How to make your music sound more Indian

Presented by Cobalt

Have you ever wanted to incorporate elements of Indian music into your own compositions, but struggled to figure out what makes it sound the way it does? Look no further than this quick and dirty guide on doing just that.

Disclaimer

I am neither a professional musician nor of Indian descent. This guide is a summation of knowledge I gained formally and informally as an amateur musician and enjoyer of the genre. Information in this guide is simplified for the sake of clarity. Any mistakes in this are mine.

'Indian' music?

What is commonly called “Indian classical music” is actually two genres: Hindustani classical music and Carnatic music. While they share core elements in melody, rhythm, and tone, they have grown to be distinct over time. Main differences are the instruments commonly used, rigidity of compositions, and degree of outside influence. This guide will specifically deal with Hindustani classical music, as that is the one I am familiar with.

Most notably, the two genres are geographically divided.

Theoretical bare bones

In order to understand what you are listening to, I will give you a rundown of the most basic elements of Hindustani classical music.

Raga

Western music has scales, Hindustani music has ragas. Like scales, a raga is a set of notes that belong together. Ragas are grouped together under a thaat, which is a parent scale. Ragas are more often than not classified under a thaat based on the mood that they evoke in the listener, rather than any mathematics. What thaat a raga falls under has implications for the time of day it is best played and the degree of variation allowed within a raga. In some ragas, the notes played ascending and descending are different, allowing for more intricate melodic developments. All these elements combined shape the 'character' of each individual raga.

Alap

Expressing the character of a raga is a central component of Hindustani music. This is done principally through an alap. The alap is the opening to any classical performance. It sets the mood and takes listeners through the phrases and melodic developments that are signature to the raga. An alap can be as short as a minute or as long as ten. It is played entirely by the main melodic instrument (or sung by a single vocalist) and without percussion. With a well-played alap, listeners will be reminded of songs composed in that same raga.

Tanpura and harmony

Harmony is not a central component in Hindustani classical music like it is in Western music. There are no chords and creating harmony through concurrent melodies is not a primary element of compositions. Instead, there is a central one-note melody that is augmented/embellished by multiple instruments playing (parts of) the melody, and a droning tone in the background. This tone is most often played by the tanpura, an instrument that repeatedly plays two notes of the key you are playing in. This serves to 'set the mood' for the performance: The tanpura drones at a slow and stable pace throughout the performance, continuously embellishing the composition that is played. It is perhaps the most signature sound of any Indian music genre.

The tanpura is either played upright or down flat like this.

Main motif and developments

Following the alap, a classical song will start with its main motif, played on whatever instrument of choice or even sung. The main motif of a song is like a chorus. It ideally involves most of the notes within a raga and is one to two bars long. If you play a 16-beat rhythm, the motif will fit within those beats. This motif is meant to be repeated often and is like a homebase that the song returns to ever so often.

Following this motif are many variations that alternate throughout the song. There can be as many variations in the song as you want, as short or as long as you want. This is where creativity comes in through improvisation. Sometimes there is one main variation, like a verse, that fits together with the chorus and plays directly thereafter. What’s important is that, after finishing a variation, you return to the main motif.

Taal

A rhythm in Hindustani classical music is called a taal. Each taal has a set amount of beats as well as a specific phrasing of each beat. The most common taals in classical music are the longer ones: Teen taal (16 beats), Ektaal (12 beats), and Jhaptaal (10 beats).

All taals are split halfway in a sam (first beat) and khali (halfway beat). This includes taals with an odd time signature. 10 beats cannot be counted as 2-3-2-3, but only as 1 to 10 and back to 1. This has to do with the cyclical nature of Hindustani music: There is a lot of emphasis on returning to the sam in a climactic way. This style of counting has implications for melody writing and the variations of the rhythm.

A visual representation of how beats are conceptualised. Notice the sam and khali beats.

Ending your song

If a song only has a main motif and variations, where does it end? That is entirely up to the players. At the highest level, the percussive and melodic parties are able to nonverbally communicatie the intent to end the song, which is then initiatied through a tihai: The repetition of a short phrase either 3 or 9 (3x3) times before returning to the first beat of the rhythmic cycle. A small tihai (3) can be played at the end of a variation to return to chorus, the long tihai (9) is mostly reserved for the bombastic ending of a song. After which, all the instruments will simply ring out.

Putting all these elements together, a composition may look as follows:

Alap - Chorus (4x) - Verse - Chorus (4x) - Variation 1 - Short Tihai - Chorus (2x) - Verse - Chorus (2x) - Variation 2 - Chorus (4x) - Variation 3 - Long Tihai - End

Make your own composition

Now that you have some understanding of the theory, it is paramount that you first listen to some songs and learn to identify the above-mentioned elements. A good place to start listening is the darbarfestival channel on YouTube. Anything that is in the 'Hindustani vocal' or 'Hindustani instrumental' playlist is fit for this listening exercise. Once you feel confident that you can identify these basic elements, it is time to try your hand at composition.

1. Get comfortable with your instrument and beat of choice

While Hindustani music uses specific instruments, you can technically use this song structure with any instruments of your choice. I actually recommend you use instruments you are comfortable with over experimenting with unfamiliar ones, as trained ears are able to hear when an instrument is doing something it shouldn't. So first, figure out your main melodic instrument. Anything goes, except instruments that have harmony within itself (e.g. double-stringed guitar).

As for the beat: While you can stick to your percussion of choice, I think it is worth it to try this exercise with a taal. Teen taal and ektaal are the easiest to go with. Go to YouTube, type something like "teen taal loop D" and take a listen. There's so many resources!

2. Pick a scale and key

Like with the instrument, you can use any Western scale for your composition. Chances are there is a raga equivalent of it anyways. What's important is that you try to draw out the characteristic of the scale. Is it happy, sad, whimsical? Play around the scale as much as needed until you gain an understanding of its mood and what motifs work well within it. It may be helpful to put on a tanpura loop in the background (YouTube is once again your friend). Hold onto whatever riffs and licks you like, because that will become the foundation of your song.

3. Start writing and improvising

My recommendation for this style of writing is to keep improvising until you feel some things stand out. See if any of it works as your main chorus: Does it include most of the notes in the scale? Does it fit within one or two bars? Do you feel it represents the ‘character’ of your scale well? Do you like its sound? If so, stick with that.

The next part, creating variations, is where you can pull out your bells and whistles. You can do virtually anything here, as long as it properly ends at the sam. Arpeggios are a commonly-used variation; start out with that. In case your chorus idea is too long, try splitting it into a chorus and verse.

4. Embellishments

Once you have your main motif and variations set, you can work on adding embellishments through other instruments. For the sake of this exercise I recommend you to not include any harmonies, but stick to the single melody as the main character. The tanpura is naturally included, but see if any other instruments can augment the main melody without becoming overbearing. If you feel bold, try to create an alap for your song!

A good guiding principle for this is to simply do or play what feels right at that moment. To me, the most important element in Hindustani classical music is to feel the raga speak to you. Let it guide you and you will never be led astray.

A typical ensemble: Singer, harmonium, tabla, and one or more tanpura players alias background singers.

Conclusion

Congratulations on reading this guide! It is now time to start listening and writing - in that order. Remember that nothing is really 'wrong' in music and that dissatisfaction with your work is part of the road to mastery. Should you use this guide then I would love to hear your work. You can share it with me by emailing me. Questions or discussions about this zine are also more than welcome. Happy playing!