Khyal

Khyal

Khyal (or Khayal: Hindi: ख़्याल, Urdu: خیال) is the modern genre of classical singing in North India. Its name comes from an Arabic word meaning "imagination". It appeared more recently than dhrupad. Like all Indian classical music, khyal is modal, with a single melodic line and no harmonic parts. The modes are called raga, and each raga is a complicated framework of melodic rules.

Khyal bases itself on a repertoire of short songs (two to sixteen lines). The singer uses these as raw material for improvisation, accompanied by a set of two hand drums, the "tabla", and usually a harmonium or bowed string instrument such as the "sarangi", violin or "dilruba" playing off the singer's melody line. A typical khyal performance uses two songs, one slow ("vilambit") and one fast ("drut"). The slow song, the "bada khyal" or great khyal, comprises most of the performance; the fast song ("chhota khyal", small khyal) is used as a finale. The songs are sometimes preceded by improvised "alap" without drum accompaniment; alap is given much less room in khyal than in other forms of classical music in north India.

As the songs are short, and performances long (half an hour or more), the lyrics lose some of their importance. Improvisation is added to the songs in a number of ways: for example improvising new melodies to the words, using the syllables of the songs to improvise material ("bol-bant", "bol-taans"), singing the names of the scale degrees — sa, re, ga, ma, pa, dha and ni ("sargam") — or simply interspersing phrases sung on the vowel A, "akar taans". Now and then, the singer returns to the song, especially its first line, as a point of reference.

History

Khayal was popularized by Sadarang (who was initially a beenkar in the court of Muhammad Shah (1719-48), by name Niyamat Khan). Sadarang was a true reformer of vocal music, one who restored the essential form of Hindustani music from its decadent Dhrupad form of the time. In the compositions of Sadarang, you see the themes of Hindi love-poetry which uses popular social relations as allegoric rendition of a Bhakt's(worshipper's) relationship with his deity. Khayal of sadarang also inherited the dignity of Dhrupad, the fluency of the Hindi and Persian languages and the manner (paddhati) of the been in its glide or meend, plus a number of musical alankars that were introduced into the body of the composition.Study of the compositions of Sadarang with respect to their musical form shows how each alankar is exactly suited to the meaning of the word it embellishes. Sadarang's music at once attractive and meaningful and rasika Muhammad Shah was impressed enough to accord royal status (darbar gayaki) to the Khyal immediately.

The gharana system arose out of stylistic rendering of Sadarang's khayals by various subsequent generations of musicians. The most original being the Gwalior gharana. Ustad Ghagge Khuda Baksh was sent to Gwalior Khayal and went back to establish the Agra Gharana. Most of the gharanas owe some learning from the original Gharana of Gwalior that followed Sadarang's music in its purity.

With India united and royal courts abolished, and with modern communications and recording technology, stylistic borders have become blurred and many singers today have studied with teachers from more than one gharana. This used to be uncommon, and a few decades ago teachers used to forbid students to even hear other gharana singers perform, not allowing them to buy records or listen to the radio. Today, as always, a singer is expected to develop an individual style, albeit one that is demonstrably linked to tradition.

In recent years, the trend has been towards more extreme tempos in khyal. Instead of slow and fast (vilambit and drut), a performance may include ati-vilambit, vilambit, madhya, drut and ati-drut - that is, ultra-slow, medium speed and super-fast songs as well. Other song forms, often with nonsense syllables, such as "taranas" or "tappas", can also be used to round off a khyal performance.

Another trend, lamented by many, is the demise of the bowed-string sarangi as an accompanying instrument. Today one more often hears the harmonium organ, which is relatively inflexible in that it cannot follow the singer's glissando. The sarangi is on the remove because it is extremely difficult to play and because it has become associated with a lower-class prostitution milieu; in the absence of a violin tradition in North India, the harmonium was there to fill the gap. Experiments with simplified, fretted sarangi clones such as the dilruba have not become very popular.

The harmonium was for many years banned on All India Radio but is accepted today. Almost universally, though, bowed-string accompaniment is appreciated as more genuine.

References

* [http://www.medieval.org/music/world/warvij.html Some words about Khyal] Retrieved 2007-06-10
* [http://www.amc.org.uk/education/articles/Khyal%20-%20Fantasy%20in%20Music.htm Khyal - Fantasy in Music] Retrieved 2007-06-10


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем сделать НИР

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Khyal — Le khyal (ou khayal) est le style classique le plus couramment pratiqué dans le nord de l Inde. Son nom vient d un mot arabe qui signifie « imagination » ou « fantaisie ». Le khyal est plus récent que le dhrupad dont il… …   Wikipédia en Français

  • khyāl — ▪ dance also spelled  Khayāl,         any of several Hindustani folk dance dramas of Rājasthān, northwestern India. Khyāl dances date from the 16th century and use themes taken from folklore and legend. They are performed exclusively by men, are… …   Universalium

  • khyal —  n.m. Style musical de l Inde …   Le dictionnaire des mots absents des autres dictionnaires

  • khyal — …   Useful english dictionary

  • Hafizullah Khyal — Ustad Hafizullah Khyal (* 1931 in Kabul) ist ein afghanischer Komponist und Sänger mit Wohnsitz in New York. Seine Kompositionen wurden von vielen namhaften afghanischen Sängern wie beispielsweise Mohamed Hussein Sarahang oder Ahmad Zahir… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Hindustani classical music — Concepts Sruti • Swara • Alankar • Raga • Tala • Thaat • Gharana Instruments melody: Vocals • Sitar • Sarod • Bansuri • Sarangi • …   Wikipedia

  • Gharana — ist eine Ausbildungseinrichtung und ein Netzwerk von Musikern der klassischen nordindischen Musik, die als Anhänger eines bestimmten musikalischen Stils und häufig auch durch Verwandtschaft miteinander verbunden sind. Indische Tanzstile werden… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • South Asian arts — Literary, performing, and visual arts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. Myths of the popular gods, Vishnu and Shiva, in the Puranas (ancient tales) and the Mahabharata and Ramayana epics, supply material for representational and… …   Universalium

  • Sarangi — Kolorierte Zeichnung eines bengalischen Sarangi Spielers von François Balthazar Solvyns. Erstmals veröffentlicht 1796[1] Die Sarangi (persisch ‏سرانگى ‎) ist das am weitesten verbreitete, einheimische Streichinstrument in Nordindien …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Klassische indische Musik — Die klassische indische Musik wurde in der gesamten indischen Geschichte in der Oberschicht, vor allem an Fürstenhöfen gepflegt. Seit dem zwanzigsten Jahrhundert wird sie von dem neu entstandenen Bildungsbürgertum gehört und praktiziert,… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”