Shabd aur Sangeet

Unravelling Song-Text in India

Aneesh Pradhan, Kunal Ray, Shubha Mudgat

9789383968336

Three Essays Collective, New Delhi, 2019

Language: English

362 pages

Price INR 750.00
Book Club Price INR 600.00
INR 750.00
In stock
SKU
LWB522
In India, where oral traditions predate hand scripted manuscripts or printed compilations, poets with vastly varied literary impulses have written poems prescribing musical rendering in specific raags, taals and genres. There also exists a flourishing tradition of musicians and composers selectively extracting a few lines from a larger existing poem or narrative verse for use in forms that demand relatively less wordiness. Briefly then, there is ample evidence to prove that the giving, sharing, borrowing and lending between literature and music is in itself an established tradition in India where the vaggeyakar or song composer is often both poet and music composer. In the contemporary context, where music is as much ‘seen’ as heard, the study and analysis of the song-text in India as evinced in this volume must be an interdisciplinary and collaborative activity between musicians, composers, musicologists, ethnomusicologists and scholars and students of music, literature, linguistics, cultural studies, history, sociology, psychology, media, theatre, film and phonology. This book therefore brings on board new ways of thinking and responding to the song-text in INDIA.

Aneesh Pradhan

Aneesh Pradhan had a liberal and encouraging familial upbringing, which was coupled with an intensive period of study under the illustrious tabla maestro Nikhil Ghosh. His training with this veritable repository of traditional compositions from the Delhi, Ajrada, Lucknow, Farukhabad and Punjab schools of tabla playing enabled Aneesh to widen his horizons. Aneesh is today regarded as an accomplished soloist and a perfect foil to vocal and instrumental music or dance recitals. Aneesh remains a keen student of music, despite the acclaim he has received over the years from cognoscenti and general public and by way of awards like the scholarship for advanced training in tabla instituted by the Government of India and the Aditya Birla Kala Kiran Award.