CHAPTER 1

The Meaning of Music

Because human beings live in societies based on mutual ideas andactions, they must possess some medium that can express andexchange their feelings. Like language, music has been a source of suchexpressions from the very ancient times.

Music is the pride of our Indian culture and is based on scientificprinciples.

What is a musical instrument? While one can attempt to give ananswer, however vague, the query itself implies others: What is music?What is the origin of music? What are the ancient forms?

Swami Prajnanand wrote in his 1973 book, Historical Development ofIndian Music: "Music, the English word, is a derivative from French wordmuse."

In Latin, the term is musica. In Sanskrit, it is called gana, giti, orsangeet. The later treatises on music have explained or rather definedsangeet as the combination of vocal music, drumming, and dance (geet,vadhya, and nritya).

Pt. Sharangdev wrote in his book, Sangeet Ratnakar: "GeetamVadhyam tatha Nrityam Triyam Sangeet muchyate."

The three forms vocal music, instrumental, and dance combinedtogether are called sangeet.

Pt. Ahobal wrote in his book, Sangeet Parizaat: "Geetam VaditreNrityam Triyam Sangeet muchyate."

Indian music, or sangeet, comprises three arts: gayan, vaadan, andnritya. Sangeet is a technical term, used for vocal and instrumental music,along with the art of dance.

The Origin of Music

The Indian form of music is one of the oldest in the world, as is evidentfrom historical facts about India.

According to Swami Abhenananda, writing in his 1968 book Indiaand Her People: "If we read the writings and historical accounts left byPliny, Strabo, Magasthanese, Herodotus (who lived in the Vth centuryB.C.), Prophyry and a host of other ancient authors of different countries,we shall see, how highly the civilization of India was regarded by them."

In fact, between the years 1500 BC and 500 BC, the Hindus were soadvanced in religion, metaphysics, philosophy, science, art, music, andmedicine that no other nation could stand as their rival or compete withthem in any of these branches of knowledge.

To find out the history of a topic, one has to collect historicalinformation and facts and go deeply into the roots of the matter. It is theduty of the historian not to let that past be forgotten. He or she shouldtrace these gifts back to their sources, give them their due place in the timescheme, and show how they influenced or prepared the ground for thesucceeding ages. It is important to discover what portion of present-dayIndian life and thought is the distinctive contribution of each race or creedthat has lived in this land.

To discover the origin of music, I studied a vast literature on Indianmusic.

In no other art, science, or other department of human activity hasthe doctrine of evolution been so enthusiastically welcomed, so eagerlyadopted, and so wholeheartedly endorsed, as in music.

Writing of the remote origins of music in Vishwa Sangeet Ka Itihas,Amal Dash Sharma maintained: "Vocal efforts may have originated inimitation of the cries of the animals, which were mimicked, but of theorigin of the musical instruments, it is difficult to speak with certainty."

The first sound produced by the human throat was musical. Thevibrations of vocal chords created sound. The main property of music issound or naad. The naad is unchangeable.

The view of Erwin Felber, expressed in his book The Indian Musicof the Vedic and the Classical Periods, was that: "Speech and music havedescended from a common origin in a primitive language, which wasneither speaking nor singing, but something both."

Music is a science in which laws are fixed and invariable. Just like twoplus two is four in the West as well as in the East, the fundamental lawsof music are also permanent for all people of all ages. Even now, naad isconsidered to be the basis of music.

In his book Natya Shastra, Bharat discussed the atodhya vidhi in whichhe has explained the human body as the shariri veena, because vocalchords function as strings: "So our throat is the most beautiful and sweetinstrument."

It is written in our Hindu Vedas that, when the universe came intoexistence, Brahma created music and gave it as a gift to Lord Mahadeva,who then gave it to Devi Saraswati, who became the goddess of music,and people worshipped her as veena pustak dharini.

The excavations in Mohenjodaro and Harappa have brought to lightthe place of music in ancient and prehistoric periods and show the highstatus of music at those times. Many valuable objects, such as seals, sacredtanks, dolls of the deities, and musical instruments like crude types offlutes, lutes, and veenas, have been found. These veenas were stringedinstruments having structures for seven notes.

The Vedas are the most important fundamentals of all wisdom. Theyare the basic granths of Aryans written in Sanskrit and are storehouses ofthe knowledge in every aspect of social and cultural life of the people ofthat time. We come to know from Vedas that Narad, the son of Brahma,invented the veena, a stringed instrument, which became very muchpopular in those days.

Besides Vedic sangeet, gandharav sangeet was prevalent. It enjoyed aspecial place in the field of Indian music. Vedic music was formalized asit followed rules and methods. The name Gandharav was given to a greatmusician. A methodical system had already been worked out before theage of Panini, who lived about 600 BC. This methodology was adoptedby Persians, Greeks, Arabs, and by Europeans too.

In the Vedic period, the scale of four notes known as swarantra cameinto existence, although the actual, precise origin of Vedic music cannotbe traced.

An account of the well-known seven notes Ma, Ga, Re, Sa, Ni, Dha,Pa, whose...