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Indian Music Concert Review
For centuries, classical raga music was played in Indian princely courts for guests.
Later, the wealthy landowners and businesspersons took over as the hosts of this kind of
music in private settings known as Mehfil. The Mehfil tradition is not common in modern
days (Rao et al. 115). I am glad that I learnt and expeience raga music as well as indicant
culture in this course. Also, I attended a public concert where our professor was performed
and experienced the subtle fascination of Raga Sangeeth.
Throughout the concert of Indian classical music, I noticed the use of Sitar and Tabla.
One of the instruments was very captivating was Sitar. In particular, it comprised around 20
strings. Seven are principle ones, while the others are sympathetic and react to sensitivity.
The rest were sympathetic strings, which respond to sympathy. In addition, the instruments
feature metal frets that are movable. Thus, they can be tuned to a specific tonality depending
on the raga. Throughout the performance I focused my sense towards the musical instrument
trying to indicate whether or not there consists of these strings, however it was hard to keep
up the count because, I myself never learned how to play any instrumental music. However,
excluding the fact that I have never learned any instruments, I can still feel the strong
emotions coming from the Sitar and Tabla being played, especially the sitar. Every time when
the music starts to become intense, my goosebumps sire with the tune and with every beat of
the Tabla drum being hit, my heartbeat pounds respectively. Such Indian performance
comparing to what we listen to on the radio now changes my knowledge of what I once
thought was music. I feel like every music has its own identity, an identity that maybe only its
performer would know and what like its audience to feel. The musics that are played through
the radio only makes me want to follow its lyrics and unlike the concert, I actually tried to
listen to the rhythm and trying to follow the beat.
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I noticed that the music played by the musician was divided into separate parts, which
were distinguished by a particular mood. These sections of music were Ragas or the
traditional patterns of melodies and sounds presented by the performers. Besides, I identified
the difference in the development of these Ragas. In particular, in the beginning, their tone
and tunes were calm and mild. Later, the melody became more rhythmic and intensified.
Finally, it became stronger and louder making the listeners more absorbed.
Raga is a melodic concept often featured in Indian related music. In the performance,
raga emerged as a pattern of notes. Due to the particular arrangement of sounds and melodic
movements, it appeared as an ornament that enchants the mind. Along with this line, the
ultimate purpose of the raga is to evoke emotional responses from the listeners (Rao and
Preeti 25). The emotion that was expressed by the raga was melancholy, which was mostly
featured during the alap, which is an improvisation section of the performance.
Primarily, the performances were monophonic and melodic. This music aspect has
highly evolved and reflects a sophisticated tradition (Rao et al. 116). From my view, the
melodic complexities recompense aspects such as harmony and texture, which are
indispensable parts in the western music style. Nevertheless, the performances were
entertaining.
The Indian music represented the philosophical and aesthetic meaning of the Indian
worldview. In particular, the division of the performance on the specific Ragas implied the
difference in the periods of life of humans. Besides, all these Ragas had various moods and
represented distinct emotions.
I really enjoy this concert and hope that I would have the more opportunities to listen
to it. Next week will be the performance which I will be part of it, I hope that I can do well in
it.
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Thank you for the performance and all the lectures!
Works Cited
Rao, Preeti. Ross, Joe Cheri. Ganguli, Kaustuv Kanti. Pandit, Vedha. Ishwar, Vignesh.
Bellur.Ashwin. Murthy, Hema A. "Classification of Melodic Motifs in Raga Music
with Time-Series Matching." Journal of New Music Research, vol. 43, no. 1, Mar.
2014, pp. 115-131.
Rao, Suvarnalata and Preeti Rao. "An Overview of Hindustani Music in the Context of
Computational Musicology." Journal of New Music Research, vol. 43, no. 1, Mar.
2014, pp. 24-33.
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