Shruti: Listening to Hindustani Classical Music

Shruti is Sandeep Bagchee's second book on Indian classical music. The first one, titled NAD: Understanding Raga Music was published in 1996.

Shruti is written with a view to familiarize music lovers with the essential features of the classical music of north India. This musical tradition, known as Hindustani music, has a long history, going back about fifteen centuries. It has been kept alive, and continues to grow in popularity because of very talented exponents of this art who have maintained its classical lineage and yet modified and renewed it afresh, for every generation. All great performing art forms must keep developing, in this way, through creativity, if they are not to stagnate and decline over time.

Every performing art also needs an appreciative audience. Shruti hopes to contribute to the audience's understanding of this art form. It explains, in simple terms, the distinction between khayal, thumri, and other forms of vocal singing. It describes how the main instruments are constructed and have evolved over time. For the lay listener, it outlines the various movements and nuances through which a classical raga is developed, in both its vocal and instrumental genres, and the various gharanas or traditions of style that have emerged as a consequence of the guru-shishya method of learning this art.

Shruti presents this knowledge in a lucid and entertaining fashion. The author hopes it will encourage more people to enjoy the pleasures of listening to Indian classical music, and enhance their appreciation of its finger points and nuances.

Sandeep Bagchee studied at the Doon School and St. Stephen's College and later joined the Indian Administrative Service. Besides music, his other passions include mountains and horses. He is the author of NAD: Understanding Raga Music, published in 1996. Shruti is his second book on Hindustani music and is aimed at a wider audience. Among Sandeep's other interests are Indian writing in English - as an avid reader and occasional contributor of short stories and middles. He is also a keen student of development issues and has published articles based on his administrative field experience in the Economic and Political Weekly. He was a visiting fellow at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Harvard in 1988-89 where he worked on rural poverty in the Deccan. He was awarded a Master's degree in Finance by Strathclyde University in 1993.