Indian Classical Music

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Indian Classical Music

• 8 The gharana

Lecturer Katherine Brown Email
k.r.brown_at_leeds.ac.uk Room 2.21
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Todays Lecture

• How the social organisation of NICM community
  shapes the musical tradition itself
• How Hindustani music is preserved and transmitted
  without written notation
• Gharana (from ghar house)
• Guru-shishya-parampara (master-disciple-succession
  )

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Gharana system

• Only the bare bones of the bandish written down
  (if that) Bhatkhandes collection
• Everything else passed down orally/aurally
• Done through gharana system.
• a group of hereditary specialists and their
  prominent disciples with a body of musical
  knowledge and a distinct style James Kippen

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Gharana system

• Lineages of (Muslim) musicians
• 1) biologically related core (khandan family)
  unrelated disciples
• 2) unique body of compositions, ragas and
  techniques
• 3) unique style
• Geographical association with a princely court

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Imdad Khan (Etawah) gharana
The older the gharana, the purer its tradition,
and the more worthy it is of patronage
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Gharana system

• Gharanas claim to be very old
• In fact modern, no earlier than late nineteenth
  century
• A way of preserving the professional musicians
  livelihood (unique intellectual property) against
  modernity, urbanisation, change of patronage,
  competition from other performers and ways of
  teaching.

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Gharana system

• Assertion of age and authenticity about power in
  a competitive age
• Jealous guarding of gharanas intellectual
  property increases its commodity value to the
  consumer
• Arbiters of the most authentic tradition
• Shorthand for a musicians pedigree and valid
  claim to patronage

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Guru-shishya-parampara

• Mechanism for preserving and passing on the
  tradition
• Chain of masters and disciples central pillar
  of the gharana
• Guru master, guide, teacher
• Shishya disciple
• Parampara chain of succession
• Muslim equivalent ustad and shagird (professional
  not religious connotation)

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Guru-shishya-parampara

• Cannot learn North Indian classical music without
  a guru
• Musicians social identity guru
• Your credentials are based on who your guru is
  the more distinguished his lineage the better
• The gurus identity acts as a guarantee of the
  authenticity of your performance

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How it works

• Deep obligations on both sides
• Guru must pass on prized body of knowledge to
  future generations intact
• The medium of transmission is his disciples
• Needs to ensure the disciples worthiness
• Shishyas obligation is devotion
• Gurus obligation is love

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The shishyas devotion

• Total obedience, respect and loyalty to the guru
  in all areas of music and lifestyle
• Riaz practice, discipline (spiritual)
• Riaz the most important test of devotion
• The quantity of hours spent in riaz is the
  determinant of his/her devotion not his/her
  musical accomplishment

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The gurus love

• Guru responds to shishyas devotion with love,
  taking them into his family
• Formal ritual expressing this contract ganda
  bandhan, symbolic adoption
• Transferring secret body of knowledge is proof of
  the gurus love
• If the guru does not love and trust the disciple
  he will not pass on the secrets of his tradition

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What is transmitted

• The guru gives knowledge in exchange for services
  and gifts
• The guru enculturates the disciple into the life
  of a professional musician
• 1) body of secret musical knowledge
• 2) gurus distinctive style
• 3) the way a musician must live
• 4) performance practice
• 5) folklore and oral history of the gharana

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Preservation through 20C

• Indian nationalism and the rise of the Hindu
  middle classes
• Change in values secrecy elitism, gharanas
  immorality and decadence
• V N Bhatkhande (theorist) collected, championed
  and popularised NICM amongst the middle classes
• Brahman disciples made NICM acceptable for middle
  classes
• Middle classes natural new patrons

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Preservation through 20C

• Music schools, more virtuous environment, women
  disciples
• Technological change
• Private court to public concert hall
• Three new sources of patronage AND authority
  mass media, music schools, public performances
• Gharana hostility initially to these changes
• Have adapted successfully to meet the threat
• New evolution of the gharana concept

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New gharana

• Star as core of new gharana-type entity
• Change in style due to change in taste and
  technology revival of old styles
• Style no longer important in differentiating
  instrumental gharanas
• No stylistic gharanas at all??? Perhaps
  clustering around great performers? Looser
• BUT still as a social system, lineage an
  indicator of authority and prestige
• Gharanas train all professional musicians

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