An Introduction to Indian Classical Music

Indian classical music is one of the oldest living musical traditions in the world, passed down for centuries from teacher to student. It has two great branches: Hindustani music from North India (and Pakistan and Bangladesh), and Carnatic music from South India. Aimrec’s catalogue is almost entirely Hindustani, so that is the tradition this guide introduces.

You don’t need any musical training to enjoy it. A few ideas, raga, tala and the shape of a performance, will help you hear what the musicians are doing, and the albums suggested at the end are a good place to begin.

Raga: the melody

A raga is the melodic heart of Indian classical music. It is more than a scale: each raga has its own set of notes, its own way of ascending and descending, characteristic phrases, and an important note it returns to. Above all, it has a mood, from the calm devotion of Raga Yaman to the longing of Raga Bageshree.

In the Hindustani tradition, ragas are also linked to the time of day and the seasons. Bhairavi belongs to the morning, Yaman to the evening, Bihag to the night, and the Malhar ragas to the monsoon. A musician never plays a raga the same way twice; every performance is a new exploration within its rules.

Our Raga Guide introduces the ragas on Aimrec albums, grouped by time of day, with links to every recording.

Tala: the rhythm

Tala is the rhythmic cycle that holds the music together. Each tala has a fixed number of beats that repeat in a cycle, with the first beat, called sam, as the point where musicians meet again after their improvisations. Listeners often nod or clap on the sam.

The most common tala is Teental, a cycle of 16 beats. Others you will see on Aimrec albums include Ektal (12 beats), Jhaptal (10), Rupak (7), Deepchandi (14), Dadra (6) and Keherwa (8). The tabla, a pair of hand drums, keeps the cycle with a basic pattern called theka, then joins the soloist in rhythmic conversation.

How a performance unfolds

A full raga performance grows slowly, like a story.

It begins with the alap: a slow, unaccompanied, meditative introduction in which the soloist reveals the raga note by note, with no fixed rhythm. In instrumental music the alap moves into the jor, where a steady pulse appears, and then the jhala, fast and brilliant, with rapid strokes on the drone strings.

Then the tabla enters with the gat, a composition set to a tala (in vocal music, the composition is called a bandish). It usually begins in vilambit, a slow tempo, and later moves to madhya (medium) and drut (fast) tempo, as the soloist and tabla player trade improvisations that build to an exciting finish.

This is why many Aimrec albums list tracks such as “Alap, Jor, Jhala”, “Gat in Vilambit Teental” and “Gat in Drut Teental”: together they make up one complete performance of a raga.

The instruments and the voice

Indian classical music began with the voice, and singing (above all the khayal style) is still at its centre. The instruments imitate the voice’s slides and ornaments.

The sitar, a long-necked plucked instrument with sympathetic strings, is the best-known. The santoor is a hammered dulcimer from Kashmir with a shimmering, bell-like sound. The sarangi, played with a bow, is the instrument closest to the human voice. The bansuri is a bamboo flute. On Aimrec you will also hear rarer voices: the vichitra veena, the Indian slide guitar, and the violin and piano in duets.

Behind the music, a tanpura often plays a steady drone on the home note (Sa), and the tabla provides the rhythm. Our Indian Instruments page describes each one in more detail.

Lighter forms and duets

Alongside the great ragas, Indian music has lighter, more song-like forms that often close a concert. A thumri or dadra is a romantic or devotional song in a light raga; a dhun is an instrumental piece based on a folk or light melody; a bhajan is a devotional song.

A jugalbandi is a duet between two soloists, such as sitar and sarangi, sitar and violin, or sitar and flute, who share the raga and answer each other’s phrases. Aimrec’s Soulful Duets series is built around this idea.

Gharanas: schools and family traditions

Musicians learn from a guru, often a parent, through years of close teaching. Over generations, these lineages became gharanas: schools with their own style and repertoire. You will see them in our artist biographies, for example the Imdadkhani (or Etawah) gharana of sitar, the family of Ustad Vilayat Khan, his sons and Ustad Shahid Parvez Khan; the Kirana and Agra gharanas of singing, and the Farrukhabad and Benaras gharanas of tabla.

Where to start listening

Two Aimrec collections were made for exactly this purpose:

Introduction to Indian Music, Vol. 1: eighteen performances of the great ragas by masters including Ustad Vilayat Khan, Ustad Zakir Hussain, Ustad Shujaat Khan and Ustad Shahid Parvez Khan.

Introduction to Indian Music, Vol. 2: the lighter side, with thumris, dhuns and folk melodies on sitar, santoor, bansuri, sarangi, violin, slide guitar and voice.

Then choose one complete raga on each instrument:

And if you come from jazz or world music, Woven Paths by Melodic Intersect shows how these traditions meet.