Author Archives: ragatip

Sarod pioneer Ustad Ali Akbar Khan famously turned to board game metaphors when teaching students his own Raag Chandranandan: “The ascending and descending are fixed, but in more [in] a curved way…like the game shatranj [an ancient form of chess], you can go in so many ways. The raga you have to play like that…but in the endContinue reading “Why do so many Indian classical musicians love playing board games?”

It is fabled that the great tabla masters of the past could summon divine powers through their drums, captivating even the birds and beasts with their sonic ingenuity. According to one famous tale, the Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar (1775-1862) once summoned the finest tabla players from across his kingdom to his palace at Delhi’s Lāl Qila (the ‘RedContinue reading “Tales of the tabla: The Mughal Emperor and the Red Fort Kayda”

Indian classical music is often described as an ‘all-acoustic’ tradition. This designation is somewhat vague – while the pre-electrical era was definitely an all-acoustic time, virtually all of today’s ‘acoustic’ instruments arrive to audiences through microphones and powered amplification systems. This, in turn, feeds back into the choices and intuitions of musicians as they takeContinue reading “Heresy or progress? Electrified instruments in Indian classical music”

The Bauls, traditionally been lineage of wandering devotional musicians, are vital to Bengal’s cultural history. Baul can be literally translated as ‘an affliction with the spirit of wind’, hinting at the style’s poetic, folkloric themes as well as the ecstatic, trance-like states it seeks to evoke – batul, the original Sanskrit root word, can also describe a stateContinue reading “Baul music: the spiritual songs of Bengal’s wandering bards”

Raga mythology overflows with supernatural tales – it is said that Malhar melodies can cause the rains to fall, and that past Hindustani heroes such as Tansen and Baiju Bawra (‘Crazy Bawra’) could use music to summon fire, enchant deer, and inspire the flowers to bloom. Alexander Scriabin (1871-1915), though he lived and died 5,000kmContinue reading “Apocalyptic ambitions: Alexander Scriabin and the Himalayas”

We often forget how many of Indian music’s global stars led an international life from their early days. Ravi Shankar, to give just one example, first came to Europe aged ten, as a dancer in his brother Uday’s groundbreaking troupe in the early 1930s. A generation later, he would tour America in his own right,Continue reading “How a teenage Zakir Hussain ended up on the Grateful Dead’s psychedelic ranch”

Kathak is North India’s best-known classical dance style. Traditionally a solo form, it mixes Hindu symbolism, Islamic Mughal ideas, and some decidedly earthy influences too – dancers draw from the sensuality of India’s courtesan traditions as well as from divine mythology. Modern kathak is globally renowned for matching physical storytelling techniques exacting, explosive movements andContinue reading “Kathak: the athletic mathematics of North Indian classical dance”

Hypnotic musical performance has always been central to Sufism, the ‘mystical dimension of Islam’. Sufi music has been spreading around the world for centuries, mixing with whatever creative cultures it may come across and spawning countless stylistic offspring. Here are three modern snapshots from global Sufi music… Dhafer Youssef – oud & vocals Dhafer Youssef, an extraordinary,Continue reading “Joyful experiments: three snapshots of global Sufi music”

Sufism is often described as the ‘mystical dimension of Islam’. In the West, mention of the word may conjure up a disconnected jumble of associations – whirling dervishes, headlines about persecution by the Taliban, and links to various modern spiritual practices. But while the tradition itself is subject to much unnecessary mystification, its core tenetsContinue reading “What is Sufism? Why is music so important to the Sufis?”

Qawwali – a famous form of Sufi spiritual song – can sound oddly familiar even to those who haven’t heard it before. Indeed, the style’s strident chanting and relentless tabla loops have always been designed to captivate in anyone in attendance, aimed at inspiring shared experiences of the divine, and states of ego-loss and extreme spiritual focus.Continue reading “Qawwali: how euphoric Sufi chanting captured the world”