North Indian Music

North India offers a variety of forms of music like the dhruvapada, khyal, thumari, tappa and ghazal. Each of these has a specific history of development and the listener may not be able to identify the particular form. Such identification requires some familiarity with the school from which the particular vocalist or instrumentalist hails, or at least an understanding of the structure of these forms.

The dhruvapada is a strictly classical and slow form. The khyal incorporates into its rigidity the romanticism of yet another form, the thumari. This is why, for a casual listener, it is perhaps simpler to appreciate a khyal than a dhruvapada, without exactly knowing why, since all these forms follow the same basic tenets of the raga-taal system. The khyal is perhaps the most widely performed form of classical music in all North India.

The thumari is used quite extensively to accompany Kathak. This is because it incorporates a high degree of emotional and aesthetic content – speaking, as it were, from the heart. The tappa is a lighter form of classical music that is brisk and replete with a variety of phrases, which makes it particularly difficult to render without a good degree of virtuosity.

North Indian music has a wide range of ancient and beautiful instruments, each having a tonal quality quite unique. Some of the more well known are the sitar, the sarod, the rudravina, the santoor, the flute, the shehnai, and the saarangi. Among the percussion instruments are the tabla and pakhawaj. The tabla is used in accompaniment of most music recitals. The pakhawaj has a deeper tone than the tabla.

A word often heard in relation to North Indian music is gharana, literally meaning “house”. This word is used to denote the house of a specific school of music. The nomenclature arose in the days when artists were retained in the courts of particular princes, thereby confining the area of their performances and their training of disciples. Some of the better known among these gharanas are those of Gwalior, Agra, Delhi and Jaipur.