Rasa & Bhava in Indian Music - 05 of 06

Following is the flow of the fifth of six part special, Rasa & Bhava in Music:

- snippet of tere mere sapne ab ek rang hain (Guide,1965)

- A single raga can evoke diverse feelings and thus we discuss compositions where two or more bhaav are used in varying proportion

- Understanding rasa in Indian music
- How does one rasa give way to another like shringar to hasya, raudra to karuna, veera to adbhuta and bibhatsa to bhayanaka?

- How audiences experience and enjoy the dominant mood (sthayi-bhava) created by various bhava and abhinaya in a composition. This experience, which is possible only through mental perception is termed as natyarasa.

- What happens when we blend two dominant moods together in a single composition?

- To explain this in detail, we take raga nand as an example - traditionally, raga nand stimulates shaant rasa and can float into shringar as well karuna rasa. So we will listen to raga nand in three different forms with varying proportions of shringar and karuna rasa.

- snippet of tu jahan jahan rahega mera saaya (Mera Saaya,1966)

Hope you enjoy listening to the show, Bollywood Rewind: Rasa & Bhava in Indian Music (05 of 06) –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrNqVfnq8qk

I do not own rights for the songs and the visuals used in this video. If any concerned individual or an organization has an objection to the music or visuals used here, kindly notify me and I’ll promptly pull it down.

Rasa & Bhava in Indian Music - 04 of 06

Bollywood Rewind is a one-hour special segment series that's played every Sunday morning between 8am to 9am on Bahrain's only Indian Radio Station - 104.2 Your FM. It discusses the influence of Indian Classical and Folk music in the vintage era of Hindi Film industry. You can tune-in to listen to the station live at http://tunein.com/radio/1042-YOUR-FM-s178828/

This segment has been extremely popular with the audiences since it started airing in August 2014 and I have been happy to be a part of this journey with the morning show hosts, Hemang and Neeti. Although Bollywood Rewind as the name suggests is broadly based on music from the Hindi Film industry; in each episode we select a topic and try to dig deep into various cultural and artistic influences that would have inspired the popular music of yesteryears in India. Although the show is in Hindi, we use a significant amount of English in our conversation for the benefit of those listeners who are not extremely comfortable in Hindi.

Last month, for the first time I posted links of an episode of Bollywood Rewind on this blog, the first three of the six-part special, Rasa & Bhava in Music. In short, rasa & bhava are the fundamental ingredients that form the true essence of music, where the performer and the audience fuse into one.

To keep it simple and easy to understand, the conversation has been essayed from the perspective of a performer vis-à-vis from the audience’s point of view and references have been used from classical music than popular music.

Following is the flow of the fourth of the six-part special, Rasa & Bhava in Music:

- snippet of madhuban mein radhika (Kohinoor, 1960)
- Explaining how some compositions express a bhava that does not match the primary rasa of the raga – like, a particular composition which is a veer-rasa-pradhan raga has the potential in its swar-sangati to evoke the veer rasa in the mind of the listener. But this cause-and-effect relationship cannot be applied every time without conditions.
- This is because a bhava is created out of aesthetics accompanying the creation of the swar and music therefore is only the combined effect of swar, laya, taal, raga and bandish. Together it creates a beautiful mahaul.
- While music is universal, yet the meaning of music is not universal. The meaning of music differs from person-to-person as it largely depends on one’s perception. Musicians usually consider their own music to be good quite simply because they understand it. If the listener is unable to understand it, he may not like it, even though it may be good. This is what I would call the ‘mental make-up. And this mental make-up plays an important role in appreciating music.

- A swar has no independent identity. It is identified always in relation to something. Standing alone, we do not know whether it is a dhaivat or a pancham. It is only with respect to a particular shadja that you can identify a dhaivat or a pancham or any other swar in the saptak.

- Similarly, when it comes to language; alphabets do not come with a pre-conceived emotion. Like A, B or C, they doesn’t mean anything. But words do. Sentences do.
- snippet of nainon mein badra chaaye(Mera Saaya, 1966)

Hope you enjoy listening to the show, Bollywood Rewind: Rasa & Bhava in Indian Music (04 of 06) –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe0hRE3Kb_4

I do not own rights for the songs and the visuals used in this video. If any concerned individual or an organization has an objection to the music or visuals used here, kindly notify me and I’ll promptly pull it down.

Rasa & Bhava in Indian Music - 03 of 06

Following is the flow of the third of the six part special, Rasa & Bhava in Music and in this link; we discuss in detail the duality factor in Indian classical music:

- snippet of baadal ghumad badh aaye (Saaz, 1997)

- explaining the duality factor in Indian classical music

- Musicologist Sharangdeva’s theory of co-relating of rhythm and rasa

- Tabulation of using the correct tempo to convey the desired emotion

- How a different rasa can be created utilizing dynamics like volume levels

- snippet of abhi na jao chhod-ke (Hum Dono, 1961)

Hope you enjoy listening to the show, Bollywood Rewind: Rasa & Bhava in Indian Music (03 of 06) –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEMACEzPT-w

I do not own rights for the songs and the visuals used in this video. If any concerned individual or an organization has an objection to the music or visuals used here, kindly notify me and I’ll promptly pull it down.

Rasa & Bhava in Indian Music - 02 of 06

Following is the flow of the second of the six part special, Rasa & Bhava in Music:

- snippet of dekha ek khwab (Silsila, 1981)

- Nav-rasa: what are the 9 rasas? What does each rasa mean?

- Rasas other than the ones mentioned in Nav-rasa

- How does one apply a rasa to a composition?

- Musicologist Sharangdeva and his interpretation of the Rasa Theory in Sangeet-Ratnakara.

- Theory about how each note carries its own scope of emotions with it.

- How the mood or bhava of a raga is dictated by the dominant notes in it, which would impart their emotional color to the melody.

- snippet of naina barse rim jhim (Woh Kaun Thi, 1964)

Hope you enjoy listening to the show, Bollywood Rewind: Rasa & Bhava in Indian Music (02 of 06) –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2u_nAnmEbNs

I do not own rights for the songs and the visuals used in this video. If any concerned individual or an organization has an objection to the music or visuals used here, kindly notify me and I’ll promptly pull it down.

Rasa & Bhava in Indian Music - 01 of 06

Bollywood Rewind is a one-hour special segment series that's played every Sunday morning between 8am to 9am on Bahrain's only Indian Radio Station - 104.2 Your FM. It discusses the influence of Indian Classical and Folk music in the vintage era of Hindi Film industry. You can tune-in to listen to the station live at http://tunein.com/radio/1042-YOUR-FM-s178828/

This segment has been extremely popular with the audiences since it started airing in August 2014 and I have been happy to be a part of this journey with the morning show hosts, Hemang and Neeti. Although Bollywood Rewind as the name suggests is broadly based on music from the Hindi Film industry; in each episode we select a topic and try to dig deep into various cultural and artistic influences that would have inspired the popular music of yesteryears in India. Although the show is in Hindi, we use a significant amount of English in our conversation for the benefit of those listeners who are not extremely comfortable in Hindi.

This is the first time that I am posting a link to an episode of Bollywood Rewind on this blog, and I couldn’t think of any other show than the 6-part special, Rasa & Bhava in Indian Music. In short, rasa & bhava are the fundamental ingredients that form the true essence of music, where the performer and the audience fuse into one.

To keep it simple and easy to understand, the conversation has been essayed from the perspective of a performer vis-à-vis from the audience’s point of view and references have been used from classical music than popular music.

Following is the flow of the first of the six part special, Rasa & Bhava in Music:

- snippet of nazar lagi raja tore bangle par (Kala Pani, 1958)

- Introduction of the theme: what is it that sets a mood in a particular composition?

- Indian classical music is based on four pillars – sur, raga, taal and laya. But the spirit of classical music lies in the journey where the performer and the audience fuse into one; and this journey is rasa. The attainment of this purity is of utmost importance in Indian classical music.

- What is rasa?

Rasa is an ancient Indian Sanskrit word that is better experienced than read to clearly understand. It denotes a state of mind that brings about an emotional theme in a work of art. The portrayal of this emotional theme, leads us to understand bhava.

- What is bhava?

It is bhava that makes us differentiate between a sad and a happy song, or a romantic and a playful song and so on and so forth. It is the road that leads our mind into a state of imagination and sentiments producing an emotional change - rasabhava.

- What exactly makes an individual's music his own?

- snippet of cham cham naachat aayi bahar (Chhaya, 1961)

Hope you enjoy listening to the show, Bollywood Rewind: Rasa & Bhava in Indian Music (01 of 06) – 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S6MUxAlEMY

I do not own rights for the songs and the visuals used in this video. If any concerned individual or an organization has an objection to the music or visuals used here, kindly notify me and I’ill promptly pull it down.