Musicians, Instruments and Ragas
Section A, Units V to VII. Covers Musicians and composers; Classification of instruments; Salient features of ragas.
About this unit
This unit introduces the people, instruments and ragas that every music student should know. The musicians range from scholars who organised Hindustani theory (Bhatkhande) and great performers and teachers (Omkarnath Thakur, Allauddin Khan, Mushtaq Ali Khan) to composer-saints of Karnatak music (Purandara Dasa, Tyagaraja) and poet-composers of Bengal (Tagore, Nazrul). The instrument section uses the ancient fourfold classification of Indian instruments. The raga section studies six pairs of Hindustani ragas and their nearest Karnatak equivalents, using all the concepts learnt earlier: thaat, vadi-samvadi, jaati and time.
How to prepare
Make a one-line card for each musician: dates, instrument or style, main contribution and famous works or disciples. Learn two or three examples of each instrument class. For every prescribed raga, memorise thaat, varjit notes, jaati, vadi-samvadi, time and the Karnatak counterpart, and practise matching ragas to descriptions.
Topics in this chapter
Musicians and composers
V. N. Bhatkhande, Omkarnath Thakur, Allauddin Khan, Mushtaq Ali Khan, Tyagaraja, Purandara Dasa, Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam.
5 questionsClassification of instruments
Tata, avanaddha, sushir and ghana instruments with examples.
5 questionsSalient features of ragas
Yaman/Kalyani, Bhairav/Mayamalavagowla, Bilawal/Shankarabharanam, Malkauns/Hindolam, Bageshree/Shri Ranjani and Bhupali/Mohanam.
5 questions