Dhrupad
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- This article is about Dhrupad, the genre of Indian classical singing. For the character in the Mahabharata with a similar name, see Drupada.
Dhrupad is the oldest surviving genre of classical singing in India. Its name, from dhruva-pada, simply means "refrain", and today denotes both a form of poetry and a style of music in which the poetry is sung. Like all Indian classical music, dhrupad 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. What sets dhrupad apart from other styles is a slower tempo, slower melodic development, and less ornamentation.
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[edit] Origins
Abul Fazl, courtier and chronicler at the court of the Emperor Akbar, in his Ain e Akbari defines dhrupad as "Four rhyming lines, each of indefinite prosodial length of words or syllables." The four lines, in serial order, are sthayi, antara, sanchari and aabhog. Thematic matter ranges from the religious to spiritual, to royal panegyric, musicology, romance; indeed, the usual range of subjects for which poetry is written.
From what we know, dhrupad originated as devotional singing in Hindu temples and is commonly thought to have a very long history, traceable back to the Vedas themselves. From the Vedas evolved the "Udatt" and "Anudatt" forms of music, which later on evolved into Dhrupad, possibly around two thousand years ago. Under the Islamic Mughal ("Mogul") rule, it was appropriated as court music.
However, dhrupad may also be no older than the 15th Century. There is no reference to Dhrupad in Bharat's Natya Shastra, commonly dated to the 1st Century AD, nor even in Sangit Ratnakar, a 13th Century text, taken as authoritative.
[edit] Contemporary performance practice
Dhrupad, as we know it today, has a repertoire of short songs (dhrupads) which are performed by a solo singer, or a small number of singers in unison, to the beat of a double-headed barrel drum, the pakhawaj. The songs are mostly in praise of Hindu deities, but in recent centuries, Islamic or simply regalist lyrics have been written and added to the repertoire. The text is preceded in performance by a wholly improvised section, the alap, without accompaniment of the drum. The alap in dhrupad is sung without words, using instead a set of syllables in a recurrent, set pattern: a re ne na, té te re ne na, ri re re ne na, te ne toom ne (this last group is used in cadences to reach the tonic or the end of a long phrase). They are popularly thought to be derived from a sacred mantra. The singer uses the syllables like the colours on a painter's palette.
In most styles of dhrupad singing today, alap comprises the greater part of the performance. It can easily last an hour, with a slow tempo and gradual, controlled development of melody (raga). It is broadly subdivided into alap (unmetered), jor (with steady rhythm) and jhalla (speeding up) or nomtom. In this last part, the syllables are sung at a very rapid pace, sometimes incorporating very special-sounding ornamentation techniques (gamaka), and the nomtom has become one of the most popular parts of dhrupad concerts.
Traditionally, the only instrument used for playing dhrupad was the been, which is technically a fretted stick zither with strings set along a bamboo or wooden neck with a large gourd mounted at each end. The word "been" is a colloquial form of the Sanskrit "veena", the generic word used for plucked-string instruments all over India. To differentiate the been from the different south Indian veena, the latter is often called Saraswati Veena and the former Rudra Veena.
Some players have used other instruments for dhrupad. Preferably, such instruments should have a deep bass register and long sustain. As in all Indian classical playing, the instruments must support bending of the note.
[edit] Recent history
The 18th Century saw the beginning of a great decline of dhrupad singing. A new genre, khyal, gained popularity at dhrupad's expense. It placed fewer constraints on the singers and allowed for displays of virtuosity that were rare in dhrupad. In addition, the basically Hindu dhrupad was somewhat out of context in a Muslim setting; here, khyal offered something less devotional and more entertaining. Also, new instruments were being developed – the sitar and the sarod – that were not suited to the slow tempo and low register favoured by dhrupad, so that dhrupad instrumental also began to lose ground.
As a consequence, in the first half of the 20th Century khyal was all-pervasive, along with the new instrumental style of classical music, and dhrupad was becoming all but extinct. Only a few families carried on the tradition.
Almost single-handedly, one of these families, the Dagars, brought about the dhrupad revival. Dagar singers toured widely and were beginning to be recorded. Soon, this was to co-incide with the growing foreign interest in Indian music. Starting in the 1960s, dhrupad was to become almost more popular outside India than at home. Perhaps it is the stylistically easier style on the Western ear, but, as it is the older style, it was also seen as the most "genuine" and traditional. The Dagar revival also helped breathe new life into a few other families of dhrupad singers.
Today, dhrupad enjoys a place as a well-known, respected but not widely popular genre on the north Indian classical scene. It is no longer on the brink of extinction.
[edit] Styles of dhrupad
There are said to be four broad stylistic variants of dhrupad – the vanis (or banis): Gauri (Gohar), Khandar, Nauhar, and Dagar. These are tentatively linked to the five singing styles (geetis) known from the 7th Century: Shuddha, Bhinna, Gauri, Vegswara, and Sadharani – but more importantly, there are a number of dhrupad gharanas: "houses", or family styles.
How the gharanas relate to the vanis is a debated question. At any rate, the most well-known gharana is that of the Dagar family, who of course sing in the Dagar vani. The Dagar style puts great emphasis on alap, and for several generations, their singers have been known to perform in pairs (often pairs of brothers). Perhaps a bit peculiarly, the Dagars are Muslims, but sing Hindu texts. Dagar family lore speaks of twenty generations of dhrupad singers in an unbroken line. Some of the best dhrupad singers outside the Dagar family, such as Uday Bhawalkar, Dr Ritwik Sanyal and the Gundecha Brothers, belong to the Dagar vani.
From Bihar state come two another gharanas, the Malliks and the Mishras. The Malliks are linked to the Khandar vani, and emphasize the composed song over improvised alap. The Mishras practice Nauhar and Khandar vani, with some unique techniques for nomtom alap. In Pakistan, dhrupad is represented by the Talwandi gharana, who sing in the Khandar vani.
Alongside the classical performance tradition, the practice of singing dhrupad in temples continues to this day. Only a very small number of recordings of this singing has been made. It bears little resemblance to concert dhrupad: there is very little or no alap; percussion such as bells and finger cymbals, which are not used in the north Indian classical setting, are used, and the pakhawaj used is a smaller, older variant called mrdang, quite similar to south Indian classical mrdangam.
Compositions exist in time-cycles (talas) as sultala (7 beats), tivratala (10 beats) or chautala (12 beats). A composition set to the 14-beat time dhamar tala is called a dhamar. It is seen as a lighter musical form, and associated with the Holi spring festival of colours.
[edit] External links
- www.dhrupad.org – The dhrupad school of the Gundecha Brothers
- www.dhrupad.info – Dagarvani singer Ashish Sankrityayan's web site
- www.dagarvani.org – Another web site on the Dagar style
the word "dhrupad" seems to be related to the word "dhruva pad". a "dhruva pad" simply means a refrain . the derivation of "dhrupad" from "dhruva pad" is not well documented ,if it indeed occurred.
the word "alap" is a shortened form of the word "vartalap" , which can mean conversation or discourse. quite simply, the voice is used as an instrument,and addresses the listener , musically or "tonally" .[i would welcome a more appropriate term but none comes to mind just now]. therefore, no recognizable words. the other form of hindustani music where there are no recognizable words is the tarana- e -rooh, now termed as tarana; again ,in shortened form. the full word means "song of the soul".
one could of course, find all kinds of "hidden " meanings in the syllables of both alap and tarana ,but that is not the issue. the issue is what relation if any, the alap has to a dhrupad. actually, none.
as the suffix "pad" indicates, the dhrupad is a form of poetry. the alap is a form of non-poetry .the alap has tempo or more than one tempo but no beat. the dhrupad is always sung to a beat, and some beats can be played quite fast, e.g. the tevra taal. and even sul taal.
the alap is used these days simply to pad the performance because it is not "respectable" to finish off the performance in what is perceived as a short period of time.theoretically there is no reason why an alap cannot precede say, a khayal performance. in fact some singers did alap before a khayal performance,e.g. the late faiyaz khan,the late sharafat hussain khan , to name just two.
udatt and anudatt are NOT forms of music. they just happen to be 2 tones used in CHANTING the vedic texts. they have nothing at all to do with music.one can discern some semblance of udatt and anudatt in the inflexions of chinese speech, perhaps.udatt means an upward inflexion, anudatt means a downward inflexion.
in a dhrupad composition ascribed to tansen, he mentions 'chhand', 'prabandh','dhruva' and 'maatha' as forms preceding the dhrupad. it is difficult to figure out what these forms were. some years ago, 60s?,70s? all india radio did record some prabandh compositions for their archives. i am not sure if they still exist.
it is also a fallacy to say that dhrupad compositions are 'short'. most of them are really quite long . the reader is invited to see samples in the "sangitraagkalpadrum" a manuscript of the mid 19th century which was published in kolkata in 3 volumes.[bangiya press, 1914 and 1918]. this was a monumental work put together by krishnanand vyas dev.it contains all manners of compositions; dhrupad, dhamar, khayal,thumri, tappa and gazal-words only.as well as diverse songs including some in the english language!
the reason for the decline of the dhrupad can be gleaned from a comment made by capt. willard in his "music of hindustan", a work commissioned by the royal asiatic society in the late 1820s,or early 1830s.he mentions that the performance is "devoid of studied ornamental flourishes...and such flourishes as are there are always short and peculiar".
the dhrupad was replete with words and the performance but had been reduced to mere rhythm exercises. just as at a later date the khayal was to reduce itself to sarangi playing with the throat.
as to historicity, from what we know, dhrupad finds no mention in a major and authoritative treatise like that of of sarangdeva. the linking to the vedas is purely speculative and has no foundation in history.
there are neither "hindu" nor "muslim" texts in dhrupad . there are just texts. one can come come across texts ascribed to tansen in praise of hindu deities as well as of the prophet of islam and his family, for example.to be sure, there is a greater proportion of dhrupad compositions in praise of hindu deities. though an examination of the "sangeet sahasras", a compendium of dhrupad compositions, just over 1000 in number ,would appear to tilt the balance a bit in favour of secular compositions.but this needs to be verified more carefully.
the business of singers is to sing. the majority of raagis in gurudwaras of the sikhs before 1925 were muslims. but they remained muslims. they simply pursued a calling. and sang many other forms of music too.
it would be much more fruitful if one were to look for sources of dhrupad and other forms in the practice of the music of the people rather than to esoteric sources. for example, abul fazl in the ain e akbari mentions that "dhadhi women" ,accompanied on the "daf" sing the suhela and dhrupad on the occasion of nuptials and of birthdays " in a highly accomplished manner".
