First appeared in www.scroll.in on November 28, 2015.
In the light of the many discussions on Digital India, it’s pertinent to note that digital platforms have empowered musicians since the 1990s. Practitioners of Hindustani music have gradually taken to new media, either to disseminate their music commercially or non-commercially, or to send out information about their concerts and recordings.
Some have even uploaded lecture-demonstrations that have been especially recorded for these platforms. In this case, the process of using new technology to disseminate information related to music may appear to be a recent occurrence. But there were similar experiments that were carried out several decades ago, first, in the form of the printed word and then on various recording formats.
Significantly, 78 rpms also featured tutorials on raag music. Today’s column features two such recordings that were done by eminent scholar-musician Dr. Shrikrishna Narayan Ratanjankar (1900-1974), more popularly known as Dr SN Ratanjankar.
Dr. Ratanjankar was the chief disciple of music educationist and scholar Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande. He had also studied with Faiyaz Khan, the famous Agra gharana exponent.
As the Principal of Marris College, a teaching institution for music set up by Bhatkhande in 1926 at Lucknow, Dr. Ratanjankar continued Bhatkhande’s legacy. Known as a scholar-musician, Dr. Ratanjankar also composed under the pseudonym “Sujan”.
Dr. Ratanjankar’s disciple KG Ginde describes his guru’s contribution as a vocalist, teacher and composer in this lecture.
The next tracks feature tutorials for two raags. Dr Ratanjankar explains the aroha-avroha or ascending and descending scales and the main features of both raags, and then goes on to sing a short aalaap or introductory free-flowing melody followed by drut or fast compositions set to Teentaal, a cycle of 16 matras or time units.
The first raag called Alhaiya Bilawal is prescribed for performance in the morning.
Raag Bihag, a night melody, is described on the last track.
