Rhythm: Concept Of Rhythm In Indian And Indian Music

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Rhythm
Concept of Rhythm in Indian Music

Indian and African Music
Music has always played an essential role in the human society. Garfias (2004) notes that if we study the societies and cultures around the world and look at all the historical societies of the past, it can be deduced with a high degree of certainty that music has always played an important role in human society.
Music has always played an important role in both Indian and African societies. According to Mbaegbu (2015), “African music is part of the essence of the African”, having functions for “social control, social integration, signaling, for dissemination of information, for inspiring, for entertainment, as means of recreation, for encouragement, for solicitation of supernatural assistance, for reparation and thanksgiving” (p. 180). Concerning Indian music, it has a very long, unbroken tradition- the accumulated heritage of centuries. Music in India has very ancient roots and Indian classical music is one of the oldest musical traditions in the world (Agarwal, Karnick, & Raj, 2013).

“Cyclic time is said to be an important foundation of Indian and African music” (Entsua-Mensah (2015, p. 166).
TIME-LINES
Entsua-Mensah (2015, p. 166) observes that “there appears not to be a similar terminology in African music for rhythmic organization” while referring to the ‘Tala’ of …show more content…

Dr. S.K. Saxena (2012, p. 2,3) in his book, ‘The winged form’, describes rhythm as being a material that is “doubtlessly distinctive, and autonomous”. He refers to rhythm as being mnemonic syllables that aim at seizing the manner and character of sounds produced by striking instrumental drums in specific ways, meaningless syllables seeking to be formal analogues of actual sounds (Saxena, 2012, p. 4). Saxena (2012, p. 2) points out that rhythm is autonomous due to the fact that in India, solo rhythmic recitals can still be heard in main music

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