Classical v. Devotional music, take one

The intersection of classical music and devotional music in North India can be described many ways. It is certainly a mutually-beneficial relationship. In the main strains of devotional music, particularly Hindu bhajan, Sikh kirtan, and Sufi qawwali, there are educated performers and enthusiastic listeners for whom the presence of classical ragas and talas heightens the spiritual experience. The overlap is small, and the vast majority of devotional music is in a simple style that does not conform to the rules of ragas. Even so-called “light classical” music demands a higher level of apprehension for the listener, and so is not much more prevalent than strict classical style. But Hindustani classical music definitely exists in pockets in these traditions.

In fact, in Sikhism, although the 'classical' elements are strictly and adeptly applied by only a tiny minority of musicians, even those devotees who do not understand classical music pay lip-service to the idea that classical ragas are the ideal for the Gurus’ kirtan. In fact, it may be that they are much more enraptured with the idea that classical music represents the standard of Sikh music than actually listening to it. I had heard about this phenomenon from Sarbpreet, my contact in the States, as well as my music teacher in Punjab. Even though the Sikh scripture contains a prescription of a particular raga along with the text of every hymn, kirtaniyas in village gurdwaras, and even many who have major CD contracts, sing in a style that is not raga-based (i.e. theirs uses only 3-4 notes) or lift tunes from the world of popular Punjabi and Bollywood songs.

This came home to me when I was at a CD stand just outside the entrance of the Golden Temple. I was looking for a CD by the accomplished ragi Amrik Singh Zakhmi, who we had discussed in my lesson. Although there were many glossy CD’s of turbaned and bearded men doing kirtan, I couldn’t find this artist, who my ragi had described as a major contemporary figure in kirtan. When the shopkeeper finally understood who I was looking for, he said dismissively “Oh, you want classical.” He then reached underneath the counter to take out a small stack of CD’s. This is precisely the phenomenon of devotees publicly acknowledging the importance of their music’s classical roots, but privately supporting the accessible, non-classical artists and leaving the purists to languish under the counter.

Returning to the comparison of mutual benefits, a typical classical concert is never absent devotional content, whether explicit or implicit. In the West we like to see ‘absolute’ music (as opposed to program music or sacred music) in a secular, intellectual context. Of course, it’s not fair to say all Western academic music is secular – composers like Bruckner, Messaien, Arvo Part (to name a few) saw their music and compositional process as deeply devotional – but we can say a major difference is in a narrative of music and its supposed effects on people. In a Hindustani classical vocal concert, the artist will at some point sing through a short composition, a few lines long and of a devotional nature to one of the Hindu gods. Though this is explicit, the importance should not be overstated. This might only be a few minutes out of an hour-long piece, and the rest of the time the artist is singing solfeggio or nonsense syllables, or merely vocalizations.

Thus, the more direct contribution of spirituality to the ‘classical’ setting is implicit in the accounts some listeners and performers give to classical music. My ragi used to talk about how a raga like ‘kalyan’ would give you a peaceful feeling. Indians and non-Indians musicians with whom I talked in India referenced the fact that the drone of a perfect fifth and octave show the “unstruck sound”, or the true reality of the universe in Indian philosophy. In that sense, listening to a modal music that explores intervals around that unstruck sound is a means to perceiving the ultimate reality. This is not really that different from the way saints and theoreticians have long described devotional music in the Sikh, Sufi and Hindu traditions.

Still, this narrative is only a small part of the interactions with classical music. With my teacher, more often our entire discussions would revolve around the mechanics of particular ragas, how to differentiate them from other ragas, or particular techniques of singing or composition. The philosophical side is also minimal in the selective audiences of classical music I saw in Delhi. Critics and astute listeners liked to fixate on the particular strengths of a performer, and program notes usually discussed only the gharana (pedigree of music teaching) and the various awards garnered. Additionally, the audience for classical music is not strictly Hindu devotees, or people who are there for the spiritual saturation – it cut across secular elites, Sikhs, Muslims and others. In fact, while all surface observations would lead me to conclude that it was a secular, artistic tradition, it was really only when I pressed that audience members would switch gears from technique and talk about the importance of spirituality in listening – as though it was simply understood, and therefore nobody thinks about it!

The picture is further complicated by the history of Indian Classical music (though by ‘history’ I should acknowledge that a lot of this is oral history, which tends to be heavily subject to the later narratives imposed upon it). However, one prevalent idea about the lineage of what is now called Hindustani classical music is that was more devotional in its (very distant) origins, and the current image as a sophisticated, mostly secular music is fairly recent. The Mughal emperors reigned in North India for a period of several hundred years – actually until they were fully displaced by the British in the 19th century. These were Muslim rulers, mainly of Persian blood and cultural heritage. They realized, however, that they were governing an area that, despite the presence of many Muslims, had its own ancient civilization and arts. The Mughals, then, essentially adopted Hindustani raga-based music as its court music, subsequently muting the more overtly devotional parts and infusing Persian modes into many of the ragas.

This history is worth considering because, as I realize it, this whole post begs the question of what is actually the distinction between devotional and classical music. In order for them to have an ‘intersection’, they surely must be separate entities. In my descriptions of my experiences, though, this distinction is blurred considerably. For instance, most devotional music (by volume) is not in classical ragas, and much of the audience of classical music talks about it in secular terms; on the other hand, classical style is held up as the ideal of devotional practice, and spiritual benefits are touted as historic roots of the Hindustani classical tradition. Hence, it is a complex relationship, and I may never be able to draw a line around each tradition to say ‘here is where they are distinct’ and ‘here is where they mix.’ In subsequent posts, though, I hope to turn to more specifics of the traditions as I saw them, to flesh out the picture somewhat.