Discussion Assignment Tell us about another musical traditio

Discussion Assignment: Tell us about another musical tradition.

As I mentioned earlier, the \"Western\" musical tradition that our ears are accustomed to stems from Europe. It has a specific set of notes - each octave has been equally split into 12 tones. There are scale types that our ears are used to - major, various minor types, and mode, and theory that is based on those. There are also specific rules for notating compositions, so that another person can play the music correctly without ever hearing it. We\'ll be exploring all of this during the semester. Most music that we hear in this country is based on this tradition - classical, folk, jazz, rock, latin, etc.

Before we delve in to it though, I\'d like to take a brief look at some other musical traditions around the world. Please pick another musical tradition and find out a little bit about it. Post some information for the rest of us.

Solution

Musical Traditions in India:

Music in India comprises of folk, pop and Indian classical music.

Indian music is mostly known because of its traditional classical music.

Indian classical music is broadly having two branches - Hindustani music and Carnatic music. Hindustani music is prevalent in northern, eastern and central India whereas Carnatic music is from South India. In fact the house of Carnatic music is the State of Karnataka where this form of music originated. Music in India has been a socio- religious activity and classical music has developed in India through several eras. Hindutani music branched away from Carnatic music around the 13th century where the singing is based on notes. Music here also has a Persian hue because of the Mughal presence in India in that period. Singing is based on notes that has been so from the Vedic times where hymns from religious texts were sung and not chanted. The Hindustani Classical family of music comprises of Dhrupad, Dhamar, Khyal, Tarana and Sadra.

Carnatic music are compositions that are for singing even when played on instruments. There are approximately 300 odd ragas in use today where many more have bee in existence since its inception. Some of the ragsa are Raga Alpana, Neraval and Pallavi.

Music in India is composed of ragas - melodies derived from the basics, alankar or ornamentations, tala the rythmic pattern for percussion, swara or notes and shruti - micro tones where an octave is divided into 22 shrutis. Each shruti is thus approximately equal to one fourth of a tone of western music.