World Musical articles

Indian Music

53. Day, C. R. (Charles Russell), The music and musical instruments of southern India and the Deccan, With an introd. by A. J. Hipkins, plates drawn by Edith J. Hipkins and William Gibb. (London: Novello, Ewer, 1891)

In 1973 the then Department of Music, Monash University, decided to expand its course offerings in ethnomusicology to include-in addition to research methods and subject units on the music of Aboriginal Australia and Oceania, and Southeast Asia- subject units on the music of South Asia, East Asia (China, Korea and Japan) and sub-Saharan Africa. Accordingly, in addition to the remarkable collection of sound recordings and print publications that the Department had already established in the Main Library and the departmental library in both Western and non-Western music studies, efforts were made to add to the collection in the three new areas. Thus, the collection at Monash, carefully established over the years, is very possibly without equal in Australia in both the extent and significance of its ethnomusicological holdings. Some of the highlights from this collection appear in this exhibition. The section on South Asia relates to the research interests of a member of staff.

Raja Sir Sourindro Mohun Tagore (1840-1914) of Calcutta, an elder relative of the well-known author and recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature (1913) Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), fulfilled in his own right an important role in the exchange of cultural information between East and West. In the last decades of the nineteenth century Sourindro Mohun Tagore became an important conduit for inter-cultural communication in colonial Bengal. He served as one of the hosts for the visit of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales in 1875, and also became known in Europe as early as the late 1870s. S. M. Tagore sent his publications and collections of musical instruments to members of royalty and learned institutions, and contributed (in absentia) to the deliberations of the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Congresses of Orientalists, respectively held in Florence (1879), Berlin (1881) and Leyden (1883). Sourindro Mohun Tagore also has a legacy in Melbourne.

In April 1878 S. M. Tagore sent a parcel of books and pamphlets on 'Hindu' music to the Music Academy in Melbourne. As the Music Academy was a theatre venue and not a music institution, the Postmaster General forwarded the collection to the Melbourne Philharmonic Society, whose president at the time was Sir George Frederic Verdon. Verdon (1834-1896) was a high profile politician, banker and patron of the arts in Victoria. Verdon wrote to Tagore, acknowledging receipt of the materials and thanking him for his contribution to the library of the society. Thereupon, it seems, Sourindro Mohun Tagore sent at least two books to George Verdon, personally inscribed to him and dated 'Calcutta, 12/11/78'.

The first of these two books, A few lyrics of Owen Meredith set to Hindu music (1877), uses Western staff notation and sets twenty-seven poems to twenty-seven Indian rags. Owen Meredith is the nom de plume of Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton, first Earl of Lytton, Viscount Knebworth (1831-1891), the Viceroy of India from 1876 to 1880. Though his reputation rests on certain reforms in administration, such as abolishing inland customs, and on famine relief and reserving civil service posts for Indians, as well as on his aggressive policy in Afghanistan to counter Russian influence in the region, he was perhaps better known in those days as a poet and man of letters, the only son of the well-known English novelist, Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton (1803-1873). This publication of musical settings in Indian rags of poems by Owen Meredith was offered to the Viceroy of India in December 1877 in celebration of the assumption by Queen Victoria of the title Empress of India, which the Viceroy had proclaimed on January 1st that year at a great darbar in Delhi.

Sourindro Mohun Tagore composed the tunes. Though one assumes that Western staff notation was consciously used to facilitate Tagore's desire to inform Westerners about Indian music, Tagore nonetheless clearly knew the limitations of Western notation for such a task. His reservation is eloquently noted in the Preface to the second book on display, Fifty tunes, composed and set to music (1878).

The following pages give, in a collected form, some of the tunes which the author has composed on different occasions. In setting them, (at the express wish of some of his European friends,) to the European system of notation and in attempting to adapt them for the Piano or other foreign instruments, he has been obliged to make alterations in some of the pieces, whereby they have, to a certain extent, been divested of the variety of embellishments which are so characteristic of Hindu Music.(p. vii)

This book does not contain any poems, the tunes here being intended instead as instrumental music, as Tagore notes. A preliminary page contains additional interesting information: 'To the Hon'ble Sir Ashley Eden, K.C.S.I., Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, this book is most respectively dedicated by his most grateful and obliged servant, the author' (p. iii). The two final 'additional' pages in this book, as shown in the exhibition, document an interesting development in nineteenth-century Bengal. They note the use of an ensemble of Indian musicians to accompany, with Indian music, experimental theatrical presentations that combined Indian themes and stories with the techniques of Western theatrical presentation. One can again discern a marked sensitivity to and desire for inter-cultural communication among the intelligentsia of Bengal Indian society.

These two sources and other S. M. Tagore publications are quite valuable, and contain much data relevant for the history of musicology in India and abroad. They are also of interest from the point of view of the history of publishing and printing in Calcutta.

The two different pastel colours of the covers here, the printing of Western staff notation, the borders on the pages, and the multi-coloured presentation on selected pages, together with a plethora of fonts on title pages and pages of dedication, call attention to this relatively unknown data among the numerous publications of the composer, musician, musicologist and educator, Raja Sir Sourindro Mohun Tagore. In total his bibliography comprises some sixty-eight titles.

The book by Charles Russell Day (1860-1900), The Music and Musical Instruments of Southern India and the Deccan (1891), is a classic in the history of ethnomusicology. Known equally for the quality of the information in its seven chapters and for its sumptuous colour illustrations in seventeen plates and the associated commentary, its black-and-white drawings of the bridge of a vina, and of musicians and musical ensembles, also provide valuable historic evidence.

This copy is personally inscribed to Edith Hipkins, 'with the best wishes' of the author. The artist Edith J. Hipkins (fl.1880-1940), the daughter of Alfred James Hipkins, F.S.A. (1826-1903), contributed three plates in this lavish publication- Plates II, III and IV. The artist has noted in her own handwriting that the illustration of the South Indian vina shown in Plate II, which also shows an early sitar, was based on an instrument '200 years old in 1888'.

Alfred J. Hipkins, Edith's father, is known as a musicologist from his research on tunings, temperaments and the history of musical instruments, which takes note of extra-European traditions. He contributed the Introduction to this monograph. Cyril Ehrlich has noted in his entry about A. J. Hipkins in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd ed.), that the Introduction by A. J. Hipkins to Day's monograph 'has been acclaimed by Ki Mantle Hood as a landmark in ethnomusicology'. In the Introduction A. J. Hipkins discusses the importance of establishing a world-wide perspective and simultaneously being sensitive to the great diversity of the musical and cultural particularities of local traditions.

Alfred J. Hipkins also was a friend and colleague of Alexander John Ellis (1814-1890), and helped the latter scholar with research that contributed to the famous, stimulating and seminal paper of 1885 by A. J. Ellis, 'On the Musical Scales of Various Nations' (Journal of the Society of Arts, vol. 33, pp. 485-527, 1102-11), another key early publication in the history of ethnomusicology. A. J. Hipkins is the author of a rare book in the exhibition, Musical Instruments: Historic, Rare and Unique (1888, repr. 1921).

Monash University is fortunate to have this copy of the important monograph by Charles Russell Day in its collection, not only for the notable value of any copy per se, but all the more so because of the personal connection in evidence here between the author and the first owner, Edith J. Hipkins, an artist and daughter of A. J. Hipkins, the author of its remarkable Introduction.

Dr Reis W. Flora

Music Instruments from India

54. Bin - musical instrument

55. Pakhavaj - musical instrument

Musical instruments from S. M. Tagore were on display at the Melbourne International Exhibition, 1880-81. It is not clear whether Tagore sent these instruments to the Melbourne Philharmonic Society at a slightly earlier date, or whether the Commissioners for India for the Exhibition requisitioned the instruments from Tagore. However that may be, remnants from the display of Indian musical instruments became deposited in the National Gallery of Victoria, and for some years have been on loan to Monash University.

Leading up to SIMS1988 in Melbourne, students in an ethnomusicological research methods subject investigated these instruments and data relating to them. Dr Adrian McNeil, a graduate of Monash University and a scholar and professional performer on the sarod, who is highly regarded in Australia and India, brought this work together then in a very effective way for an extensive display mounted in the Short Courses Centre, Monash University. Two of these instruments are on display here.

The stringed instrument, technically known as a chordophone in organology or the study of musical instruments, and the drum, technically known as a membranophone, respectively illustrate instruments belonging to the first two categories of hierarchy or rank among musical instruments in Indian tradition. The third and fourth ranks respectively consist of idiophones, instruments made of solid material such as cymbals, and wind instruments, or aerophones. In Indian tradition these four families are considered second in importance to the voice.

The stringed instrument is named bin. Though the instrument on display clearly is not a professional instrument, it nonetheless shows the basic elements of the bin of North India. This type is depicted in many miniature paintings from the sixteenth century onward. In showing the basic features of the bin, the crux of the instrument consists of a long hollow tube, to which two large gourd resonators are attached, one at each end. Another important feature is the wide, slightly curved Indian bridge. Each of the nineteen frets on this bin is secured to the tube by a string fastened around the back. Though this manner of attaching frets is used on the sitar, on a professional bin the frets are permanently set in wax. This instrument appears to be a hybrid in its structure. More realistic is the rather complicated bridge arrangement at the lower end of the instrument. The main bridge is mounted onto the back of a piece of wood carved as the chest and head of a bird, often a peacock. The main melody strings cross over this bridge. Similar but smaller bridges on each side, imitating the wings of the bird, serve the three additional strings. They are used for reinforcing the drone pitch, and for rhythmic punctuation. All three bridges have the gently arched surface common in the South Asian tradition, which provides a distinctively rich tone quality. Historically the bin is associated with Mughal court music in North India, especially the majestic dhrupad style of performance. Though the bin is not as much in vogue these days as earlier, its tradition is still maintained and supported by dedicated musicians and connoisseurs.

The pakhavaj of North India is a double-headed drum and has composite heads, with a tuning paste permanently attached to the right drumhead. Solid spools inserted beneath the lacing assist in determining the pitch of the instrument. The pakhavaj may be viewed as the northern version of the South Indian mridangam. In recent centuries the pakhavaj appears in miniature paintings accompanying a singer who is usually entertaining a royal patron. Today a highly skilled musician playing the pakhavaj accompanies vocalists who sing in the dhrupad genre.

The purpose of Sourindro Mohun Tagore in sending musical instruments and books about Indian music to Melbourne and to individuals and institutions in Europe and North America was to disperse information about what to him was Hindu music. These activities were part of the larger picture of the Bengal renaissance of the nineteenth century and have left a rich legacy in places far distant from Calcutta.

Dr Reis W. Flora

Some of my drums are similar to various African drums, while others are completely original. I am constantly learning about the variables involved in producing a drum of superior quality. I am beginning to connect certain shapes to particular sounds. Variations in your hand placement while playing any drum will give you a variety of sounds. Music can be made by these practiced manipulations and simple combinations. This is something everyone can do.

We make two kinds of instruments;

drums of different sizes, shapes and materials, and

"Hammer Jammer" a South American instrument played with a stick.

Thanks VJ & Qwest..wonderful info 👏 👏 👏

Meet Aaron Hammer, craftsman...

I love working with wood, I also love giving the tree a new life. I have been making drums for four years, and have learned much in their creation. I am proud of the drums that I make.

I have found that there is knowing in all people that without the drums there is no music, just as when there is no heart beat, there is no life. I tell people this when I hear "I have no rhythm" or, "I couldn't keep a beat if I had to".

Hammer Drums is becoming well known on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. I have been encouraging this tribal creativity in many people. I have made five drums that were purchased by drum instructors on the Island of Oahu. I have a good reputation for doing very good, innovative work. I have had two shows at The Art Plantation in the last four years. I have my pieces in four beautiful galleries on the Island of Oahu. I have also put drums in a large music store in Honolulu Hawaii.

I have been putting the official "Hammer Brand" on roughly 75% of the drums I've made. Many people have made the connection between my name and my work.

In the community that I live in, drums are sacred, they are the culture. When they are played here on Oahu, there is festivity and learning. There can be no dances without the drums, through the dances the history is told and remembered.

When I am out in public with my drums, it is most common for small children to be attracted to the drums, they know.

Then there are the mothers with very young children and they say "oh look drums" bringing their children right to them, they know.

Then I see everyone else; the middle-aged men that tap them with their thumbs, and the teenagers that watch from a distance, all people, are interested.

All people want to beat because they are already beating, it is the closest to our true nature. To beat effortlessly, without worry, to trust entirely, to live full and with love.

My shop, nestled between banana trees in our backyard. The log is Monkey Pod and weighs at least 250 pounds. There are probably only a handful of people making drums this way. I like doing this work.

Remember Shakti

In the mid 1970's many believed John McLaughlin committed commercial suicide by abandoning electric instruments and Western sensibilities in favor of an all acoustic group featuring Indian musicians. In fact, record sales with this group, Shakti, were quite disappointing. Sometimes though, a musician has to travel where his muse may lead. In this case, McLaughlin's muse led him to a very fertile groundbreaking. Shakti, with all due respect to the very fine group Oregon, was really the first band to truly capture the essence of what we now call "World Music". Shakti's dependence on Eastern musical models infused with western jazz-like improvisation made for an exciting and influential stew. John's friend, Jeff Beck, has stated that the Shakti albums contained some of the best guitar playing ever put on a record.

One doesn't have to look very far into McLaughlin's past to see why such a band as Shakti would have been of interest to him. His own inclinations toward Eastern music can be heard on side two of his beautiful recording My Goal's Beyond. Certainly, McLaughlin was influenced even before that outing by the pop mysticism of the times and his own involvement in seeking self-realization through Eastern philosophies. (Not to mention Indian music lessons).

How ironic that 20 years later, a band different from Shakti but born from its spirit, should emerge to commercial success. And how ironic that McLaughlin has "electricized" it!

Remember Shakti is the name of the group and the name of the live album. A 2 CD set recorded over four nights in England in the fall of 1997 features the two founding fathers of the original Shakti, McLaughlin and the tabla master Zakir Hussain. One of India's most respected musicians, flautist Hariprasad Chaurasia is an integral voice and most enjoyably, Shakti's original ghatam player "Vikku" Vinayakram helps to serve the rhythm.

McLaughlin plays electric guitar for these outings which were held in honor of India's and Pakistan's 50th anniversaries. (Too bad music doesn't seem to be quite enough to keep the peace). The electric guitar and flute give Remember Shakti a very different sound than the acoustic guitar and violin of the great L. Shankar had given Shakti.

The tunes tend to be very long and require careful listening. Two McLaughlin standards, Lotus Feet and Zakir, are present. McLaughlin's beautiful and uplifting tune The Wish, which appeared on The Promise, is also given the treatment. Chaurasia is featured , minus McLaughlin, on the opening self-penned tune Chandrakauns and he also wrote Mukti which features he and McLaughlin trading.

Remember Shakti is reflective, serious East meets West music. It is not without some hilarity however, as Vikku's laughter is quite contagious. It is also not without some truly virtuoso moments and plenty of drama. The deep tones of the electric guitar and the Bansuri flute float above the percussive groundwork. A bass-like drone provides the sub-surface support. Remember Shakti is well worth your valuable listening time.

(Note: It is absolutely imperative you obtain Zakir Hussain's Making Music. It features Hussain, McLaughlin, Chaurasia and Jan Garbarek in a simply dizzying display of East meets West acoustic artistry).

Walter Kolosky
Walter Kolosky is a former jazz disc-jockey and newspaper reporter who is now a full-time business man and part-time jazz critic. He has been writing about the music of John McLaughlin for 25 years. Walter has written on-line reviews of all of John's recordings. He lives with his wife Hatty and daughter Anna in Natick, MA, USA.

Originally posted by: charades

Thanks Swar Ji.....I will take a break for a while...wanted to post as much as I can before Server slows down 😆

😆😆 Please carry on😛

Thieves And Poets John McLaughlin There are innevitable parallels to be made between 1986's Mediterranean Concerto and John McLaughlin's new classical composition Thieves And Poets. They are both symphonic, each comprising 3 parts for guitar with symphony orchestra. They both span European and New World influences. They are both incredibly brilliant classics given the jazz oriented background of their composer. So why does John feel the need to reach out into these new directions when he could maintain a quite comfortable position in more familiar territory? For John it is the journey through musical lands that holds the key. Embracing the transience of his own creativity has enabled an unsurpassed opportunity for new collaboration and invention of musical style. The two are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and John knows it, You learn from everybody and you adopt the attitudes and techniques and make them your own. It's not for nothing the new CD is called "Thieves and Poets". We're all thieves. I'm the biggest thief of all, I've been stealing all my life. We call it being influenced, but it's basic appropriation. You can try to do it other people's way, but in the end, you can only do it your way. Every now and then you can say something of value. It doesn't happen every day, but it's the life's work, isn't it?" True, that it is no coincidence that individuals metamorphose in response to the playing of their peers, but it takes a maestro to maintain a sound all of their own at their core throughout such change. Apart from his fiery modal runs, even when McLaughlin turns his hand to something that at first seems as alien as classical composition, there are trademark signposts that reassure us that it is him. Both The Meditarranean and Thieves And Poets are riddled with soundbite clues. Mahavishnu blues pervaded The Meditarranean. Shakti's India features the first movement of Thieves And Poets, and Mingus' Goodbye Pork Pie Hat is quoted in the second, which also opens with an arrangement of Blues for LW. Similar to The Meditarranean, Thieves And Poets exudes an overall feel of Copland's grandeur and the theatrical drama of Bernstein. The tamboura-like drone lifts a gentle introduction into a fusion of Shaktiesque alap with Mediterranean flamenco decoration and Western military bugle call. The geographical dictionary is defined from which the musical vocabulary will be drawn. Motifs are set and echoed fugue-like across the arrangement, harmony and counterpoint is the composer's focus; scaling from delicate conversations between guitar and soloist, up to orchestra and guitar. The music emerges from the combinatorial interactions brought into play, usually found in a dynamic body such as a jazz quartet. Guitar and violin leap and glide together like star-crossed lovers. Blocky string sections explode to send the quieter background-bubbling string sections racing onto their next phrase. Sublime soliloquies nestle within the rich womb-warm arrangements. Open vistas are painted impressionist. Home fires are signalled by familiar passages creeping onto the corners of the enormous canvas. We stare star-ward into a limpid nightsky, dwarfed by the size of it all. Genius. Pure genius in the realm of great contemporary classicists, but also with the acetic energy and drama of Goldsmith's movie scores. Weaknesses? Few. But the crass 'church organ' arrangement for the chord finale in Part 3 is an anticlimax, when a less pompous exeunt would have better matched the preceding tonal centre. Shame. The cover art cannot be ignored. A great design capturing the maestro relaxing at home with Skip in his den/library/studio. A wonderful glimpse of the private man matched by a personal interpretation of the music in the liner notes. Though, hard to believe that he would have misspelt Aranjuez as 'Aruanjez'. The four standards that follow the symphony are performed with the Aighetta Quartet in the style of Time Remembered, and they are wonderful. Without the shimmering reverb of the previous album the sound is truly acoustic, warm and beautiful. Each is dedicated to a pianist who has had influence. Harmonic contrasts abound in the piece dedicated to Hancock, "Stella by Starlight", and the future of jazz is heralded by "The Dolphin" dedicated to rising star Gonzalo Rubalcaba. This is some of John's most passionate playing we have heard in a while.