Indian classical music and its popularity
Five six months ago sometime in March, I was listening to yashvant bua joshi’s poorvi raag on a TV in an Ayurvedic clinic. It’s avaibale on youtube and its a video of live performance. when you can actually see the singer performing indian classical music you can really understand what they are doing.
Indian classical music is first of all its a clasical form and not many people seem to enjoy it thoroughly. It was playing on the TV and I was enjoying it, but to my surprise, people who have not listened to indian classical music at all, or they don’t have any inclination to listen to Indian classical, 2–3 such people also started listening to it and started enjoying it! Poorvi raag is a hardcore clasical raag, some raags in indian classical are taken from folk tunes like Pahadi or Des raag which is very light and sweet in its form which is always liked by all people. Poorvi raag is not like that. It’s a serious raag. Yashwantbua was singing a Vilambit Khyal in jhoomra ( it’s a rhythm cycle with a very slow tempo 15–20 bpm almost) and people who had absolutely no idea about classical music started becoming interested.
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I personally had this inhibition always that Indian Classical is not popular music. That day I realised that it could be. If the artist is of that calibre, any form of art can be made interesting to people. This part really fascinates me. If an artist is able to realise what the ultimate aim of music (or any art form) , they can really transcend cultures, countries, languages, all the differences we have created for ourselves. That day I knew that even Indian classical music can get new people interested in it!
I grew up on Indian classical music and bollywood music. Typical Indian household where western music, Pop, RnB type of music is heavily judged for being loud or noisy. The reason I am mentioning this is because even when I don’t like a certain type of music, I fell completely in love with Michael jackson’s music. His music has screams, high pitched sounds, very heavy rhythm and bass , counter lines going all over the song. For a person who favours ballads or piano pieces , it was surprising for me that I really loved whatever was being played! There is something extremely rare and divine in his music that transcends time, space, your likings, everything. For me, that is art!
Good art always has a capacity to transcend time, space, culture , everything. Recently I attended a live concert where the singer sang a raag and after that 2 folk style devotional songs. When she was singing the raag, people were intently listening but when she started the devotional songs, the whole atmosphere was changed in an instant because she was able to convey the devotion and love through her music. Not many people knew the lyrics, or the meaning of the lyrics, by sheer use of presence and conveying emotion through voice and music, the atmosphere was changed. That sudden shift in everyone was very noticeable and I was very grateful to have witnessed that!
Really good performances can lift your energy up and that mood which is created at the time, it can linger on for a long long time. When you listen to live music as one community or one audience, something magical gets created in that. As someone who used to feel doubtful about how interesting is Indian Clasical music to those who don’t know what is it , This live concert experience or even watching Yashwant bua joshi’s video on YT with just 2–3 people on stage, was a good response from music itself !!
