source file: mills2.txt Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 11:31:30 -0800 Subject: Re: Indian Music From: alves@orion.ac.hmc.edu (Bill Alves) >I want to begin compensating for my general ignorance of Classical Indian >Music and was wondering if anyone could recommend a more or less definitive >introduction to the subject. The most readable authoritative introduction to Indian classical music that I've found is Bonnie Wade's Music in India: The Classical Traditions, available in paperback from Prentice Hall. I also like Neil Sorrell's Indian Music in Performance: A Practical Introduction, written with Ram Narayan (NYU Press). Though less comprehensive than Wade's, it is, as the title suggests, much more practical, and comes with a cassette and transcriptions of performances. The entry for "India" in the New Groves Dictionary is good, though sometimes technical and a bit scattered. It also has a bibliography on several specific topic areas, including areas such as folk music not covered in these other sources. A more technical book is Nazir Jairazbhoy's The Rags of North Indian Music, but it has a very insightful analysis of the logic of ragas, including their tuning. It also comes with a recording and transcriptions. The older Western studies, including Danielou, Fox-Strangeways, and Kaufmann, I wouldn't recommend to the beginning reader. Some of the conclusions of Danielou in particular, though interesting, are not on particularly sound scholarly footing. Kaufmann is useful as a reference work. As long as I'm at it, since this is the tuning list, the most important work on the tuning of Indian music is by Mark Levy: Intonation in North Indian Music. Unfortunately, it is published by a New Delhi publisher and difficult to come by. I had to get it on interlibrary loan. I heartily recommend it, though. I hope this is helpful. Let me know if you have other questions. Bill ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^ Bill Alves email: alves@hmc.edu ^ ^ Harvey Mudd College URL: http://www2.hmc.edu/~alves/ ^ ^ 301 E. Twelfth St. (909)607-4170 (office) ^ ^ Claremont CA 91711 USA (909)621-8360 (fax) ^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Mon, 24 Mar 1997 22:39 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA13844; Mon, 24 Mar 1997 22:38:59 +0100 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA21311 Received: from by ella.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) id NAA25141; Mon, 24 Mar 1997 13:36:26 -0800 Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 13:36:26 -0800 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@ella.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@ella.mills.edu