Vocal Classes

Hindustani classical music is the classical music of the Indian subcontinent’s northern regions. It may also be called North Indian classical music or, in Hindustani, shastriya sangeet. The term shastriya sangeet means classical music and is also used to refer to Indian classical music in general. It is played on instruments like the veena, sitar, and sarod. Its origins are from the 12th century CE when it diverged from Carnatic music, the classical tradition in South India. While Carnatic music largely uses compositions written in Sanskrit, Kannada, Telugu, Tamil and sometimes in Malayalam, Hindustani music largely uses compositions written in Hindi, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Urdu, and Braj Bhasha.

Around the 12th century, Hindustani classical music diverged from what eventually came to be identified as Carnatic classical music. The central notion in both systems is that of a melodic musical mode or raga, sung to a rhythmic cycle or tala. It is melodic music, with no concept of harmony. These principles were refined in the musical treatises Natya Shastra, by Bharata (2nd–3rd century CE), and Dattilam (probably 3rd–4th century CE).

In medieval times, the melodic systems were fused with ideas from Persian music, particularly through the influence of Sufi composers like Amir Khusro, and later in the Mughal courts, noted composers such as Tansen flourished, along with religious groups like the Vaishnavites. Artists such as Dalptaram, Mirabai, Brahmanand Swami, and Premanand Swami revitalized classical Hindustani music in the 16th and 18th centuries.

After the 16th century, the singing styles diversified into different gharanas patronized in different princely courts. Around 1900, Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande consolidated the musical structures of Hindustani classical music, called ragas, into a few thaats based on their notes. This is a very flawed system but is somewhat useful as a heuristic.

Distinguished musicians who are Hindu may be addressed as Pandit and those who are Muslim as Ustad. An aspect of Hindustani music going back to Sufi times is the tradition of religious neutrality: Muslim ustads may sing compositions in praise of Hindu deities, and Hindu pandits may sing similar Islamic compositions.

Vishnu Digambar Paluskar 1901 founded the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya, a school to impart formal training in Hindustani classical music with some historical Indian Music. This was a school open to all and one of the first in India to run on public support and donations, rather than royal patronage. Many students from the School's early batches became respected musicians and teachers in North India. This brought respect to musicians, who were treated with disdain earlier. This also helped spread Hindustani classical music to masses from royal courts.

The ghazal[a] is a form of amatory poem or ode, originating in Arabic poetry. Ghazals often deal with topics of spiritual and romantic love and may be understood as a poetic expression of both the pain of loss or separation from the beloved and the beauty of love despite that pain.

The ghazal form is ancient, tracing its origins to 7th-century Arabic poetry. The ghazal spread into the Indian subcontinent in the 12th century due to the influence of Sufi mystics and the courts of the new Islamic Sultanate and is now most prominently a form of poetry of many languages of South Asia and Turkey.

A ghazal commonly consists of five to fifteen independent couplets, but are linked – abstractly, in their theme; and more strictly in their poetic form. The structural requirements of the ghazal are similar in stringency to those of the Petrarchan sonnet. In style and content, due to its highly allusive nature, the ghazal has proved capable of an extraordinary variety of expression around its central themes of love and separation.