir, Meera, and Surdas sound as sweet when sung by Muslim Ustads or by Hindu Pandits. When the Dagar brothers sing Dhrupad Shiva in Raga Shri, Krishna Dhamar in Raga Desh, hollow and empty differences of our social milieu fall away and we see only the glory of the one.
The Great Transformation :
The most curious result of the long discipline of Indian music is that the person who enters it and the person who comes of it are no more the same. For the true musician, their is no difference between Sadhana, music, and life. Human considerations of wealth, fame, or power lose their significance in the light he has seen.
Attitudes of the kind illustrated hundreds of examples from the life of these musicians. A touching one was the return of Bade Ghulam Khan from Pakistan. Khan Sahib ‘Hari Om Tat Sat” and compositions his own like ‘Mandara Dekh Dare Sudama’. He was, therefore forced to return penniless to India where admirers arranged a concert on his arrival in Bombay, to raise some money. The concert raised about Rs. 2,000/- a big sum at that time, nearly 50 years ago.
There were floods the day of the concert and many of Khan Sahib’s admirers could not reach the hall in time as the rail track had disrupted. One of the closest admirers arrived wet and streaming the concert finished, having walked all the way from Varsova. Unable to get back and not having any money, the young man stood before Khan Sahib embarrassed and unhappy could not hear the concert.
Khan Sahib enquired how proposed to return and finding the young man had no money put his hand into his pocket and gave him all the Rs. 2,000/- he had just been paid. Khan Sahib always lived by the precept, “Never count when you give. So that Allah may also get a chance to give you something.”
1, 2. Amjad Ali Khan Sarod-Raga Durga
3, 4. Amir Khan Vocal-Raga Megh
5,6,7. Bade Ghulam Ali Khan – Vocal – Raga Malkauns
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