Gharanas: An Introduction To Gharanas In Indian Classical Form

In Hindustani music, a gharānā is a system of social organization linking musicians or dancers by lineage and/or apprenticeship, and by adherence to a particular musical style. A gharana also indicates a comprehensive musicological ideology. This ideology sometimes changes substantially from one gharana to another. It directly affects the thinking, teaching, performance and appreciation of music. The names of the gharanas were almost always derived from a geographical location.  This was usually the city, district or state that the founder lived in. Two examples are the Gwalior Gharana (vocal) or the Farukhabad Gharana (tabla).

The gharana system as we think of it today was not really very old. Most of the gharanas began not more than 100-300 years old. The modern gharanas were generally traceable to the period when the Mogul empire collapsed.

Gharanas were found throughout the North in every field of dance, vocal and instrumental music. They tend to be distinct among themselves. That is to say that you generally do not find tabla players saying that they are from a vocal gharana or a vocalist claiming to come from a kathak gharana. In the artistic sense the gharana was somewhat comparable to a “style” or “school”.

In the 20th century the gharana system had a negative impact on the standard of musicianship. Improvements in communications made it a professional imperative for musicians to have as broad of a background as possible. The secretive nature of the gharana system coupled with the fact that gharanas tended to specialize in only one technique or approach was inconsistent with modern pedagogic and professional requirements. In the end of the 20th century, musicians who proclaim loudest that they were “such-and-such” gharana often had the least rounded background. It is for this reason that many of the aspects of this system were abandoned by modern music colleges in India. Owing to the fact that the form, style and essence of the gharanas is not practiced as rigidly as it used to be in the days of its glory, today the gharana exist in its vestigial form. Even then, the gharanas are a strong indicators of the form & style of the performers. Here are different types of gharanas that exist in Indian classical form.

1. Vocal Gharana

   Vocal gharana as the name suggests, refers to the gharanas to which the Indian singers belong to. The emergence of the vocal gharanas is largely attributed to the popularity of the style of some ancient Indian singers. Owing to the unmatched talent and popularity, the singers carried forward the legacy of the classical music by imparting knowledge and teachings to their sons, family and students — which later came to be known as Vocal gharanas of hindustani classical music.

2. Instrumental Gharana

   Although vocal music has always been the mainstay of Hindustani classical music, one of the most spectacular features of India’s rich musical tradition is the evolution of a wide range of musical instruments — percussion, wind and string instruments. As in its vocal counterpart, in the context of Indian classical instruments, the characteristics of a gharana for each instrument includes the structure, tuning system and the tonality of the instruments together with specific application of “tantrakari baaz” or the vocabulary of the instrument.

3. Dance Gharana

   Just like vocals and instrumental gharanas, the classical performers in the field of dance are known by the dance gharanas. For instance, in Kathak, performers today generally draw their lineage from three major schools of Kathak: the Jaipur gharana, the Lucknow gharana and the Banaras gharana (born in the courts of the Kachwaha Rajput kings, the Nawab of Oudh, and Varanasi respectively); there is also a less prominent (and later) Raigarh gharana which amalgamated technique from all three preceding gharanas but became famous for its own distinctive compositions.

Sources: Wikipedia.com