Indian Classical Music: Hindustani, Carnatic, Ragas and Talas

The correct answer is C, Samaveda. The Samaveda is the Veda of melody. Most of its verses are taken from the Rigveda, but they are arranged for singing rather than for recitation, and that singing is known as Samagana. Every later Indian treatise on music traces the tradition back to it, which is why the pairing appears in paper after paper.

Option A, the Rigveda, is the oldest Veda and is a collection of hymns to the gods; it supplies the words the Samaveda sings, but it is not itself the musical Veda. Option B, the Yajurveda, is the Veda of sacrificial formulae, giving the prose mantras a priest uses while performing a ritual. Option D, the Atharvaveda, collects charms, spells and remedies of everyday life along with some philosophical hymns. Of the four, only the Samaveda was organised around melody, so it alone is called the source of Indian classical music.

The correct answer is B, Sarangadeva. Sarangadeva wrote the Sangeeta Ratnakara in the thirteenth century while attached to the Yadava court at Devagiri in the Deccan. Because it has seven chapters it is also called the Saptadhyayi, and because it was written before the northern and southern traditions drew apart, both of them still treat it as authoritative.

Option A, Matanga, wrote the Brihaddeshi, the work remembered for using the word raga in something close to its modern meaning, but not the Sangeeta Ratnakara. Option C, Bharata Muni, is the author of the Natya Shastra, the treatise on drama that contains the earliest systematic description of swaras and shrutis. Option D, Venkatamakhin, belongs to the seventeenth century and to the south; his Chaturdandi Prakashika set out the scheme of seventy-two melakarta ragas that Carnatic music still uses. All four are treatise writers, which is exactly why they are offered together.

The correct answer is D, 72. The melakarta ragas are the parent scales of Carnatic music, each of them using all seven notes in both ascent and descent. The scheme that fixes their number at seventy-two comes from Venkatamakhin's Chaturdandi Prakashika, and every other Carnatic raga is treated as a janya, or derived, raga of one of these parents.

Option A, 10, is the number of thaats into which Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande grouped the ragas of Hindustani music, so it belongs to the other system. Option B, 22, is the number of shrutis or microtones into which the older theory divided the octave. Option C, 32, matches nothing in this classification and is placed there only as a distractor. The examiner's favourite trick here is to swap the number of thaats with the number of melakartas, so remember the pair together: ten thaats in the north, seventy-two melakartas in the south.

The correct answer is C, 16. Teentaal runs over sixteen matras divided into four equal vibhags of four beats each. The first beat of the cycle is the sam and carries the stress, the third vibhag opens on a khali, and the cycle returns to the sam at the end. Its regularity is why most khayal performances and most instrumental gats are set in it.

Option A, 10, is the count of Jhaptaal, which is divided unevenly as two, three, two and three. Option B, 12, belongs to Ektaal and to Chautaal, the latter played on the pakhawaj for dhrupad. Option D, 14, is the count of Dhamar tala, the cycle used for the dhamar form sung at Holi, and also of Deepchandi. Each of the four numbers is a real tala count, so the question rewards a student who has memorised the whole table rather than one entry from it.

The correct answer is C, Dhrupad. Dhrupad is austere and devotional, sung in four sections called sthayi, antara, sanchari and abhog, and it opens with a long unmetred alap. It is accompanied by the pakhawaj rather than the tabla. Raja Man Singh Tomar of Gwalior is remembered for patronising it, and the Dagar family has carried it into modern times.

Option A, khayal, takes its name from the Persian word for imagination, allows far more ornament, and only became the dominant form long after dhrupad; it is sung as a slow bada khayal followed by a fast chhota khayal. Option B, thumri, is semi-classical and romantic, with Lucknow and Benares as its centres and Wajid Ali Shah of Awadh as its best known patron. Option D, tappa, is a quick form full of short runs that grew out of the songs of the camel drivers of Punjab. All four are Hindustani vocal forms, but dhrupad is the oldest of them.

The correct answer is A, Dhrupad. The pakhawaj is a long barrel drum played horizontally with both hands, deeper and graver in tone than the tabla, and its weight suits the slow and solemn movement of dhrupad. The tala normally played on it for dhrupad is Chautaal of twelve beats, and for the related dhamar form, Dhamar tala of fourteen.

Option B, thumri, is semi-classical and is accompanied by the tabla, often with the sarangi or the harmonium supplying the melody alongside. Option C, kriti, belongs to the Carnatic system, where the percussion is the mridangam, supported at times by the ghatam, the kanjira and the morsing. Option D, ghazal, is a light-classical form set to Urdu poetry and is accompanied by the tabla with the harmonium. Candidates often pick the tabla for every Hindustani form, which is exactly the habit this question is set to catch.

The correct answer is B, Purandara Dasa. Purandara Dasa, a saint composer of the Kannada devotional tradition, is honoured as the Pitamaha of Carnatic music because he organised the way the music is taught. The graded exercises a beginner still starts with, and the choice of the raga Mayamalavagowla as the first raga to be learnt, are credited to him, and he composed a very large number of devotional songs.

Options A, C and D name the three composers known together as the Carnatic Trinity, who came two centuries later and were all born in the town of Tiruvarur in Tamil Nadu. Tyagaraja is remembered for the Pancharatna Kritis and for the annual Aradhana held at Thiruvaiyaru, Muthuswami Dikshitar for the Navagraha kritis and the signature Guruguha, and Syama Sastri for his compositions on the goddess Kamakshi. They are the greatest composers of the system, but the title of Pitamaha belongs to Purandara Dasa.

The correct answer is B, classifying ragas under ten thaats. Bhatkhande travelled across India collecting compositions and then arranged the ragas of Hindustani music under ten parent scales or thaats, among them Bilawal, Kalyan, Khamaj, Bhairav, Kafi, Asavari, Bhairavi and Todi. He also set down a system of notation and wrote at length on the practice of the music, which is why the classification carries his name.

Option A is wrong because the Pancharatna Kritis, the five gem compositions, were written by Tyagaraja in the Carnatic tradition. Option C is wrong because the pakhawaj is an old barrel drum with no single named inventor, and certainly not a nineteenth-century scholar. Option D is wrong because the Gwalior gharana is the oldest khayal gharana and long predates him. Remember Bhatkhande alongside Vishnu Digambar Paluskar, his contemporary, who did most to bring the music out of private patronage and into public schools and concerts.

The correct answer is A, Akbar. Tansen was counted among the navratnas, the nine jewels of Akbar's court, and had earlier served the ruler of Rewa. He was a disciple of Swami Haridas, and tradition credits him with Miyan ki Malhar, Miyan ki Todi and Darbari Kanada. He is buried at Gwalior beside the tomb of Muhammad Ghaus, and the Tansen Samaroh is held there in his memory every year.

Option B, Shah Jahan, ruled two generations later and is remembered in the syllabus for architecture rather than for Tansen. Option C, Krishnadevaraya, was the Vijayanagara ruler of the early sixteenth century, a patron of Telugu literature, not of Tansen. Option D, Wajid Ali Shah, was the last Nawab of Awadh and a real patron of music, but of thumri and kathak in Lucknow, three centuries after Tansen. Every option is a genuine patron of the arts, which is what makes the question worth setting.

The correct answer is B, Patiala. Bade Ghulam Ali Khan is the best known singer of the Patiala gharana, a school marked by fast and intricate taans, a free use of thumri alongside khayal, and a bright open tone. His renderings of thumris in ragas such as Bhairavi and Pilu are still treated as models of the form.

Option A, Kirana, is the gharana of Abdul Karim Khan, and later of Bhimsen Joshi and Gangubai Hangal; it is known for slow, elaborate treatment of individual notes. Option C, Jaipur-Atrauli, was shaped by Alladiya Khan and carried on by Kesarbai Kerkar and Mallikarjun Mansur, and is known for complex compound ragas. Option D, Mewati, is the gharana of Pandit Jasraj. All four are real khayal gharanas of the same era, so the pairing of singer to gharana has to be learnt as a list.