This post draws on a personally observed analogy, and is not a scholarly study of two activities. It attempts to unravel the intricacies of classical music using that analogy and can help the uninitiated understand and appreciate classical music to some extent.
I'd spent a month in the Western Himalyan Mountain Ranges about 3 years back professionally learning mountaineering. Few of those days were spent in learning rock climbing in some depth. I was struck at the extent of the analogy that can be drawn between classical music, which I'm learning now and a completely unrelated adventure sport like rock climbing.
In rock climbing, the first thing we do is study the rock and become one with it. Identify the path to be taken, locate holds, cracks, ledges and the like, most of which would be almost invisible to the untrained eye. A rock climber before climbing first builds his/ her finger/ toe strength with specialized exercises apart from those for general fitness and stamina. Then he/ she learns to identify different types of holds and supports to use for climbing, in the rock and also techniques to hold onto different types of holds and ways to support the weight on them. Also to be practiced are ways of moving efficiently and gracefully from one support to another.
The rock climber before climbing the rock does what is known as eye-climbing. Here, he/ she identifies a path to be taken and simulates the entire climb, identifying all supports and planning the techniques most suitable to be used on them, to avoid getting lost midway. There could be many paths to climb the same rock, each one with its own set of challenges. Paths could be easier and smoothly flowing in the beginning or at some other time, have a certain type of hold being more prominent and requiring extra command over and others being not so important for that particular chosen path, there could be various actions (in terms of choice of hold to catch onto, or approach to anchoring yourself onto a chosen hold) that could be taken on a chosen path to continue the ascent and so on... Its basically about making few big choices at the onset and then making many many small choices as you go on.
In Raag based music, the tanpura substitutes the rock as an independent and complete entity. Before synchronizing oneself with the tanpura and interpreting and presenting the melodic structures that a trained singer reads from it, one must first build the strength of the throat and vocal chords with some specialized techniques. In Dhrupad (the oldest surviving form of Indian Classical Music), the extent of emphasis on proper voice culture techniques is truly exhaustive to the point of being extraordinarily difficult and even at times painful; but once mastered, the voice is then able to deliver really beautiful and rich harmonics with the notes being sung, which in the layman's language translates to an extraordinarily rich sounding, resonant, powerful yet amazingly mellifluous voice. Once this is done, the reading of the tanpura begins. We start to learn to recognize the various notes and microtones (shrutis) that slowly uncover themselves from within the demure folds of the drone. Then we learn to anchor ourselves onto these 'holds' and play around with them, move from one to another, make long and short jumps and basically gain control over their delivery from within ourselves.
Then starts the raag itself. The raag is like the path chosen by the rock climber. It will have certain notes being more prominent than others, movements particular to its own realm, and moods associated with certain parts/ phrases and so on. This task becomes more daunting because most of the notes exist only as probabilities and not discretely. The skill and dexterity required to move in the right manner from one note to another while still maintaining an aesthetic appeal is incredibly high, and doing it successfully is a task that requires hours of 'riyaaz' or time spent dwelling on each note of each raag independently and then travelling along with them based on the structure of the raag aided of course by individual creativity and imagination. Here too, it is a game of making few big choices and many smaller ones at an instantaneous level. Spontaneity plays a major role in Raag based music as the possibilities are almost literally infinite and too much of planning and fixed structures could end up being redundant and irrelevant to the moment.
In rock climbing, if you do not anchor yourself properly, you plummet down to be jerked up by the safety rope tied (the absence of which could lead to a sticky end.. :P ). In classical music, though one does not literally plummet to his physical downfall, incorrect positioning of the note invites severe criticism from listeners and an abrupt severance of the deep spiritual connection that gets established in the course of the recital.
An experienced rock climber climbs so gracefully and seemingly very effortlessly navigates the subtlest and most complicated of paths with such ease, that it is a real pleasure to watch him/ her in action. In my opinion, it is an art form in its own right and can give great joy to those who dive into the depths of the stone...
The analogy being drawn here of course has its boundaries, and a complete parallel very obviously cannot be drawn between two completely different endeavors. However, the extent to which the analogy could be drawn seemed to satisfactorily explain some of the intricacies of classical music to a newcomer.
Hope it helped demystify to some extent the esoteric world of Indian Classical Music :D
I'd spent a month in the Western Himalyan Mountain Ranges about 3 years back professionally learning mountaineering. Few of those days were spent in learning rock climbing in some depth. I was struck at the extent of the analogy that can be drawn between classical music, which I'm learning now and a completely unrelated adventure sport like rock climbing.
In rock climbing, the first thing we do is study the rock and become one with it. Identify the path to be taken, locate holds, cracks, ledges and the like, most of which would be almost invisible to the untrained eye. A rock climber before climbing first builds his/ her finger/ toe strength with specialized exercises apart from those for general fitness and stamina. Then he/ she learns to identify different types of holds and supports to use for climbing, in the rock and also techniques to hold onto different types of holds and ways to support the weight on them. Also to be practiced are ways of moving efficiently and gracefully from one support to another.
The rock climber before climbing the rock does what is known as eye-climbing. Here, he/ she identifies a path to be taken and simulates the entire climb, identifying all supports and planning the techniques most suitable to be used on them, to avoid getting lost midway. There could be many paths to climb the same rock, each one with its own set of challenges. Paths could be easier and smoothly flowing in the beginning or at some other time, have a certain type of hold being more prominent and requiring extra command over and others being not so important for that particular chosen path, there could be various actions (in terms of choice of hold to catch onto, or approach to anchoring yourself onto a chosen hold) that could be taken on a chosen path to continue the ascent and so on... Its basically about making few big choices at the onset and then making many many small choices as you go on.
In Raag based music, the tanpura substitutes the rock as an independent and complete entity. Before synchronizing oneself with the tanpura and interpreting and presenting the melodic structures that a trained singer reads from it, one must first build the strength of the throat and vocal chords with some specialized techniques. In Dhrupad (the oldest surviving form of Indian Classical Music), the extent of emphasis on proper voice culture techniques is truly exhaustive to the point of being extraordinarily difficult and even at times painful; but once mastered, the voice is then able to deliver really beautiful and rich harmonics with the notes being sung, which in the layman's language translates to an extraordinarily rich sounding, resonant, powerful yet amazingly mellifluous voice. Once this is done, the reading of the tanpura begins. We start to learn to recognize the various notes and microtones (shrutis) that slowly uncover themselves from within the demure folds of the drone. Then we learn to anchor ourselves onto these 'holds' and play around with them, move from one to another, make long and short jumps and basically gain control over their delivery from within ourselves.
Then starts the raag itself. The raag is like the path chosen by the rock climber. It will have certain notes being more prominent than others, movements particular to its own realm, and moods associated with certain parts/ phrases and so on. This task becomes more daunting because most of the notes exist only as probabilities and not discretely. The skill and dexterity required to move in the right manner from one note to another while still maintaining an aesthetic appeal is incredibly high, and doing it successfully is a task that requires hours of 'riyaaz' or time spent dwelling on each note of each raag independently and then travelling along with them based on the structure of the raag aided of course by individual creativity and imagination. Here too, it is a game of making few big choices and many smaller ones at an instantaneous level. Spontaneity plays a major role in Raag based music as the possibilities are almost literally infinite and too much of planning and fixed structures could end up being redundant and irrelevant to the moment.
In rock climbing, if you do not anchor yourself properly, you plummet down to be jerked up by the safety rope tied (the absence of which could lead to a sticky end.. :P ). In classical music, though one does not literally plummet to his physical downfall, incorrect positioning of the note invites severe criticism from listeners and an abrupt severance of the deep spiritual connection that gets established in the course of the recital.
An experienced rock climber climbs so gracefully and seemingly very effortlessly navigates the subtlest and most complicated of paths with such ease, that it is a real pleasure to watch him/ her in action. In my opinion, it is an art form in its own right and can give great joy to those who dive into the depths of the stone...
The analogy being drawn here of course has its boundaries, and a complete parallel very obviously cannot be drawn between two completely different endeavors. However, the extent to which the analogy could be drawn seemed to satisfactorily explain some of the intricacies of classical music to a newcomer.
Hope it helped demystify to some extent the esoteric world of Indian Classical Music :D
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