COMPARATIVE STYLE ANALYSIS: DEFINITION OF STYLE

Introduction

This study is intended to present a comparative analysis of

the styles of three leading female singers in the domain of
Hindustani Classical Music. The three artistes are Vidushi Dr.
Prabha Atre hailing from the Kirana School, Vidushi Dr.
Kishori Amonkar who started her career as a torchbearer of the
enigmatic Jaipur-Atrauli School, but later switched to define
her own style in a rather open manner; and finally Vidushi Dr.
Veena Sahasrabuddhe representing a very prominent branch of
the Gwalior School. Its more than obvious that they would
have different styles of singing, and an altogether different
approach towards music, each to her own. More so, when we take
into account the fact that two of them sang for movies towards
the beginning of their respective careers, and those who know
the Bombay film industry, would definitely expect a certain
soft theatricality in their music. On the other hand, the one
among the three, Dr. Veena Sahasrabuddhe, who hardly ever
deviated from the formal stage of classical performances also
displays a streak of the histrionics in her music owing to her
musical lineage being connected to Pandit Omkarnath Thakur,
who was rather famous for his kind of dramatization of the
known themes of Hindustani Classical or Semi-Classical Music.
Yet, all three artistes under the lenses are different from
each other. And we want to know why. One would suggest that
why is a rather idealist question, and hence, we would limit
our study into how are they different. In this opening
chapter therefore, we would try to have a formal definition of
style in the context of pure music.

1 | Definition of Style in Musical terms

Style is an English word, etymologically connected with its
Latin origin Stilus (or stylus in English). Historically, at
one point of time, the writers of formal documents used
various kinds of stylus (nib) for different expressions as
well as levels of emphasis. Since then, variations of
expressions and rhetoric have been related to the variation of
style. This said, we observe that in modern English, there are
two different uses of the word style, either as a noun or as a
verb.

Style as a noun

1. The mode of expressing thought in writing or

speaking by selecting and arranging words,
considered with respect to clearness,
effectiveness, euphony, or the like, that is
characteristic of a group, period, person,
personality, etc.: to write in the
style of Faulkner; a familiar style; a pompous, pedantic
style.
2. Those components or features of a literary
composition that have to do with the form of
expression rather than the content of the thought
expressed

Style as a verb

1. To design or arrange in accordance with a given or

new style : To style an evening dress; to
style one's hair.
2. To bring into conformity with a specific style or
give a specific style to: Please style this manuscript.

2 | Definition of Style in Musical terms

Given the dictionary definition above, when theres a
discourse about say, costume or hairdressing etc., by
styling one would primarily mean the materials or the fabric
used and the outer appearance along with its verisimilitude
and their relative placement in the final output. However,
style is often confused with genre. Its somehow hard for most
to apprehend that a style can be spread across the genres, and
vice versa. Be it literature, visual arts, cinema or music all
the same, style as a verb, as an action, is the most confusing
area it seems. The confusion begins with the selection of
fundamental elements, and it continues till the end of the
design, or the structure/organization and the relative
placement of the elements chosen. Dhrupad-style music would
hardly be a precise definition of Agra School singing, if we
keep in mind that a Jaipur musician also does the same, sans
the Nom-Tom syllables. Using such syllables can be identified
as well as a mannerism of certain singers of the Dhrupad
genre, but using Nom-Tom only doesnt suffice to make the
music neither Dhrupad, nor Agra-style. On the other hand, in
case Dhrupad-style would mean demonstrating improvisations
almost predetermined well within the rhythmic structure, end
to end, and music being interwoven with the rhythm itself so
that it sounds like singing to the beats then thats how a
Jaipur-Atrauli singer would render a Raga and its Bandish.
However, the latter would never use the Nom-Tom mannerism, but
that doesnt keep it from being a Dhrupad derivative.

It is relatively easier to understand the style component in

literature; the writers preferences in both selection of
words (lexical preference) and the syntax of the sentences
(syntactic preferences) can be easily discovered in a close
reading of the text. Or, in other words, in a text where such

3 | Definition of Style in Musical terms

preferences cannot be read between the lines, the given text
is not a literary piece at all. In this chapter, we would try
to examine that what such close reading would mean in case of
music. However, before we get into any further elaboration of
this point, let us review what our ancient critical body of
text said about style.

Reference to the Ancient Literature

While we try introspecting into the modern formats of Hindustani

Classical Music, we must re-visit what our ancient theoreticians
said about Musical styles. Most modern critiques of the ancient
texts however, have confused between a style and a genre, and the
concepts were used almost interchangeably. For example, as we have
mentioned earlier, Dhrupad-style or Thumri-style of singing! In
the modern perspective, Dhrupad is a genre consisting of four or
five different styles (Bani) and not a style in itself. Not much
has been discussed about styles in the ancient literature, the
only exception being Sangeet Ratnakar, as expected.
Nonetheless, that the same music could be presented in various
styles, was a known fact since the Vedic ages (1500-500 BC), or even
earlier. Dhrupad is presumably a descendent of an old style of
singing the Roopak Prabandha as described in Sangeet Ratnakar
known as Bhanjani (Sthay). The modern Khayal, on the other hand,
comes from another style of the same period that was known as
Pratigrahnika. It is evident that the modern genres, or some of
them, are derivatives, or frozen forms, of some old styles.

The modern gharanas can be clearly identified with the

branches of Sama chants (e. g. Kauthumiya, Ranayaniya,
Jaiminiya etc.), Prabandhas of medieval period and the Banis
(e. g. from Shuddha, Bhinna, Besara, Sadharani, to Gaurhar,
Dagur, Khandar & Nauhar) of Dhrupads. In the ancient texts we
find reference to another form called Gaudi. The Gaudi style

4 | Definition of Style in Musical terms

probably lost its relevance in the realm of classical music,
but left its reminiscences in some other forms, such as
Kirtan. Thus today's music has already completed a long
journey through a couple of millennia. However, the modern
schools like Agra, Bhendi Bazar, Kirana etc. are not the exact
images of the old styles, nor are they discussed in the
ancient literature. The reason was simple, these modern styles
didnt exist at their times. Sufi music has infiltrated in the
mean time, and it restructured the entire philosophy of
design. Hence well have to devise new ways to analyse the
modern styles.

Discussing modern style

We have already seen that style is related to the design,

structure, architectonics or to be precise the selection
and organization of components. Whether its a noun or verb,
that is whether style is static or a dynamic action over a
timeline, it invariably refers to a design and the inherent
philosophy of such organization of elements. Organization of
what? While we are discussing music, we must therefore
identify the core elements of the body of our music. In the
context of Indian classical music, the elements are the notes
(their exact positions on the octave continuum), the sequence
of notes and the microtones, the characteristic phrases, the
patterns, the improvisation (Alankaran), and the various
techniques of voice production including glides, inflexions,
staccato and etc. We will be discussing the selection from the
wide range of such elements, and also how they are ordered,
lined up. We hardly ever use multiple layers of sound in our
music, unlike its Western counter-part, and hence harmony is
often mistakenly discarded in the modern discussions; though
in our study well also see that during improvisation at any

5 | Definition of Style in Musical terms

level, there are extensive uses of the basic principles of
harmonization. The entire philosophy of Vadi-Samvadi
relationship stands on the grounds of harmony.

True that most artists would not rework such designs

consciously. They might not even be aware of the exact
elements they are using. The learning process of music in a
way dissociates the music from the exact technical aspects.
Some of the stalwarts would even deny that such styling would
ever exist, or the discussion of style worthy a note. For
example, on March 27, 2015, in a lecture demonstration series
organised by Vidushi Dr. Kishori Amonkar (available on
Youtube) champions the idea that the styling of a musical
performance would entirely depend on two things one, the
Raga (Mode), and two, the Bhava (emotional content). Once the
Raga and the Bhava are set right, the style will automatically
follow. What she forgets to mention is that while Bhava is the
internalized content and is also to be communicated to the
audience, even to the self, latently or internally the
actual process of communication is intermediated by an
expression, which in turn is nothing but some fundamental
musical elements fashioned in some rudimentary design. All the
technical elements intervene right at the formation of the
expression, which necessitates the acquired skill, and the
principle of the design the style becomes palpable right
there. The Bhava is contextual, which can be shared with the
artiste by the audiences present at the time and place of a
given performance. For those who are not, the emotive content
is lost. In a recorded music, the style remains, and emotive
content has to be reconstructed by the listener at a different
context. To resort to an obvious example, the emotive content
of the Raga Priyadarshini might have been automatically

6 | Definition of Style in Musical terms

disseminated at its first rendition in the memory of late
Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi. But after 30 odd years, how
does one relate to Priyadarshini if it is not positioned
within the spectrum of Ustad Amjad Ali Khans style in
general? How can it be even recognized as music, if the form
with all its technicalities remains musical in the first
place? Hence the idea of Bhav being the major guiding factor
in the decision-tree that an artist follows during production
may work for an already skilled artiste and an equally
accomplished audience, or for those who have in a way defected
their original schooling and is in a perpetual transitory mode
in the quest for new styles; but not otherwise.

In the same series of lecture-demonstration sessions (March 28,

2015) Pt. Jasraj also opines that the structure and styling of
elements would primarily depend on the Bhav as delineated in the
Bandish and the literary values. In our view, this opinion poses
a challenge to the very idea of modal music. Modal music such
as ours is not supposed to depend on third-party
intermediaries as literary text. To pass the onus on Kavya
only is rather an indicator of some musical bankruptcy. Then
there are schools who would not pay much heed to the literature of
the composition at all; non-literary music is pure music for them
for example the Kirana vocalists. For the instrumentalists too,
literature does not exist at all. Hence, Pt. Jasrajs theory about
Bhav too, is incomplete at its best.

The modern styles are associated with the Schools (Gharana: a

derivative word meaning what runs in a given musical family).
Its only a post-Mughal phenomenon (started at around the fag-
end of the 17th century CE) that style and school became almost
synonymous, and such an equation between styles and schools
continued for not more than 200 years of the colonial rule.

7 | Definition of Style in Musical terms

The chauvinism associated with the Gharana, against which Dr.
Amonkar et al are presumably rebellious, and the related myths
and anecdotes come from the insecurities of the musical clans
of this age when the pattern of patronage changed after the
fall of the feudal lords. Nonetheless, a style is not a
property possessed by a family, though it definitely
represents a School of thought, with all its historical
significances.

During the post-colonial, with the advent of Pt. Bhatkhandes

homogenizing school of thought, the style as a family-run
monopoly business was quashed to a reasonable extent for
better or worse. Today, in different concerts, we get to
listen to artistes who are trained under the tutelage of
masters of different Schools, and the derivative style becomes
a mixed variety. One has reasons to be sceptical about this
mixture of styles. Towards the beginning of the last
century, there were a few people like Pt. Tarapada Chakrabarty
who could reportedly sing different Ragas in different styles
as they had imbued from different mentors of different
schools. Even today, the artist duo Pt. Rajan & Sajan Mishra
tried the same more often than not. But the other kind of
mixture, where in a single performance various styles are
tried in succession, is not quite indubitable. In a literary
analogy, it becomes a journalistic text, or an office
document, but not a literary piece of work. It often produces
grammatically correct, but semantically nonsense stuff. Music
is built on a finite timeline where the elements are styled in
accordance with a definite underlying philosophy or School of
thought. The Ragadhyana, the fundamental comprehension about a
Raga, can widely vary across the schools. Accordingly, the
order of elements used changes. What is demonstrated in

8 | Definition of Style in Musical terms

segment B, may find its justification in a previous segment A
on the same timeline. But then, if A was constructed in a
different manner, B becomes a baseless suspended projection
only. For example, in a Jaipur-style construct, the Gwalior-
style Bol-Baant becomes absolutely redundant. When a Jaipur
singer is not doing Bol-Baant, what on earth is he doing?
Again a Kirana-style exposition may not be preceded by an
Agra-style Nom-Tom Alap, the styles contradict each other.
These are only broad examples above. But in most mixed
styles, subtle contradictions and conflicts remain there to
kill the Raga ultimately. In fact a mixture of styles, cherry-
picking, must be justified by a sound philosophy working at
the background. One doesnt need to write pages on the
philosophy of the style, the singer will be the last one to
demand an explanation from. But the coherence of form in his
music must tell it all. Most of our modern cherry-pickers miss
that organic coherence in their music. Doing a Bhimsen Joshi
act is not anybodys cup of tea.

Modern rendition of classical music, especially the North

Indian variant is usually divided into three distinct
segments, and there may be further sub-segments, too. The
segments are mainly dependent on the rhythm and tempo. The
first two are on same rhythm (beat-structure) but different
tempo, and the third is usually on a completely different
rhythm. Naturally the content of these three segments are
different. There is a plethora of metaphors to clarify the
distinction between these three. Some would say that the first
part is dedicated to pure music comprising of pure notes and
improvisation, dedicated to Ragadaari. The second part
expounds the idea dormant in the literary piece, the
composition, the song that is sung. And in the third part, it

9 | Definition of Style in Musical terms

is more of a rhythmic exercise than anything else. The best
metaphor possibly comes from the Sufi domain. There is a
tendency towards drawing a parallel between the three phases
of a Sufiana Kalam known as Ibadat (prayer) - Musarrat (joyous
playfulness) - Shiddat /Ziadat (ecstasy). The technical aspect
changes in moving between these phases for sure. The patterns
change as the speed changes, and the whole lexical preference
shifts its paradigm from Ibadat to Shiddat. There is no known
reference to any similar mode changes in the ancient
JaatiGana, so this structural format is best attributed to the
Indo-Persian hybridization of music. There are styles that
would lay more emphasis on Ibadat than anything else, and then
there are people who would change gears to rise to ecstasy as
soon as possible. Finally, there are also many known styles
where Musarrat is considered as the main body of the music,
and they plan their performances accordingly. Dominance of one
tempo over others can be a clear indicator here for
identifying such differences in the styles. Nevertheless,
there is more to it than mere tempo; its a whole new approach
to the general philosophy of music and in order to decipher
such philosophical nuances, one must learn to dissect the
technicalities first.

Style: A modern approach

Rather than asking what a style is, one might consider

rephrasing the same question in a different way as to ask how
do we try to identify a style? Loosely speaking, there are two
broad phases of this identification process. In the first
phase, even without hearing the music, one might develop a
certain expectation about the music about to come; and in
phase two, after listening to the music thoroughly, there are

10 | Definition of Style in Musical terms

ways to measure it against the standards and to accurately
locate the style in the spectrum. Following is a description
of the two phases.

Phase one: Building the Expectation

1. Asking about the School (Gharana) Not that all artistes

of a given school would follow a hard coded style sheet,
nor such style sheet ever exists, but a certain tendency
towards a definite design is identifiable for sure. A few
examples might be of help. A Kirana school vocalist is
expected to deliver perfect pitch with rounded voice
intonations and a slow, meditative exposition in the
first segment. We may also expect a typical approach
towards the improvisation where the octave often doesnt
begin with Sa. And yes, some exotic Tarana is also
expected from a Kirana school vocalist. (One might
remember the names of Ustad Abdul Karim Khan, Ustad Abdul
Wahid Khan, Pandit Sawai Gandharv, Pandit Firoz Dastur et
al; the Ragas that became a fad may include Shudh Kalyan,
Todi/Gurjari, Multani, Shankara, Marwa etc.) On the other
hand a Gwalior vocalist would take on the same Raga more
in the mid-tempo zone, with zero-deviation in the
composition from what was learnt, with a pinch of Bol-
baant in every other minute of the performance. Examples
may include Pandit D V Paluskar, Pandit Krishna Rao
Shankar Pandit, Pandit Anant Manohar Joshi (Antu Bua),
Pandit Kedar Bodas, Pandit Ulhas Kashalkar and the like.
The favourite ragas being Bihag, Kedar/Kamod/Hamir,
Lalit/Bibhas etc. An Agra vocalist in his turn would
render an open-throat (sometimes a little too open
though) variant with the typical structured exposition
similar to Dhrupad or instrumental music (Tantrakari

11 | Definition of Style in Musical terms

 style). Examples here are aplenty starting with Aftab-e-
Mausiqi Ustad Fayyaz Khan, Ustad Atta Hussein Khan, Ustad
Latafat and Sharafat Hussein Khan and more. Their forte
is raga Jaijaiwanti, Nat Bihag, Sughrai, Puriya, Kamod
etc. Whatever they sing, the rendition would invariably
begin with a wide and open Sa. Moreover, despite the
utterly masculine style of rendition, most of them are
proficient in Thumri, too, which is a known feminine form
of art. The Jaipur vocalists like Pandit Mallikarjun
Mansur, Vidushi Kesarbai Kerkar, and Moghubai Kurdikar et
al would always prefer rather lesser known and composite
raga like Lalita-Gouri, Basanti-Kedar, Patbihag, Savni,
Behari etc. Finally a Patiala school vocalist would stick
to Mudki and fast descending taankari and sometimes
solfage and open-throat duality is also dished out. The
mannerisms of the doyen Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan are
widely followed across the school that may include an
exhibition of vocal range over three octaves or more,
often not exactly justified by the mood or the emotive
content. They have a habit of turning almost any Bandish
into a beautiful, romantic Thumri. We must reiterate that
while not all artistes would represent their respective
schooling in the typical course, but the expectation
remains all the same.
2. Asking about the Mentor The schooling begins with the
lyrical compositions imbued from the mentor. In most
cases, the whole idea of a raga remains codified in the
composition itself. That is how the idea propagates down
to the later progeny. One can consciously avoid copying
and replicating the mentor; but in the subconscious,
certain habits and preferences get a permanent imprint.
Learning music is more like the way the babies learn

12 | Definition of Style in Musical terms

 their mother tongue. First, they learn certain vowels and
half-consonants, then some syllables, then a couple of
meaningful words, and then finally they get to form whole
sentences to communicate. The unique expression that
characterizes the person comes even later. Learning a
language from the scratch finds a perfect analogy in
learning music, especially vocal. First there are notes,
then combinations of notes, then come the patterns both
ascending do descending, then there are some playful
sequences that would later turn into improvisations, and
then finally the entire structured exposition conjures
up. If it is a guided development under the tutelage of
an able mentor, the pupil is conditioned in the given set
of lexical and syntactic preferences. It is the same way
the so-called family values disseminate.

To find an example from the domain of music, lets take

Raga Bihag. The relation between G and S is defined here
by a characteristic glide GS typically in the note
m
sequences like P-GMG-, GS that is also considered the
catch phrase of the Raga by many. However, this glide can
have its variants too, like in Shankara, Deshkar and
Hindol. Each glide is subtly different from the others,
though in a written notation, unless the notation system
is improved, they look all the same. The student copies
the exact usage from his mentor first, and then it
becomes habitual. Also, this glide must be justified by
other such characteristic note sequences before and
after, that are there in the convention of Bihag. One can
assimilate things from other artistes too, yet there lies
a difference. For example the sequence given above is
S
distinctively different from S-S-S, GS typical of Dhrupad

13 | Definition of Style in Musical terms

 singers or instrumentalists mannerism. The pupil must
learn to differentiate between these two, and when he
can, he has already learnt his style. In another
metaphor, one can gather flowers from different gardens,
but to make a garland, he would need a thread. The style
is that thread received from the mentor. Guru bina gyan
na pawe and here lies the difference between
institutionalized education under different Guru
(mentors) and the proper Gharanedar schooling.

Phase two: Technically Analysing the Expressions

Since we have already discarded the idealistic description of

a style, the onus lies on us to formulate a rigorous
methodology that would help us in understanding the philosophy
of design from the very formalistic nuances. In course of
doing that, we reckon first that our modern understanding of
music is basically note-centric, while a style is
fundamentally word-centric. Different styles do not use
different notes, but they use the same notes in different
words, that are different unitary sequences of the same notes.
The note-centric vision has several other problems, enough to
jeopardize the entire theory of music and bring it to the
present cacophonic situation. However, we are not going into
those details in our study.

In order to analyse a style therefore, we would consider the

following aspects of music with prime import. It is obvious,
that we are mainly considering vocal music here.

1. The first thing we take note of is the Voice Production. It

has got two apparently independent though not so in reality
components, the Pitch and the Timbre. We would concentrate
on pitch to begin. True, that unlike Western music (post-

14 | Definition of Style in Musical terms

 Romantic Classical), our music doesnt strive to fit itself
in any standardised pitch spectrum. A440 or the Perfect A432
doesnt have any significance in Indian music. It is written
in the common textbooks that our base note or reference key
or tonic Sa can be placed anywhere in the audible range.
However, this anywhere is dubitable, and in simple
acoustic observations we find that the actual band of Sa
is quite small; the main frequency of Sa has to be greater
than 225 Hz (for Madhya Sa: because the minimum difference
in frequency that a human can distinctly hear, i.e. not as a
beat frequency, is 3.6 Hz, which is 1 Shruti for us) and
less than 500 Hz (because above 4KHz our sensitivity to
small variations reduces dramatically and hence the highest
main frequency, say Ati-Tar Sa, with at least one higher
harmonic 2f, cannot go beyond 2 KHz) in order to produce
any meaningful music, which is roughly between A3 and B5 on
A440 tempered scale. It wont be irrelevant to mention here
another textbookish misconception. Our modern critics often
tend to believe that the scale in Indian Music is not
equitempered in the Western sense of the word, which is
again, not true. However, here we dont use a 12tone
equitempered scale where the notes of the chromatic scale
geometrically maps onto the tones. Nonetheless, as
Sharngadev conceived it, and as it is mostly practised even
today, ours is a 22tone equitempered scale on which the
chromatic notes are distributed in a peculiar 4-3-2-4-4-3-2
manner, and that makes the difference. It also makes the
exact position of each note but tonic vulnerable, Shuddha Ma
(the fourth) for instance, and it can also be shown
theoretically that attaining the exact note is never
actually possible. The positions are presumed perceptually,
and that is also a matter of style and schooling. Hence

15 | Definition of Style in Musical terms

 there is some truth in the concept of fluidity in our
scales, but that fluidity comes into play only in the
details, relative positions, but not in the hard
restrictions on audibility imposed on us by Nature. Wrong
attribution is a characteristic of Modern Musical Theories
in India, and this is just another instance.

Music is a matter of three octaves, ideally. Not all voices

have a full three-octave range though. Three Shrutis
according to Bharata, namely Anudatta, Svarita, and Udatta
are close equivalents of medieval Saptaks Mandra, Madhya,
Tara respectively that became Udara-Mudara-Tara in the post-
colonial ages. The western equivalents have many other names
like Bass, Baritone, Tenor for the male singers and Mezzo-
Soprano, Soprano, Contralto for the female. One who has a
baritone voice would generally try to exploit that property
in his music and would hardly ever venture the soprano
range. The famous Sarparda Bhajan Karuna Kyun Nahi Ata
would therefore remain the forte of the Kirana doyen Ustad
Abdul Karim Khan and Pt. Firoze Dastur an Agra singer
would hardly ever explore that song, or even if he does, the
music will miss its usual fabric. The shrill, the shriek
almost bordering on a scream that form the essence of this
song is not to be manifested in the tenor range. Here is how
pitch and natural timbre tell on the style.

There is also seen a tendency towards creating an artificial

timbre putting in an extra effort with an extra-wide open
throat voice production. In our music, this is often
glorified as Shuddha Aa-kar. True that without an open-
throat most Alankaras are not to be demonstrated properly.
For instance, a Khatka is almost impossible while crooning
or humming. However, when this artificial timbre and extra-

16 | Definition of Style in Musical terms

 wide Aa-Kar becomes more important than the music itself, at
the end of the day one becomes a second or third-rate Agra
school vocalist at the best. The style remains, but the
music withers away. Shuddh Aa-kar was an integral part of
the natural timbre of Ustad Fayyaz Khan, but it is very
difficult to imagine that all Agra school vocalists would
share the same.

Use of such artificial timbre has been demonstrated by many

others like Bade Ghulam Ali Khan et al, who used the whole
spectrum from bass in Shuddh Aa-kar to falsetto, but they
had that necessary aesthetic sense to restrict and limit the
usage to fit into their style. Most followers do not even
bother to understand that a style statement based solely on
artificial timbre dishes out a fake style only. On the other
hand, crooning has been meaningfully used by Pandit
Mallikarjun Mansoor and Pandit Kumar Gandharva; the former
also used humming with lips tightly closed and the technique
has been termed Muh-bandh. But then, such techniques alone
do not define their Style. Same goes with the use of vowels
other than an open Aa. This technique has been meticulously
explored by Pt. Bhimsen Joshi, who used to prolong his
taankari via such other vowels restricting the loss of
breath. However, copying those vowels can produce a mockery
of Joshi-ji at the best, not his music. Hence, Pitch and
Timbre are important to style, only when they are Natural.

2. The above prompts us towards finding the other

characteristics of a style. The second most important thing
is probably the Lexical Preference, which prefers certain
words or fixed note sequences over others. There are a few
classic examples like gMgMPMRSR in Nayakai Kanada without
which the raga remains incomplete according to the Jaipur-

17 | Definition of Style in Musical terms

 Atrauli artistes. Another example is GM,GMPMG,rG in Purvi
made essential by Ustad Fayyaz Khan. Also the Bagesri Anga
in Jaijaiwanti manifested as MDnSDnP,GMR enjoys somewhat
the same stature. The presence of such words in the music
gives us a clear picture of the lineage of the artiste, even
if it was not directly imbibed from the immediate mentor.
3. The lexical preference also comprises of preferences towards
certain patterns, and effects like glide, undulation etc.
that work as transition between notes. A long glide between
two notes is certainly different from an undulation between
them, and hence in Darbar Kanada, the words RMg with a short
grace note M but a very long glide is distinctively
different a word from R (M~g). One may use both, but the
preference to one over another is related to the Style. Its
difficult to locate a Khatka in a pure Kirana school Alap,
but its rather frequent in a typical Gwalior school Alap.
4. Another important concept that is there to be introduced in
order to identify the style is that of Action Zone. In an
octave, there are typically two to four nodal points of
which two are the harmonically related Vadi-Samvadi (Point-
Counterpoint); and the others are one or two more landing
notes that serve both as a point of departure for a piece of
improvisation and as a terminal point for the same. For most
artistes, most Ragas, and in most schools, these latter two
are typically Sa and Pa, the tonic and the fifth. However,
styles often differ in interpreting these 4 nodes. The
Bhatkhande School theory would suggest that the Vadi-Samvadi
pair must be placed in a single octave. However, there are
schools like Kirana, who would often conveniently place the
Samvadi in another octave. It makes a visible difference in
the interpretation of Raga like Gurjari. The pair for Todi
is g-d in the same octave, but for a Kirana exponent, in

18 | Definition of Style in Musical terms

 Gurjari the Vadi is r and the Samvadi goes to the Mandra
octave d (Komal Dhaivat). That prevents Gurjari being a
Todi-like Raga, rather it becomes much closer to Marwa. On
the other hand, the tonic Sa is essentially the primary
point of departure (Graha Swara) in all Agra school
performances irrespective of the Raga, and so also in
Bhatkhandes specified Swara-Malika because of Pt.
Bhatkhandes affinity towards Agra. Nonetheless, neither
Gwalior, nor Kirana would agree to it. In the three active
octaves therefore, there are 12 such nodes at the most.

Now in a systematic Alap, or Vistar for that matter, all

these nodes are treated individually. The characteristic
words and phrases with the right syntax are explored
around each node before moving on to the next. Thus action
zones are defined around every such node, 12 zones at the
most. Obviously then the style that treats the second zone
exclusively leaving no traces of the first zone in it
becomes characteristically different from the style where
the action zones actually expand to include both adjacent
nodes. Hence, there are two fundamental styles one being
inclusive, that of Khayal, and the other being exclusive,
that of Dhrupad. The tempo changes too. In the time
intervals of similar length, both asset and assassinate
can be uttered, but that would signify a markedly different
style in each case. Usually the higher the node is the
longer the words are, but not in Dhrupad. Hence, the
inclusive style of Khayal makes it a Khayal in the first
place.

One can imagine any number of variants of such inclusive

styles based on the action zones, each corresponding to a
Gharana or an Individual Style.

19 | Definition of Style in Musical terms

5. The last but not the least is the overall structure of
exposition as we have already hinted at. The distribution of
time for Ibadat-Musarrat-Shiddat, in other words, Vilambit-
Madhyalay-Drut is the final determinant. Irrespective of all
other preferences, this distribution might override the
entire philosophy of style, and it can also be dependent on
the specific audience, and the artistes attitude towards
them. One may think of put a curtail on the slower parts and
lower band action zones while emphasizing on the higher and
faster parts in his repertoire; or might just ignore the
audiences and stick to his own slow, contemplative style as
Ustad Amir Khan Sahib often did.

From the discussion above, we have seen that there is a

dialectic relationship between the exposition (and its
architecture) and the improvisation (and the technical
preferences). The entire Style is dependent on this dialogue
between improvisation and exposition. We will take this as a
primary definition of style, and move on to the later sections
of our study.

C Parthapratim

20 | Definition of Style in Musical terms