Introduction of Musical Gharanas and Great Artists

Contents: Preface. 1. Classical music in medieval India. 2. Gharanas of Indian music. 3. Great artists of India. 4. Short review of musical gharana. Bibliography. Index.

"The term gharana is derived from the Hindi word ghar. This in turn can be traced to the Sanskrit word griha, which means family or house. The gharana concept gained currency only the nineteenth century when the royal patronage enjoyed by performers weakened. Performers were then compelled to move to urban centres. To retain their respective identities, they fell back on the names of the regions they hailed from. Therefore, even today, the names of many gharanas refer to places. Some of the gharanas well known for singing khayals are : Agra, Gwalior, Patiala, Kirana, Indore, Mewat, Sahaswan, Bhendibazat and Jaipur.

A gharana also indicates a comprehensive musicological ideology. This ideology sometimes changes substantially from one gharana to another. It directly affects the thinking, teaching, performance and appreciation of music.

For instance, the leisurely development of ragas as well as the premium placed on emotional content of music narrows the choice of ragas available to the Kirana gharana founded by Ustad Abdul Karim Khan (1872-1937 AD). The Agra gharana, found by Ghagge Khudabux (born in 1800 AD) has a rich repertoire of varied types of musical compositions. The followers of the gharana sang many rare ragas. The treatment of each new raga is always as detailed as that of any known raga." (jacket)