Research in Music – Melodious or Mechanical?
Research in Music – Melodious or Mechanical?
Dr. Ragini Trivedi
Last fortnight I was fortunate in receiving several queries from prospective research scholars related to different areas of Indian Classical Music. One was working on the Classification of Raga-s and Recently Composed Raga-s, another one was dealing with Classical Elements in the Folk Music of a particular region while a third dealt with Contribution of Strings Artistes of a particular state in Propagation of String Instruments. These scholars belonged to different parts of India and were enrolled in good universities. While their synopsis and questionnaires were correct in format, I could not help doubting whether they had ample understanding and training necessary to deal successfully with their projects.
Moreover, the regionalization or compartmentalization so evident in all their topics somehow undermined the validity of their studies. The students had gathered some questions and hoped to find a solution by compiling the various answers received. They preferred this mode of distance learning to in-depth study or personal interviews. One had posed such questions as
• What is the Best technique of classification of Raga-s?
• Is there any necessity for creation of New Raga-s?
• Who can create a New Raga?
• How shall the future of Classical Music be affected by creation of new Raga-s?
These questions, some genuine and some verbose, emphasized the disregard extended to scientific study of music in our curriculum. On one hand, modern academicians as well as senior performers make out the study of music to be a practical performance oriented exercise best carried out under one-to-one learning system. On the other hand, die-hard theoretician want them to memories the history of music Vedic period onwards. Somewhere in the duel between these two opposed stances, the real study of Indian music – through categorization, principles of sound, calculus of musical notes – has been side-tracked. So today, a student is more likely to know Sruti as an historic symbol, rather than understand the mechanism of determining its value in a given composition. I was saddened to learn that such a low profile discipline like music scholarship too is not safe from the modern gadget-gloss-glamour attitude.
I advised the scholar in question –
If you do not want your research to swoop down to the level of superficial, matter-of-fact journalistic inquiry, you should not ask so many questions all at once. In fact, the very first question emphasizes your ignorance about Indian Music. The method of classification is not to be settled by vote. It has to be examined on principles of scientific inquiry. You should read the fundamental books first, hypothesize and then seek the comments of scholars on your premises.
I felt sorry in having to explain to this M.Phil. level student the first principles of research -- to examine one’s working bibliography. The number of books one has been able to mark as being relevant to his topic; how many of them could actually be located in libraries one could access and finally listing the books the scholar could actually read? I informed him that his questions could be answered almost in monosyllables but would do little to enlighten him.
The topic he had been led to work on is meaningful and relevant. I admitted to him that if properly carried out, it would be a study that would add to existing scholarship. With pioneering work of Prof. Lalit Kishor Singh {Sound and Music, Bharatiya Jnanapith}, Acharya Brihaspati, Pt. Omkar Nath Thakur and Dr. Lalmani Misra that laid bare the scientific principles on which Indian Classical Music is based, such specific studies are welcome. It is these that shall provide a micro-vision of this art-form. The sociological aspect of music or its economic appreciation is as justifiable as is the pop-culture aspect. These fringe studies also enlighten the mainstream scholar. Still more fundamental and welcome is the study of trends, scientific categorization, evaluation of various styles etc. I came across a query on www.omenad.com, which evidences the interest of young people in the intricacies of Indian Music. Someone had asked,
Where can I get notations of rare Ragas like Kukubh Bilawal, Lachha Sakh, Barari, Simhendra, Anand Bhairavi, Godhan Gouri and such like?
It bolstered my faith in pursuit of music scholarship. Indeed, the field is vast. Take up any one Raga and study its presentation by artistes of different schools, generations and preferred instrument of performance and one could land up with enough data that would require a state of art data-processor. Relate the variations to external changes in society that affect sound, acoustics, leisure-time and access and we would be able to chart the fundamentals for a model of aesthetic appreciation.
Of the fifteen odd questions in another questionnaire that I received, there seemed not one, which could actually assess my contribution as string-performer in promotion of music. By disclosing the “source of my inspiration” or discussing the “problems and solutions” of my chosen instrument or even highlighting how would the “changes made” by me “in style” be beneficial to future students, I failed to understand any direct contribution to the original problem of the study. It is almost like expecting a particle in a wave that merely oscillates about a point, to begin traveling on the wave-path. There were earthy questions like listing one’s prominent disciples and their achievements; sociological questions like assessing the role of women performers and eternally elusive issues like formulating the relation between Indian Classical music and Spirituality. I was happy. This particular student had brilliantly brought together all anomalies of modern music scholarship at a single place. If she had asked about the Raga-s of choice, frequency of their performance and repetition, it might have been a constructive step towards a stylistic study. What really pained me was the final phrase of the topic (Contribution … artistes of the STATE of XYZ). Is classical music to be treated at par with agriculture, milk-production or electricity generation of a particular region? True, the ancient schools or Gharana-s are on decline and most musicians assimilate styles (To quote Prof. Ashok Bajpai, “There is no longer Gwalior in Gwalior, or Agra in Agra…) yet shall these practitioner of complex art be grouped together after the geographical locality they happen to be in? It decimates the scientific spirit and zeal with which the twentieth century scholars established Indian Classical music as a discipline that could be studied with rational objectivity.
The questions are all there. They are real, pertinent and of immediate interest. They fire young minds, but due to lack of training and information, the young scholars handle it superficially thereby shutting the doors upon a deeper and meaningful study. The academicians should rise to solve this problem and inculcate meaningful changes in the syllabi as well as methods of teaching.
Dr. Ragini Trivedi
by Research in Music – Melodious or Mechanical?