Song of India

UNESCO Courier, March, 1991 by Romain Maitra

IN any cross-cultural transfer, complete idea-systems never travel easily. Only fragments tend to be transmitted. in the case of the influence of Indian classical music on the music of the West, technical elements such as raga (colour or mood), scales and timbre have sometimes been adopted by Western composers and integrated into their individual styles and conceptions.

Aleksandr Scriabin and Gustav Holst were among the European composers who have been influenced by Indian culture and music. Both were interested in theosophy, a nineteenth-century synthetic religion that brought Indologists, philosophers, quacks and generous society ladies together beneath the all-embracing canopy of Hinduism. Scriabin's ideas about emotion and colour perhaps owe something to the concept of raga, and Holst incorporated some of the hymns of the Rig Veda in his Planets. The French composer Olivier Messiaen admired the melodic contours and ornamentations of Indian music, and developed a rhythmic theory which seems to be inspired by Indian tala or pattern of beats. In his piece Oiseaux exotiques, the percussive passages execute tala as a counterpoint to the music of string and wind instruments.

The modern American composers Henry Cowell and Alan Hovhaness used elements of Indian music in their Madras Symphony and Madras Sonata respectively. Lou Harrison and John Cage also had deep and perceptive Indian musical connections. In his Construction in Metal Cage was inspired by shrutis or microtonalities, and in his Sonatas and Interludes for piano he attempted to express in music the 5that bhavas, the abiding states of emotion which help conjure up the aesthetic response of rasa or flavour.

More recently, La Monte Young and Terry Riley have had a strong connection with India through their guru Pandit Pran Nath, who taught them Hindustani vocal music. In his The WellTimed Piano, Young used raga scales moving in and out of the texture against the continuous drone of the plano. It is also possible to detect in the works of Philip Glass and Steve Reich the hidden fibres of oriental inspiration. john Barham is a Western composer who has used the plano as if it were a santur, or Persian dulcimer.

Indian music and Western jazz and pop

A notable surge of interest in Indian classical music began in the West and especially in the United States in the 1950s, at a time when American society was waking from the conservatism of the post-war era. The atmosphere of experimentation and change was symbolized by concern for Civil Rights, by the creation of the Peace Corps, and by the growth of a number of protest movements. With the spread of the alternative culture of the young and its penchant for holy gurus and the magical, mythical image of India and its religion, Indian music became an important part of the new scene.

By the 1960s, Indian music was attracting large audiences in London, Paris, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and other big European and American cities. It seemed fresh and exciting, with deep spiritual qualities and tranquillity. Many jazz-lovers thought that it resembled jazz because of its potential for improvisation, the scope it offered for the artist and the resources of the Indian scalar or modal system.

Its great popularity was due to individuals such as Ravi Shankar, All Akbar Khan, Yehudi Menuhin and George Harrison, rather than to groups or movements. Ravi Shankar played a particularly important role. In order to make Indian music more accessible to Western audiences, he departed from Hindustani tradition by starting his concerts with a short piece which was followed by increasingly longer items. As he said in the introduction to his recording of Concerto for Sitar and Orchestra: "the listener will not find much harmony, counterpoint or sound patterns he is used to, and which form the basis of Western classical music. I have consciously avoided these, only using them minimally, because they are elements which, if emphasized, can spoil or even destroy the raga-bhava (the mood and spirit of the raga)."

George Harrison successfully endorsed this effort to introduce unfamiliar Indian music to audiences used to Western pop by removing sonic of the difficulties. The exotic tone of the sitar can be heard in the song Norwegian Wood" on the Beatles' album Rubber Soul (1965) and in "Within You Without You" on Revolver (1966).

Another approach to Indian music was adopted by the jazz trumpeter Don Cherry in his piece Humus, which is based on a series of simple themes, sounds, rhythms and two ragas, although the trumpet is not exactly an ideal instrument for producing the characteristic microtonal glides of Indian music.

Meanwhile, in India the violin and clarinet have long been conspicuous in classical, semi-classical and even some folk music. Although Western classical music has not made any noticeable impact on Indian music, pop and rock have had a strong influence on film music, most of which lacks any authentic identity or organic link with the classical mode.