報告1
The classical and traditional arts of India have reached a wider audience in the west and thanks to Indian immigrants, who migrated since the mid 20th century. Just like other immigrants, Indians celebrate their music, food and follow their religious practice wherever they settled in. The United States is home to about 1.6 million Indian immigrants, making them the third-largest immigrant group after Mexican and Filipinos. Many factors involved in bringing up Indian music and dance to the west. They are:
- Concert tours by the eminent musicians from India
- Indian music programs in the American Universities
- Indian organizations in the US
Ali Akbar Khan, a sarod maestro was the first to perform North Indian Hindustani music in the US. He toured with the famous Western violinist Yehudi Menuhin in the mid 1950s. Pandit Ravi Shankar’s contribution to Indian music and to the world is remarkable. With his extraordinary sitar playing he took Indian music to international level and he also collaborated with George Harrison of Beatles band and Yehudi Menuhin. Together Ravi Shankar and his brother Uday Shankar, performed all over the US and Europe. Ravi Shankar produced few albums with world musicians and he was awarded Grammy award twice.
As far as South Indian Classical Karnatak music, Mr.Balakrishna of Trivancore was the first to perform, teach music and yoga. He was the first recorded artist in Karnatak music in the US for the album produced by Folkways in 1957. Then the bharatanatyam ensemble consisting of three remarkable musicians led by the legendary dancer T. Balasaraswati(Bala) came to US for the concert tour in 1962. Bala and her two younger brothers T.Viswanathan(Viswa) and T.Ranganathan(Ranga) contributed astonishingly to promote bharatanatyam and Karnatak music in North America. All three conducted intensive summer school program at Wesleyan in 1962 and their students still performing here and there. Ranga became the first visiting artist in the world music program at Wesleyan University in 1963, Viswa joined at Wesleyan in 1975 as an Adjunct faculty. They both established South Indian Music program and produced non-Indian musicians. Jon Higgins, a student of Viswa and Ranga became the first non-Indian performer of Karnatak music. He was also a great scholar and his PhD dissertation focuses on the bharatanatyam dance music. Viswa started the famous navaratri festival at Wesleyan in 1976, and which is the kind of festival happened out side India and this tradition still continuous. Here is the link for Wesleyan Student performance. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwdDm3UO5WM
In the scholarship side, Harold S Powers did a monumental research in Indian Raga System. Robert E Brown, Lewis Rowell and many other non-Indian music scholars have contributed to Indian music research. Wesleyan University and York University of Canada offers practical and research courses in Indian music.
Indian language based organizations and cultural groups are regularly conducting music programs and lecture demonstrations. Among them, the Cleveland Tyagaraja Aradhana festival is the mighty one. This festival happens every year during March-April and is stretched to ten days. More than fifty artists come from India to perform every year. In this festival the local talents and the second generation American born Indian children participate and perform.
Besides the classical music interest among the Indian immigrants, Indian pop and film music are also very popular in the United States. All top ranking film singers and music composers come to the US and Canada to perform on special occasions like Deepavali and Tamil, Telugu New Year.
Since the Indian population in the United States is increasing fast, there is always a demand for music performance and cultural activities.
報告2
“Deteriorating Usage of Indian Classical Music in Popular Music Culture” is one of the outcomes of my research conducted on the Popular Music Culture in India.
As a Film Music Research Scholar, having watched, observed and analyzed hundreds of Indian and International Films, it becomes indispensable to study and analyze the changes in the entire medium, the Film Media; in order to understand and conclude any observation made with regard to the Music alone.
Cause and Effect:
Bringing forth the three important reasons and its effect/impact on the Popular Music Culture:
-Globalisation which triggered technological advancements in to Film Music Production, bestowed tailor made rhythm and melody structures in the form of software with which Music composers (Indian Cinema) design and arrange their music rather than creating original scores or compositions.
-A considerable percentage of Film Songs are shot in foreign locations, irrespective of the story or the sequence in the film, merely to increase the commercial value of the film. Therefore, a song sequence shot in rich exotic locations does set a demanding upbeat tempo song rather than a classical or a folk based melody. (Indian Popular Music (Film Music) synonymous to songs.
-The Indian Film Music Industry has expanded its viewership and listenership across the globe, Popular International Production companies also invest in Indian Film Production, due to which there is a prominent paradigm shift in the genre of films being produced which has a direct and proportional relationship with the genre of Music incorporated.
It cannot be completely ridiculed that present day Music Composers do not utilise the Indian Classical Music genres for their Compositions, there are Music Directors who have and who are attempting to present to the audience a judicious blend of the Indian flavours with the western rhythm patterns. Although, the Nature and the style of the story / subject of the film decides the percentage of Music genres adapted in the Film.
Dr. Nair Achuthan Raman Unni
ark.musiccomposer@gmail.com
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