Music

Can anyone help me please. Early in the morning in the temples people sing or play beautiful music. I do not know anything more about it but if anyone could help me to find this kind of music online on net I would be most grateful. Thanks a million.

I have a similar but more specific request. In Gujarat, and particularly in Diu, there were groups playing drums accompanied by a cheap casio keyboard playing velvet underground type free form jams,usually in the evening/just before sunset. I didn,t have anything to record with me but wish I had. Any info would be gratefully received.

This is a very broad subject but you could do worse than to look for Music Today's various series. They cover a lot of classical and traditional music; their cassettes used to be a bit pricier than yr average Bollywood tapes but consistently good audio quality.

For the Gujarati stuff, I have a tape here that is pretty much like that, just two sides of an endless drum drone + flutes (probably what the casio was for?), pretty weird, vaguely reminiscent of a wedding I listened in to at some point. Since the script is all in Gujarati I can't help you with it, it was distributed by Rajaudio which doesn't seem to have a website. Whenever you hear something you like ask someone to write down for you what it is.

Music India Online has quite a selection of songs in all the major Indian languages to listen online. The link takes you their devotional page.

Indiafan... where in India did you hear the temple music?

Both in Karnataka and Goa.

...neither of which I know.

But they are south, so I suggest that you start to explore the huge world of Carnatic [South Indian] classical music.

You may also have heard the long woodwind instrument which is called Nadaswaram, accompanied by a drum called Tavil.

Simply put its musical prayers ... something like what u have in churches (carols ??)

its for the gods of coz
Then they might be ragas too
more info on ragas at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raga
http://www.wyastone.co.uk/nrl/world/raga/intro1.html

I just got 'The Rough Guide To The Music Of India' out of the library this week and it's a very good introduction for total novices like me. It's compiled by the same people that do the guide books.

Good selection of stuff from Rajasthani Folk Songs, Ragas etc. right up to Bollywood stuff. Some of the artists include: Asha Bhosle, Ravikiran, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt & Swapan Chaudhuri, Sultan Khan & Zakir Hussain, Kadri Gopalnath and Musafir.

I know absolutely nothing about Indian music and this album's been a good place to start. There's more info about it on World Music Net here.

I might get that 'Rough Guide To Ravi Shankar' that's advertised on that page, too. Unless someone here can recommend something else as a good introduction to Ravi Shankar?

I can't think of a better introduction to Ravi Shankar than just getting some CDs and listening!!! Butbe aware (and I think you must be because you list all sorts of Indian music from the Rough Guide) that this is only one sort of classical Indian music.

Much less know in UK is the clasical music of Southern India: Carnatic music. There will be some info here on IM, no doubt, if you search, or googgle may help too.

For Carnatic music one famous artist would be L. Subramaniam, recommended. Zakir Hussain has done Carnatic sets I believe.
For general devotional songs in various styles Bhimsen Joshi is a personal favorite.

I recognize the problem though; at my guesthouse in Varanasi there used to be these hymns pouring out of a nearby temple. Upon my queries as to where I might get such music one of the waiters offered to take me to a music shop after his shift. We could hardly exchange two words and he was obviously going out of his way for me. Anyway so there I was listening to one tape of pretty mediocre high-pitched blaring religious songs after another (difficult enough as it's usually you buy or you don't, getting to listen first is rare) and getting more impatient with that and wanting to hear more, trying to find what I was looking for, while he was getting more impatient with me for not being simply happy with his help. So of course I ended up buying some random tapes that I'm not altogether unhappy with in hindsight.

For the real stuff look for some more specialized places than a streetstall, which may come in unlikely small towns too. Alternatively, if something good sounds out at such a stall rush over there and buy it/write the name down/have the name written down for you (my first music purchase was Khal Naaikaa I think, a pretty lousy soundtrack that had nothing to do with the much better Khal Nayak which I had phonetically noted down -- *all together now: "cucucucucucucu -- Choli ke peeche..."*).

Anyway none of this is helping people to find stuff on the 'net from Finland of course. For the Gujarati music fan's sake I'm including the cover of the cassette I was talking about, maybe someone can translate it. Oh did I mention it's pretty weird? Bought at some streetstall during a bus stopover I think. As good an occasion as any, just don't flash your rupees all around in the middle of the night.

In the temples in Kerala every day starts with 'unarthu pattu' (waking up songs ) which is sang to wakeup the God. Then we do have Ashtapathi , which is from Jayadev's ashtapathi,then for Deeparadhana time we do play Nagaswaram (nagawaram is another instrument mostly used in temples and for other auspeicious occasion like marriage) where as these all are live, everyday routine as part of rituals in temples.
Then recorded music also will be played in the morning and evening which are mostly keeratnams (bhajans).
Some temples in south still play Late M S Subhalakshmi's Venkiteswara suprbhatham tooo..

Usha, I thought that bajans are light devotional songs whereas keertanams are part of the classical repertoire?

This is very true though in my experience: It may be next to impossible to buy recorded music that is exactly like what you hear in the temples. The two appear to be very different approaches and perhaps recording the live hymns is not considered proper, if you want authentic temple chants you might be better off trying in a shop in Finland specializing in "world music" as it's pathetically called.

Offtopic: If you like temple music + guitar solo, listen to 'the blood and tears' - Steve Vai.