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I would thus like to limit myself to the examination of a single cultural phenomenon and explore the links between this phenomenon and
concurrent attitudes towards art. This phenomenon is the art of 'Khayal' singing in North-India, a tradition of which I am myself an exponent.
The Hindustani (i.e. North-Indian classical) tradition has been preserved only in the way language is preserved - by being continually spoken. A
language lives as long as people speak it. But speech is never recitation. People are always using language in different ways - either because they have different things to say, or it is an amusing game in itself,
or because what they say is how they say it - (psychological determinists would argue thus) is guided by a personal and utterly unique psyche. This is precisely the case with 'Khayal' singing. The language of
Hindustani music - the norms of 'Raag' structure and of 'Teal' - (the 'grammar' - so to speak - of melody and rhythm.) survive precisely because of the fact that they are creatively re-interpreted and re-applied by
every artist at every performance (ideally speaking, of course). A 'Raag' itself or a 'Bandish' (a fixed premeditated composition) is merely a defined territory within which to wander; a limiting of possibilities
within a definite range; for the artist it may be a spring-board from which to leap into his own imagination; or an inward, focussed lens, perhaps, with which to explore his own psyche. Though 'Khayal' requires
immense technical skill and grammatical thoroughness and self-restraint, it is ultimately a search for freedom. What makes 'Khayal' unique in the world's music (and also, for that matter, different from other Indian
forms of music) is the immense emphasis placed on individual interpretation. The complete freedom given to each artist to improvise freely and to explore any basic melody in his own way; and the great value attached
to spontaneous imagination. With 'individualism' and 'spontaneity' as my key words I would like to pin-point certain salient features of what may be called the psyche of the 'Khayal' singer. I use the term 'psyche'
only to refer to a common spirit, or approach to art (and perhaps life) which is shared by 'Khayal' singers in general and which distinguishes them from singers of other traditions ('Gharanas').
The art of 'Khayal' singing induces a very special attitude towards time; 'Khayal' rejoices in the spontaneous, the exploration of the unknown within
the framework of the known. Within the constraints of a musical code, it is always looking for the unpredictable. This might be said of numerous art forms but in 'Khayal' singing this search is an active part of
musical performance itself as a spontaneous improvisation on a given theme lies at the core of the art. Western classical music is pre-composed and played to an unalterable score; the 'Kriti' of Karnataka music is
also largely pre-composed and fixed in advance. However, there is no guessing where a particular melody might carry a creative 'Khayal' singer at a particular time. The next time he sings, the same melody might
carry him somewhere else. What sort of philosophical notion does this imply on the artist's part? For one thing, it suggests a special sensitivity to the perishability of the moment; a spirit that does not bemoan
the transience of the moment and the process of continuous change but which rejoices in it; for change - in a classical sense, a new way of looking at a given structure is precisely what is being sought within a
broadly defined area, the singer explains indeterminacies and plays with possibility - and the emphasis is not on reaching any final point, any monumental discovery, not on the value of what the singer has
discovered but on how well he is exploring the territory within which he moves. No interpretation of a given melody is final; no improvisation is THE improvisation. It is a journey which begins with a composition in
a given 'Raag' and 'Teal' but to which there is no end. The 'Khayal' concept is thus essentially a process and not a product. I would like to examine, at the end of this paper, how this particular attitude towards
art is on the decline in modern times largely because of technological advances - recordings in particular - and the economic set up under which 'Khayal' functions, namely, commercial enterprise and public patronage.
It is hard to imagine being in a post-recording era, how music must have been listened to before recording era. Today, one listens to a piece of
recorded music with the knowledge that one can listen to one's favorite phrases ad infinitum. This was not so sixty years ago. People listened to 'Khayal' with the urgency of physical hunger, knowing that a
particular improvisation might never occur to the artist again and this - the 'here and now' of musical experience was the only chance to hear it. This sensitivity to the uniqueness of the moment is crucial to the
ambience of 'Khayal'. The hunger for and the beauty of the moment lie precisely in all heightened awarenesess of its irrevivability. The attempt is not like that of much of the world's romantic poetry - to
immortalise the moment, but to allow it to die its natural death in order to let the next one become. 'Khayal' does not attempt the construction of musical monuments. Yet today that is precisely what is happening.
Whereas 'Khayal' retains very high technical standards, the element of risk taking and delving into the unknown of 'leaping before you look', is steadily on the decline. Musicians are out to create monumental
records of themselves that may be heard centuries later. The aim is very much like that of commercial investors who are out to produce a flawless product with a high popular demand. No doubt this is in itself a
valid and difficult challenge but it deviates from the values on which 'Khayal' singing is founded. The spirit of individualism is central to the 'Khayal' ethos; the performer's individualism does not lie merely in
the way in which he presents pre-composed material, but he is actively involved in an extempore compositional process. Moreover, since Hindustani music does not employ a tempered scale, micro-tonal frequencies play
an important role and are once again left to each artist to handle in his own way. It is not only the voice that differs from performer to performer, but the structures themselves, and this further changes at every
performance.
Historically, 'Khayal' has shown amazing diversification and during the short course of its evolution - approximately 150 years - there has been a
centrifugal movement from the original musical ideology resulting in vastly varied ways of presentation and interpretations. Of the various branches (i.e. 'Gharanas') that have evolved, each seems to have a distinct
ideology of its own and each of them has a musical ideology that makes it strikingly unique. Yet even within the boundaries of a 'Gharana', artists not only sound completely different but think differently. One may
perhaps speak of each 'Gharana' having its own psyche as it were - either an obsession with formal contrivances or emotive atmosphere, rhythm, tone, and so on, but ultimately the 'Gharana psyche' does extend and
give way in actual performance to the individual psyche of the performer.
After my paper I would like to demonstrate certain aspects of each 'Gharana' that makes it unique.
This paper is incomplete unless I demonstrate with regard to
- 'Khayal' as a form
- Psyche of the 'Gharanas' of 'Khayal' singing.
- Psyche of various artists who fall into the boundaries or are on the peripheries of the 'Gharanas'.
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