Performing, Teaching, and Listening to Ragas in Hindustani Classical Music

The raga (rāga) 1) is the backbone of Hindustani classical music (Hindustānī śāstrīya sangīt). This paper discusses the performance, teaching, and listening of raga in a contemporary setting by combining quantitative and qualitative research. After tracing historical research on the characteristics and classification of raga, this study elucidates the reality of contemporary raga performance through a comparative analysis of various sources of data on ragas across three hierarchical levels: knowledge, performance, and normative. Second, the study focuses on the process of teaching raga and examines both school institutions and the guru-disciple tradition (guru-śiṣya paramparā) of the gharana (gharānā) 2) through qualitative research such as learning curriculum analysis and interviews with musicians and learners. Third, from the perspective of listening to ragas, the influence of the globalisation of Hindustani classical music and the challenge of audience development were noted based on the results of listening experiments on raga perception in conservatories and a survey of performances in India and abroad. Conventional ragas studies have been dominated by theoretical research on the systematisation and symbolism of ragas and research on raga performance expressions. However, in this study, a quantitative analysis of multiple datasets on raga performance was conducted and the previously ambiguous reality of raga performance was verified numerically. In addition to performance research, comprehensive verification of the raga learning process and aspects of listening and cognition has enabled the extraction of pertinent issues essential for the inheritance and development of Hindustani classical music.