Hindustani Classical

Hindustani classical music is the North Indian counterpart to Carnatic music. Concerts typically last two to four hours, with a single raga sometimes occupying an entire 60-90 minute set. Vocal forms — dhrupad, khyal, thumri, tarana — coexist with instrumental traditions for sitar, sarod, bansuri (bamboo flute), shehnai (double-reed) and santoor (hammered dulcimer). Tabla (a pair of tuned drums) supplies the talas, complex rhythmic cycles such as the 16-beat teental or the seven-beat rupak. A drone tanpura sustains the tonic and fifth underneath the entire performance. Composition supplies a skeleton (the bandish); the music is the player's real-time elaboration of that skeleton.

Hindustani music traces its roots through the Sama Veda chant tradition into a syncretic court culture that took shape under the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empire, absorbing Persian, Arabic and Central Asian elements. The 13th-century musician Amir Khusrow is credited with several innovations, including possibly the sitar and tabla themselves. The major modern gharanas (lineages) — Gwalior, Agra, Kirana, Patiala, Maihar — were codified between the 18th and early 20th centuries. The 20th century brought worldwide visibility through Ravi Shankar (sitar), Ali Akbar Khan (sarod), Bismillah Khan (shehnai), Bhimsen Joshi (vocal) and Zakir Hussain (tabla). George Harrison's 1966 studies with Ravi Shankar and the resulting Beatles recordings made the sitar a globally recognized instrument.

Every piece begins with alap — an unmetered, slow exploration of the raga's notes, often 10-30 minutes — followed by a metered section once the tabla enters. From there the music accelerates through jor (rhythmic but tabla-less), jhala (fast strumming) and finally a composition with full tabla interplay. The same raga in two performers' hands can sound like entirely different pieces. Listen for the jawari — the buzzing overtones of the sitar's bridge — and the subtle pitch slides (meend) between notes that define a raga's character.

Ravi Shankar's 'The Sounds of India' (1968) is an introductory album recorded specifically to explain the music to Western listeners. For a deeper instrumental experience, Ali Akbar Khan's 'Morning and Evening Ragas' or any Zakir Hussain solo tabla record will do. For vocal music, Bhimsen Joshi's recordings of Raga Miyan ki Todi are landmarks.

Ravi Shankar's daughters are both prominent musicians in their own right: Anoushka Shankar continued the sitar tradition, while Norah Jones won eight Grammys in American pop and jazz. The 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, where Shankar opened a three-hour set immediately before Jimi Hendrix burned his guitar on the same stage, is often credited as the moment Hindustani music entered global popular culture.