Re: Indian classical music

[Dave Stagner <dstagner@icarus.net>]

Here's another analogy between Indian classical music and looping -
the drone.  Chordal harmonic interest, in the Western sense, does not
exist in Indian classical music.  Instead, the music develops against
a drone.  I'm sure you're all familiar with that buzzing sound that we
associate with Indian music.  I can't remember the name of the
instrument offhand, but it is simply a tuned drone, creating a
background for the other musicians to work against.  It is similar to
the sitar, which has a number of resonant drone strings.  

In my own looping, I rarely use chordal development.  I prefer drones
and percussive sounds.  This might be due to my own exposure to Indian
music, or just my own ear, I'm not certain.  Several of the most
successful looping musicians I know of were also strongly influenced
by Indian music - David Torn and Robert Fripp spring immediately to
mind.  A bed of looping drones and percussion is fertile ground for
melodic improvisation.  

So I think there is not only a rhythmic, but also a structural
relationship between looping music and Indian music.  Of course, this
is all assuming a certain approach to looping - an approach I and many
others engage in, but certainly not the only musically valid approach.

Most of what I know intellectually about Indian classical music comes
from two sources.  The first was an evening's conversation with a most
excellent gentleman from India, a professor at a Northern Indian
university who sang in the classical style (he gave a concert), and
studied the folk music of Northern India.  I met him after his concert
and he invited me to dinner and described the music and his training
in great detail.  The next day, he gave a presentation on Indian folk
music, with many recordings.  This music, sadly, is dying due to the
introduction of the radio and recorded music.  

The other source was a book by English free improvisor Derek Bailey,
called (appropriately enough) "Musical Improvisation".  Bailey devoted
two chapters of this rather thin volume to Indian classical music,
praising it extensively as an improvisational structure.  He spent
much time dealing with the basic musical theory, which is more
philosophical than "musical" in nature.  Because there really isn't a
written form for the music, there is debate over even the number of
notes in an octave.  

But I digress, again.  :}  Anyway, Bailey's book is a terrific read if
you can get it, but I'm sure it is long out of print.  

-dave

By "beauty," I mean that which seems complete.
Obversely, that the incomplete, or the mutilated, is the ugly. 
Venus De Milo.
To a child she is ugly.       
   -Charles Fort              dstagner@icarus.net