Indian Music (Discover India)

Indian music transcends the boundaries of meaningless entertainment and serves a greater purpose. It is a source of religious inspiration and cultural expression. Most ancient Indian religions give importance to music as a vital part of prayer. This is because Indian music has the intoxicating quality of completely hypnotizing the individual and transporting him into a trance-like state.

INDIAN music is as vast and diverse as India itself. The music of India has a history spanning millennia, developed over several eras and includes innumerable varieties of folk, pop, and classical music. The two main traditions of classical music are carnatic music, found predominantly in the peninsular regions and Hindustani music, found in the northern and central parts.

Although the roots of Indian music lie in Indian traditions, it bears proof of foreign influences. Alongside distinctly sub continental forms, there are major influences of Persian, Arabic, Turkish and British music.

Indian genres like filmy and bhangra have become popular throughout the United Kingdom, America, and Asia and around the world. Indian pop stars now sell records in many countries, while world music fans are lapping up everything with an Indian stamp on it. It has come to a point where the west is trying to ape Indian culture. Now that’s something to be proud of!

Feel the Beat – Percussion Instruments

If music is the universal language, then percussion instruments are the vowels. Can you imagine a song without beats? It would sound so empty. From a slight rhythmic tap to loud drum rolls – beats add emotion to a song. A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound by being hit, shaken or by any other action, which sets the object into vibration. Percussion instruments were the first instruments to be developed. Drums were used in ancient times, not just to make music, but also to communicate. Percussions have deep – rooted roles in Indian traditions and religious music too.

Gone With the Wind – Wind Instruments

There is music in everything around us, Music in water, music in tress and music in the wind. Have you ever heard gusty wind blowing or gentle breeze rustling the leaves? Take a cylindrical tube. Blow across the rim. Do you hear a note? Most wind instruments work on this principle. A wind instrument is a musical instrument that contains a type of resonator (usually a tube), in which a column of air is set into vibration by the player blowing into (or over) a mouthpiece, set at the end of the resonator.

A wind instrument can make a soft melody or an intricately modulated tune.

Examples: FLUTE, SAXOPHONE EXT.