Fascinating aspects of Indian classical music

• Western music has twelve notes to make seven modes, Indian music has 22 notes to make hundreds of them (called ragas, more on that topic here )

• Western rhythmic cycles include time signatures like 4/4, 3/8, 2/4, etc. Indian analogues (talas) look more like 3+2+2, 4+4+2, 7+1+2, 5+5+2+2 (learn more here )

• There a no chord progressions or chords

• It’s arguably the most sophisticated form of musical improvisation in human history with roots dating back around 6,000 (yes, thousand) years

• It is intimately connected with spirituality

• The student learns by listening to and imitating the teacher

• Instrumentalist learn to sing what they play, even percussionists

• Singing, dancing and playing instruments are not considered to be such separate things as much as in Western music

• All musicians sing and dance and feel the music inside them, then they choose to learn how to make beautiful sounds with their voice, or by using instruments which have strings that can be plucked, strummed or bowed, or instruments that make sound with air moved by breathing or with machines, or by making an amazing variety of sounds playing fantastical rhythms on drums made from wood and animal skins

You can expect taking a deeper dive in later posts …in the meantime, here’s a whole book about ragas.