WBCHSE HS Music flashcards
WBCHSE HS Music · Build recall with a focused review session.
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- Natyashastra
- Bharata's foundational Sanskrit treatise (c. 200 BCE–200 CE) on dramaturgy, dance and music; it first describes svara, grama, murchhana, jati and tala systematically.
- Gita Govinda
- Jayadeva's 12th-century Sanskrit poem set to music; its prabandha-style songs are among the earliest fixed compositions in the Indian tradition.
- Bhatkhande's ten thats
- Bilaval, Khamaj, Kafi, Asavari, Bhairavi, Bhairav, Kalyan, Marwa, Purvi, Todi - a scale-based classification of Hindustani ragas published by V. N. Bhatkhande.
- Gandharva Mahavidyalaya
- Music school founded in 1901 by V. D. Paluskar, first at Lahore and later Bombay, which spread notation-based, institutional music teaching across India.
- Shruti
- The smallest perceptible interval of pitch; classical texts enumerate 22 shrutis in an octave, treated today as microtonal positions rather than fixed frequencies.
- Vadi and samvadi
- The dominant (king) and sub-dominant (minister) svaras of a raga; their interval is usually a fourth or fifth and they shape the raga's time of performance.
- Aroha and avaroha
- The ascending and descending note sequences of a raga; either may be vakra (zig-zag) or omit a svara, which distinguishes ragas sharing the same scale.
- Sam, tali and khali
- Sam is the first and strongest matra of a tala cycle; tali are marked by claps and khali by an empty wave, dividing the cycle into vibhags.
- Laya and its multiples
- Tempo in Indian music - vilambit, madhya, drut - and its proportional speeds: dugun (2x), tigun (3x) and chaugun (4x) of the basic matra.
- Pakad
- A raga's characteristic catch-phrase; a short melodic formula that immediately identifies the raga and is used as a practical test of correct rendering.
- Audav-shadav-sampurna jati
- Raga classification by note count: audav (5), shadav (6) and sampurna (7) svaras; a raga's jati states its count separately for ascent and descent.
- Sandhi-prakash raga
- A raga combining phrases of two parent ragas, typically performed at the junction of their times of day, such as Kafi–Bageshri or Bhairav–Bhairavi.
- Bhairav versus Malkauns
- Both are late-night/early-morning komal-ga ragas, but Bhairav uses komal Re and Dha with shuddha Ga, while Malkauns uses komal Ga, Dha and Ni.
- Raga time (samay)
- The prescribed performance hour of a raga, derived from the position of its vadi on the day cycle; Bhairav is dawn, Bageshri and Malkauns are late night.
- Teental theka
- The 16-matra cycle in four vibhags of four, with tali on 1, 5 and 13 and khali on 9; bols: dha dhin dhin dha / dha dhin dhin dha / dha tin tin ta / ta dhin dhin dha.
- Jhaptal
- A ten-matra tala divided 2+3+2+3, with tali on matras 1, 3 and 8 and khali on 6; common in khyal and instrumental gat.
- Chautal
- A twelve-matra dhrupad tala in six vibhags of two, with khali on matras 3 and 7; played on pakhawaj and central to the dhrupad repertoire.
- Rupak tala
- A seven-matra tala divided 3+2+2 in which the first matra itself is khali, an unusual feature that distinguishes it from other common talas.
- Dhamar tala
- A fourteen-matra tala divided 5+2+3+4, used for dhamar and hori songs associated with the Holi festival and sung in dhrupad style.
- Vibhag bar lines
- In tala notation, vertical bars separate the vibhags, matra numbers are written above, and symbols x, 2, 3 mark tali while 0 marks khali.
- Komal svara notation
- In Bhatkhande swaralipi, komal svaras are marked with an underline, tivra Ma with a vertical stroke, and dots above or below show tar or mandra saptak.
- Meend notation
- A continuous glide between two svaras, written in swaralipi as a curved line joining them; kan and murki use small bracketed svaras.
- Composition heading in swaralipi
- A complete notation entry records raga, tala, laya and composer, then writes sthayi and antara separately, with sanchari and abhog added for dhrupad.
- Dhrupad structure
- A four-part composition - sthayi, antara, sanchari and abhog - set in chautal or dhamar, austere in style and accompanied by pakhawaj.
- Khyal bandish
- A two-part composition (sthayi and antara) in teental, ektal, jhaptal or tilwada; vilambit khyal allows alap and bol-bant, drut khyal is compact.
- Thumri
- A romantic, text-centred light-classical form in dadra, keherwa, addha or deepchandi, known for bol-banao and laggi and linked to Banaras and Lucknow gharanas.
- Tarana and tillana
- Syllable-based compositions (nom-tom, yala, dir-dir) without semantic text, usually in fast tempo; tillana is the Carnatic counterpart.
- Tihai
- A phrase repeated three times so that its final note lands exactly on sam; its length must be calculated to fit the remaining matras of the cycle.
- Alap-jod-jhala
- The instrumental opening sequence: unmetred alap, then jod with a pulse, then jhala in fast rhythmic strokes, before the composed gat in a tala.
- Dhrupad alap stages
- The unmetered opening of dhrupad, developed through unnayana, alap, jod and jhala, followed by nom-tom and the composition in chautal or dhamar.
- Amir Khusrau
- Thirteenth-century poet-musician of the Delhi Sultanate; later tradition credits him with the sitar, tabla and qawwali style, though these attributions are traditional rather than documented.
- Tansen
- Court musician of Akbar (c. 1500–1586), dhrupad composer associated with ragas Deepak, Megh and Mian-ki-Malhar, and ancestral figure of the Senia gharana.
- Allauddin Khan
- Founder of the Maihar gharana (c. 1862–1972), sarod master and teacher of Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan, who expanded instrumental alap and sarod technique.
- Tata and avanaddha
- Tata denotes stringed instruments such as sitar, sarod and sarangi; avanaddha denotes membrane percussion such as tabla, pakhawaj and mridangam.
- Tanpura tuning
- Four strings tuned Pa–Sa–Sa–Sa, or Ma–Sa–Sa–Sa for ragas that omit Pa; the jawari bridge produces the rich overtone drone.
- Sitar versus sarod
- The sitar has movable frets and a gourd resonator; the sarod is fretless with a metal fingerboard, allowing continuous meend but no fixed fret stops.
- Ghana instruments
- Non-tensioned solid instruments such as manjira, jaltarang and ghatam; the jaltarang is pitched by tuning water levels in a row of bowls.