|
(iii) Rāga in Hindustani music. (a) Development of rāga theory.
Theoretical writing on rāga in Hindustani music has addressed both the identification and analysis of the characteristic features of individual rāgas and the elucidation of structural principles that underlie the rāga system as a whole. The latter endeavour tends to take scalar structure as its starting-point, while the former is more concerned with melodic motifs and emphases, registers, ornamentation and ‘intonation’ in the broadest sense.
The most influential formulation of contemporary Hindustani rāga theory is that of V.N. Bhatkhande. He postulated a number of structural characteristics that he claimed were common to most Hindustani rāgas: each rāga employs at least five of the seven svara; the svara ma or pa is always present, in addition to the system tonic sa; two pitch positions of the same svara, e.g. śuddha and tīvra ma, may not occur consecutively; the vādī is the most important svara of the rāga, supported by a secondary important svara, the samvādī, normally a consonant 4th or 5th distant; the vādī is located in the upper tetrachord (uttarāng) in morning rāgas, the lower tetrachord (pūrvāng) in evening rāgas.
There are exceptions to all these ‘rules’, some of which Bhatkhande acknowledged. In particular, the identification of one svara in each rāga as vādī is controversial. In many rāgas there are more notes than one that could be regarded as vādī, and it follows that the connection between the performance time of a rāga and the position of vādī, though it often holds good, is also open to question. Bhatkhande's concept of vādī in fact fuses two concepts from ancient theory, consonance (samvāda) and predominant function (amśa).
Bhatkhande reduced the scalar structures of Hindustani rāgas to ten thāt (see §1(iii) above) and proceeded on this basis to classify and describe the individual rāgas. His verbal descriptions are brief and limited to a few salient features: the thāt, the number of degrees taken in ascent and descent (for which he revived the ancient term jāti in a new sense), the vādī and samvādī, characteristic ornaments or pitch sequences, the appropriate time of performance, the aesthetic ethos (rasa) etc. These and similar definitions by other authors have become the stock-in-trade of institutional musical pedagogy. However, Bhatkhande was careful to acknowledge variant interpretations that he had encountered in oral tradition. His definitions are furthermore extensively illustrated with examples in notation. He himself composed simple outlines showing the ascending and descending lines within an octave (āroh-avaroh), more elaborate sequences of phrases (svar-vistār) such as might be performed in an ālāp, and short didactic compositions intended to embody the essential features of the rāga (laksan-gīt). Bhatkhande also presented numerous vocal compositions in each rāga, representing the genres dhrupad, dhamār, khayāl, thumrī, tarānā etc. (see §5(iii) below). These compositions, which fill the pages of his six-volume compilation Kramik pustak-mālikā (1953–5), were taken down from a number of eminent musicians representing different branches of the oral tradition. Although the source of individual compositions is not given, differences in detail can be seen between the compositions in some rāgas that reflect the diversity of the oral tradition and the absence of any single authoritative version. This anthology, as a record of the vocal repertory current in the first half of the 20th century and as material for analysis of the Hindustani rāga system, is an unparalleled achievement.
Drawing on Bhatkhande's pioneering work, N.A. Jairazbhoy (1971, 1972) developed a holistic analysis of the relationship between the surface characteristics of individual rāgas and the underlying structure of the scales that they employ. He analysed the tonal relationships within each basic scale in terms of consonance or dissonance with the drone, and parallel interval-sets in disjunct and conjunct tetrachords (ascending sa –ma, pa –sa and descending sa –pa, pa –re respectively). The melodic characteristics of individual rāgas and groups of rāgas, including alternative notes, staggered scales, oblique melodic movement, the position of vādī and samvādī, compass and exceptional intonation, were interpreted as strategies for exploiting and concealing the symmetries and asymmetries of their underlying scales. The same hypothesis has been used to explain changes in the scale structure of rāgas since the 16th century, but the focus of Jairazbhoy's work is on system-wide musical and historical processes rather than individual rāgas.
One of Bhatkhande's principal critics, the singer and educationist Omkarnath Thakur, drew attention to inconsistencies and arbitrariness in Bhatkhande's thāt system, which Thakur regarded as unnecessary and misleading. He favoured a classification of rāgas into groups based on melodic characteristics rather than scales, and sought to link these groups with the jāti system of the Nātyaśāstra. But the main achievement of his six-volume textbook Sangītāñjali was his unprecedentedly detailed analysis of performance practice in individual rāgas, and of the subtle but crucial distinctions to be observed between rāgas.
Thakur's exceptional insight into rāga relationships provided a basis for several of H.S. Powers's publications, in which rāga is treated as a melodic form (svarūp) rather than as a scale-based construct. Like Jairazbhoy, Powers (1970) advances historical evidence for his hypothesis, arguing that similarly named rāgas in Hindustani and Karnatak music differ in scale owing to historical divergence but embody similar melodic features, such as emphasized pitches, characteristic progressions, motifs, formulae, registers and ornaments. He also analysed the structural meanings invested in melodic formulae that identify particular rāgas or groups of rāgas, drawing on linguistic theory as well as Thakur's concept of rāga relationships (1976). A comparative evaluation of Bhatkhande's and Thakur's approaches to rāga theory was published in 1992.
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
