For thousands of years music in India has been considered a signifying art. Indian music creates and represents meanings of all kings, some of which extend outwardly to the cosmos, while others arise inwardly, in the refined feelings which a musical connoisseur experiences when listening to it. In this book the author explores signification in Hindustani classical music along a two-fold path. Martineq first constructs a theory of musical semiotics based on the sign-theories of Charles Sanders Peirce. He then applies his theory to the analysis of various types of Hindustani music and how they generate significations. The author engages such fundamental issues as sound quality, raga, tala and form, while advancing his unique interpretations of well-known semiotic phenomena like iconicity, metalanguage, indexicality, symbolism, Martinez`s study also provides deep insight into semiotic issues of musical perception, performance, scholarship, and composition. An specially innovative and extensive section of the book analyzes representations in Hindustani music in terms of the Indian aesthetic theory of rasa. The evolution of the rasa system as applied to musical structures is traced historically and analyzed semiotically. In the light of Martinez`s theories, Hindustani music reveals itself to be both a delightfully sensuous and highly sophisticated system of acoustic representations.

An Introduction to Hindustani Classical Music: A Guidebook for Beginners is Vijay Singha's comprehensive guide to savour and appreciate classical music. Written in a simple and easy-to-comprehend style, this book delves into the understanding of raga sangeet, semi-classical and fusion music, raga sangeet in Hindi films, as well as the future of classical music in India.

AIM In spite of a reasonably extensive literature in English' and Indian vernaculars, there are extremely few books on Indian music that can be considered of a scientific standard. I found, when I took up an interest in Indian music in 1967, that even protracted reading of the studies in English was not conducive to an understanding of the principles of performance. Most of my study and research have been devoted to the gradual refinement of this very understanding. In the course of time it also became obvious that different scholars and different musicians held divergent views on many basic concepts of Indian music. Therefore, one of my tasks was to assess the degree of variability in Indian music. As a corollary I wanted to know how this variability could manifest itself as change in a relatively short and well-documented period. It is often assumed that traditional cultures, as e. g. in India, are rather inert and that the art forms hardly ever change. This study proves the contrary: Indian music has a strong vitality. If we examine the different treatises through the centuries this vitality would appear to be a basic characteristic. I felt that at least an effort to discover the roots of such change would be valuable as a contribution to the study of art history and possibly to the sociology of culture.

The book opens with a short introduction to Indian music, in particular classical Hindustani music, followed by a chapter on the role of statistics in computational musicology. The authors then show how to analyze musical structure using Rubato, the music software package for statistical analysis, in particular addressing modeling, melodic similarity and lengths, and entropy analysis; they then show how to analyze musical performance. Finally, they explain how the concept of seminatural composition can help a music composer to obtain the opening line of a raga-based song using Monte Carlo simulation. The book will be of interest to musicians and musicologists, particularly those engaged with Indian music.

Author's anecdotes and impression on the life and musical genius of musicians of Hindustani music style.

About the Author Deepak Raja (b. 1948-) is amongst the most respected writers on Hindustani music today. He works as repertoire analyst for India Archive Music Ltd. (IAM), New York, the most influential producer of Hindustani music outside India. He has been associated with the academic and publishing activities of the Śruti magazine (Chennai), ITC-Sangeet Research Academy (Calcutta), Sangeet Natak Akademi (Delhi), and the Indian Musicological Society (Baroda/Mumbai). About tha Book Stating that Hindustani music should be rightly termed “Art music” and not “classical music”, the book begins by discussing the features of Art music and presents an approach to appreciating Hindustani music. It provides a detailed understanding of the components of the raga experience in Hindustani music, including their time theory and the role of Gharanas of the musical tradition. It deals with genres of raga-based vocal music which have been performed over the last five centuries: dhrupad, which has its moorings in devotional music; khyal vocalism shaped by Sufi influences; the thumri, which originated as an accompaniment to the Kathak dance; and the tappa, adapted from the songs of camel drivers in the north-west frontier. It takes up the use of instruments in Hindustani music, especially the rudra-vina, sitar, surbahar, sarod, santur, the shehnai, pakhawaj, the Hawaiian Guitar and many others, giving an account of their origin, performing styles and lineages relating to them. Throughout, the emphasis is on contemporary trends in Hindustani music and its prospects in the future. It mentions the significant practitioners of Hindustani music, both vocal and instrumental. The volume will interest lovers of Indian music and also scholars who want to have a greater understanding of its traditions, its contemporary appeal and trends in practice.