Music is an integral part of Indian culture, perhaps one of the world's oldest evolving traditions passed down from generation to generation. Established in 1987, the NUS Indian Instrumental Ensemble (IIE) celebrates the finesse of Indian Classical music. The ensemble now consists of SIX broad sections - ethnic plucked strings (Veena, Sitar, Dan Bau, Guzheng, etc.), Violin, Vocals, Wind (Flute, etc.), Percussion and Keys.
With around 80 members comprising of students and alumni, the ensemble performs both as a full orchestra and in smaller groups. IIE's 2023 annual concert during NUS Arts Festival called "Inter/change", inspired by the historic Silk Route, won the Production of the Year (Merit), 2023 at the Tan Ean Kiam Awards, in collaboration with NUS Chinese Dance. In 2022 and 2023, IIE received the Original Work of the Year (Distinction) award for student compositions Sangamam and Bairagi, presented at our annual concerts "Bodhi - An Awakening" and "Inter/Change" respectively.
Life has never been the same for me after listening and watching this performance. Something was peeled away unexpectedly and what came under was pure realization and love 🙏♥️
Brilliant production !! Hats off to the entire team 🎉 The amount of thought and care put into arranging the various pieces really brought out the best from everyone. Every song was groovy, I especially loved the blues rendition and the sangamam as they are definitely very unique and I can hardly imagine the effort that would have gone into coming up with those concepts. GG everyone 🔥🔥👏👏👏
Thanks for giving so much information so generously about the two great systems of Indian music. But Dr. Balamurali once explained to me that Rabindra Sangit is totally a different class. May be Odissi also!
what an amazing showcase and such a beautiful repertoire, completely mesmerised by the performance 😭😭❤️❤️ truly wonderful job by the team 🙏 lowkey rewatched it 3 times already 🫡
Even though hindustani music doesnt specify types of gamakas but the mixture of meend, murki , proper gamaks and graces yields to endless combination of exploration. But yes as you said types of gamaks doesnt define raag and meend is most important. Would have been more exciting if you had used both GA in jog
I am a singer and have learnt both hindustani and carnatic music. Here are some similarities and differences between both systems of music. Both hindustani and carnatic music come from the samaveda Both hindustani and carnatic music encourage improvisation techniques Hindustani music more raga based Carnatic music is more composition based Hindustani music is the music of North India and it expands to Pakistan, Bangladesh. Hindustani music consists of a variety of languages: sanskrit, hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Gujarathi, oriya, Punjabi, bhojpuri, manipuri, kashmiri, Nepali, etc and consists of variety of compositions besides pure classical, such as bhajans, ahhangs, shabads, ghazals, rabindra Sangeet, thumris, jhoolas, kajris, tappas, Chaithis, etc... The pure classical in Hindustani music is the "khayal" and the "khayal" can be either a "chota khayal" or a "bada khayal" "khayal" literally means imagination or idea in Urdhu. " Chota khayal" is sung in medium or madhya lay or drut(fast) tempo. "Bada khayal" means the same thing as"vilambit"(slow). The composition called a "bandish" is taught to learn improvisation techniques in Hindustani classical music. A "bandish" is a fixed composition. A "bandish" literally means to tie something together. Improvisations are done to the "bandish". Bandishes are usually very short, not more than 6 to 8 lines long in length. Bandishes can have different themes: they can be God based, they can be about radha Krishna Leela, Krishna Leela, shiv parvathi Leela, ganesh, durga Matha, ram seetha pariwar, they can be nature based, such as about the rainy season, the spring season or the cuckoo singing bird, they can be about mother-in-law and daughter-in-law issues etc... Hindustani music is more about singing a raag at the proper and correct time, knowing how to develop a raag with the proper bhava., knowing how to utilize different improvisational techniques that are taught such as alaap, bolalaap, sargams, behelawa, taan etc... to expand and improvise. The audience must feel what the musician is also feeling while he/she is rendering and improvising any particular raag. this is why a Hindustani musician takes at least 40-50 minutes to develop a major raag in Hindustani classical music. And this is why in a Hindustani recital, there will be probably only 4 to 5 pieces maximum rendered. The concept of the " Thani avarthanam" does not exist in the Hindustani system like it does in the carnatic system. Carnatic music is the music of South India. It is all bhakti based music. It is all composition based. All carnatic compositions are on God. All carnatic compositions are in: sanskrit, telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and kannada. Carnatic compositions are longer than Hindustani compositions. Carnatic music was called temple music because carnatic music used to be performed in temples before it came to the current public setting. Carnatic music musicians perform more pieces than Hindustani musicians do. They have only one main long piece to perform all the others are like 10-15 minutes long and a usual carnatic music recital will be 2 1/2 to 3 hours long. Usually in a carnatic recital, there will be 6-8 or 8-10 pieces being performed depending on the length of the recital in comparison to a Hindustani recital which is a longer duration. The "krithi" or "keerthana" is what is taken for doing improvisations such as raga alapanai, nerval, and kalpana swarams improvisations in Karnatik music. A student will learn multiple number of krithis in a particular ragam to learn how to do improvisation. He/she will also be recommended to listen to great stalwarts in carnatic music such as bharat Ratna MS subbulakshmi and to listen to live concerts as well.
This is the wrong analogy. Every music style is ocean in itself.... Mastering only one instrument in any single style takes lifetime dedication and it's endless journey .(when I say instrument voice is also a instrument)..
