More Indian music info...

Since going to one Indian classical music concert, I’ve gone to a couple of other musical events. Yesterday, I saw a famous singer from Mumbai, and I’ve also become more involved with musical performances for Independence Day (August 15). Some interesting tidbits:

-          Since Indian classical music is almost wholly improvised (within a certain framework set up by a raag, which is still not entirely clear to me), coordinating a song on stage can be difficult. Most of the motions to coordinate songs seem to be the all-familiar head-waggle as well as hand movements (especially for the singer). I am really excited to come back to the states and compare this with jazz musicians.

-          Most of the time, Indian songs seem to be about 15-20 minutes long (at least in the context of vocal performances). However, there is quite a range, and songs can really get up to about 30 minutes. Lengths of 15-20 minutes seems somewhat standard for the classical style though (at least in concert).

-          Classical music concerts are a social event: much like classical music concerts in the context of the Court, these are social events. We went to the concert last night with Naval Krishna sir, and he introduced us to many important people, many of whom were old family friends.

-          The relationship between music and dance is very visible, and, if you know the words (that some songs do have), you can almost imagine the dance. Many of the words are also sanskritic, which means that they are pretty antiquated and hard for the beginning Hindi student to understand.

Also, here are some links to some Indian classical music. A bunch of these sorts of songs were given to me in mp3 form from the music teacher here if anyone would like them when I get back to the States:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEwNSssI0bw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOMBsCgVK1k