IB Musical Investigation: Baroque Music vs. Indian Classical Music

Ibrahim Gsibat

           

The Baroque period in European music lasted from about 1600 to about 1750. It was preceded by the Renaissance and followed by the Classical period. It was during the Baroque that the major/minor tonal system that still dominates Western Music was established. This period is best known for the complex counterpoint of the mature Baroque, as typified by the work of Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel.

Many Western listeners find themselves drawn to the classical music of India but aren't sure how to listen to it. The two traditions developed independently for thousands of years, and the music of one tradition can seem mystifying to someone raised in the other tradition. Baroque and Indian classical music are two distinct traditions, but they share many similarities.

            The Baroque is the earliest period in European music whose music is still widely heard. This is probably because music before this period has an exotic, unfamiliar sound to most modern Western listeners. The music of the middle ages was modal rather than tonal; in other words, it was not based on chords and harmonies in major and minor keys. Most people strongly prefer the musical tradition that they grew up hearing; it “makes sense” to them in a way that unfamiliar traditions do not. In a fundamental way, the Baroque marked the beginning of our familiar tradition. One of the most obvious differences – a difference that you can hear even if you don’t realize it or can’t explain it – in medieval music is the lack of thirds, the interval that modern (triadic) chords are built from. Medieval music was based instead on the intervals of the perfect fifth and perfect fourth. This gives early music an open, hollow texture and harmonies that are unfamiliar to the modern ear. It was during the Renaissance that thirds began to be used more often. The sound most closely associated with the Baroque kept the independent voices, but with some important differences. The most important change, as mentioned above, was the development during this era of tonal harmony. The composers of the mature Baroque were not only using major and minor chords, but were using them in the kinds of chord progressions and with the kinds of cadences that have continued to be used throughout the following centuries to our own times. This is not to say that there were no later changes to the system of harmony developed during the Baroque; the Romantic and early modern eras in particular saw a great deal of experimentation with harmony. The experimentation of the Romantic period expanded the harmonic possibilities inherent within the tonal system; its sound has also strongly influenced subsequent developments, including in popular music. Another development of the Baroque period is the rise of the bass line. The voices, or lines, of Renaissance music, and of some Baroque counterpoint, were typically equal in importance. But in much of Baroque music, the various parts were rapidly losing their equality. Instead, the highest line (what we hear as the melody), and the lowest line (the bass) became the most important parts, with the middle lines simply filling in the harmony. In fact, harpsichord players were often expected to improvise an accompaniment given only the bass line with some extra notations. This melody-and-bass-dominated texture, with the bass outlining or strongly implying the harmony, still predominates in most Western music genres and styles. As mentioned above, there was a great variety of musical forms popular with Baroque composers. Some of these, such as the highly contrapuntal fugues and inventions, are closely associated with this period. Others, including fantasies, variations, suites, sonatas, and concertos, proved more influential, with many major composers using, developing and experimenting with these forms throughout later eras.

            The melodies and harmonies in Western music are based on major and minor scales. Major-key melodies and harmonies are different from minor-key melodies and harmonies, but the same melody and chord progression can be easily transposed from one major key to a different major key, or from one minor key to a different minor key. Of course, some Western music is modal, and some uses pentatonic, blues, twelve-tone, or other scales, but the vast majority of familiar pieces can be classified as major or minor. The melodies of Indian music are based on ragas (in southern India, ragam). Like a scale, the raga is a list of the notes that are used in a particular piece of music. But there are many more ragas than there are scales - hundreds - and the various ragas are much more different from each other than the various scales are. The number of notes used, the intervals between the notes, and even the tuning, can be different from one raga to the next. Because of these differences, the rules for constructing melodies are also different in different ragas, and so the melodies found in various ragas will not be the same. A melody cannot be transposed from one raga to another; they are simply too different. You may have noticed that major-key music tends to have different moods than minor-key music. (See Major Keys and Scales for more about this.) Ragas are also associated with particular moods. The idea that different modes produce different moods is one that was also common in ancient and medieval Europe. Many ragas are also associated with a specific season and/or time of day. These associations often began with traditions of playing certain ragas for particular festivals or religious rites, but the associations with moods are also tied into the associations with particular times. (Think of the difference between your typical mood on a summer evening as opposed to an autumn morning.) It is often considered inappropriate to play a raga at the wrong time (similar to a Westerner's reaction at hearing Christmas music in July, lullabies at breakfast, or sad songs at a wedding), and creating the raga's proper mood is one of the Indian musician's most important tasks.

Much of the interest in Western music lies in its complex, ever-changing harmony. Indian music takes a different approach. Melodic scales and rhythms are much, much more various and complex than they are in Western music. Harmony, on the other hand, is usually kept simple, in the form of an unchanging drone of a pure perfect fifth or perfect fourth. In order to fit better with the pure interval of the drone, the tuning system used is not equal temperament; instead a just intonation system, based on the pure fifth, is used. The tuning of the other notes can vary to suit the particular raga. Western music tends to use only a few popular meters for almost all of its music, and these meters are usually felt as repetitions of two, three, or four beats. The rhythms of Indian music, however, rather than being organized into short measures, are organized in long rhythmic cycles called talas). There are more than 100 different talas. These rhythmic cycles are quite long and complex. In fact, it is common for some sections of a performance to be in free rhythm, with the tala not even introduced until the middle of the piece. These free-rhythm performances, which altogether lack a beat-like pulse, are central to a true appreciation of Indian music.

The texture of Indian music is typically a single melody voice or instrument, supported by rhythm percussion. As mentioned above, this texture is not common in Western music, and there are several elements of the timbre (color) of the music that also make it sound unfamiliar. One is, of course, the use of Non-western instruments, as described below. But even the tone quality of the voice is different from the typical Western vocalist, who usually strongly relies on vibrato to produce an acceptable tone quality. The Indian vocalist, on the other hand, tends to use a timbre lacking in vibrato. To Western listeners, this tone quality may at first sound flat, nasal, or lifeless. However, to the Indian listener it is a clean, clear sound that does not mask the subtleties of the ragas tuning, or overpower or interfere with the production of the intricate ornaments that are also an integral part of each raga. Because instrumental techniques also rely on these subtle tunings and ornaments, Indian instruments also tend to play with little or no vibrato. The harmony is usually provided by a drone instrument called the tanpura. This instrument has four very long strings. The strings are plucked one after the other, continuously throughout the music. It takes about 5 seconds for one four-string cycle to be plucked, and although the drone itself is constant, the complex interactions between the harmonics of the strings vary during the cycle, creating a shimmering, buzzing effect unlike that of any Western instrument. In India, vocal soloists are very popular, but Westerners tend to hear instrumental soloists. The melody instrument is often also a stringed instrument: the most well-known is probably the sitar, a plucked-lute-family chordophone that has moveable frets to accomodate changes in tuning from one raga to the next. Other popular solo strings include the surbahar, which is basically a bass sitar, the sarod, a fretless plucked-lute-family instrument, and the vina, a zither-family chordophone with gourd resonators. On many of these instruments, only some of the strings are for playing the melody. Other strings are drone/rhythm strings and/or strings that are not plucked but only vibrate sympathetically with the other strings. Again, this can produce a buzzing timbre that Westerners find exotic. There are other, less common solo string instruments. Bamboo flutes are also popular solo instruments, and some Western instruments, particularly violin, are also fairly popular. The rhythmic accompaniment is usually provided by the tabla, a set of two small drums that are played with the hand. The tabla is tuned to the raga by tapping wedges on the side of the instrument. Because the tabla is played with the hand rather than a stick or beater, the rhythms of the accomplished player are subtle and expressive as well as complex. In fact, even on this percussion instrument, an accomplished Indian musician can put the listener in mind of vocal phrasing.