gramming. The others broadcast a mix of dramas, talk, and popular music. TELEVISION The National television service, Doordarshan or “View from afar,” first available only in Delhi, began broadcasting in a handful of cities in the 1970s. Government channels were the only ones available until the 1990s. Since then, with deregulation and new technologies, private TV channels have proliferated, and hundreds of channels are available. Drama series, sitcoms, talk shows, reality shows, and film stars feature on Indian TV channels in many languages, which are available through satellite and cable all over the world. Urban television ownership is reported overall at about 75 percent, but a high rate in Delhi is balanced by a 15 percent rate in Bihar, North India’s poorest state. In rural India the most recent census reports that only about one-third of rural households own a TV.1 INTERNET Like other media technologies, the internet is most available in cities. Internet services were launched in India in the mid 1990s. The user base in 2013 was reported to be around 200 million, some 15 percent of the total population. A Gallup poll reported that 3 percent of those polled responded that they had internet access at home. Mobile phone technology and usage in India is high, however, and mobile internet subscriptions make up one of the fastest growing segments of the tech economy.2 INDIA’S FILM INDUSTRY The silent movie Raja Harishchandra, based on a story from the Hindu epic Mahabharata, premiered in 1913 and is celebrated as the first Indian-made feature film. The first Indian sound film, Alam Ara, was first shown in Mumbai in March 1931. Today, the Indian film industry is the largest in the world, measured by the number of feature films it produces. Bollywood is the term for the Hindi-language film industry, which is largely based in Mumbai. Bollywood films, with their catchy music and dance sequences, glamorous stars, and lavish plots, have a huge fan base. They are loved not only throughout India and South Asia, but also have had fans in parts of the Middle East, East Asia, and Eastern Europe for many decades. South Asian diaspora populations all over the world watch the latest films and revisit the classics on cable and satellite TV and DVD. More recently, international collaborations and Bollywood-inspired techniques have made Bollywood a familiar term in popular culture all over the world. Bollywood’s name is well known, and its style is influential, but the Indian film industry has many other centers as well, grouped by the language in which the films are made. The Film Federation of India reported in 2012 that it certified 1602 feature films in thirty-five different languages. The Tamil-language film industry, which is as old as that of Mumbai, is sometimes called Kollywood, named after the neighborhood in Chennai where it is centered. In 2012, it produced more films than Bollywood. Film industries of other language groups and dialects respond to the interest of regional audiences and their diasporas, offering characters, language, and music styles that feel closer to home than Mumbai. Indian mainstream films feature song and dance sequences, which are seen as essential to the film’s success. For the most part, film singers do not appear on the screen; actors lip-sync their songs. But singers and music composers are nonetheless stars. Film music recordings and music videos are the mainstay of popular music in India. Film music and dance had their early sources in traditional theater, but they quickly expanded their vocabulary by drawing on all kinds of popular and classical styles, both Indian and European. Film music and dance in India are exuberant expressions of India’s cosmopolitan culture. However, it should be noted that films do not reach the entire population equally. As is the case for television and other media, urban centers and middle-class and upper-middle-class populations remain the central markets for the film industry. International markets also make up a growing share. Section I Summary o Music is sound organized in time. o Sachs and Hornbostel grouped musical instruments into four categories: chordophones, aerophones, membranonphones, and idiophones. The “family” names of instruments are widely used. o Pitch is the highness or lowness of a sound. It is the basic building block for melody and harmony. o The octave is created by doubling the vibrations of a pitch. o Western and Indian tradition divides an octave into twelve intervals called half steps. o With a Solfege system, the “Do” tonic pitch is chosen, and a scale is built from there. The tradition of India uses a solfege-type system in which the pitches are named “Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni.” o Melody is a coherent succession of pitches perceived as a whole, with a beginning, middle, and end. o R hythm is the way music is organized in time. o The beat is the steady, regular pulse underlying most music. Tempo is the speed of the beat. o A chord is made up of three or more pitches sounded simultaneously. Harmony is a systematic use of USAD Music Resource Guide • 2015-2016 • Revised Page 21 A painting of Mira, a poet and sant. The story of Mira’s life is told in her bhajans, which have been carried by singers all over India. An eighth-century Tamil poet expressed bhakti as the anguish of a girl who feels Vishnu has deserted her. One manifestation of Vishnu (one of the major deities of Hinduism) is a beautiful figure reclining on a great serpent and floating on the cosmic ocean. The whole town fast asleep, the whole world pitch dark, and the seas utterly still, when it’s one long extended night if He who sleeps on the snake who once devoured the earth and kept it in His belly will not come to the rescue, who will save my life?6 The fifteenth-century Hindi poet Surdas expressed bhakti as a love that leaves no room for any other. Krishna, a manifestation of Vishnu, is visualized as a playful and handsome youth who was raised by a human family in rural north India. There is no room left in my heart; while Nananandan (Krishna) remains there, how can another be brought in? Walking, looking, awake in the day and dream- ing in slumber at night, that intoxicating image strays from my heart not for a single moment.”7 LONGING FOR HER LORD: MIRA Many of the poets who composed bhajans are honored as sant-s, people who “know the spiritual truth.” One of them is Mira (also Meera or Mirabai). The story of her life is told in her bhajans, which have been carried by singers all over India. Later, Mira bhajans were also composed by others in her name. Mira was born in the late fifteenth century to a royal family of Rajasthan. She became a devotee of Krishna, falling in love with him in childhood. As a young woman, she was given in marriage to the king of another royal household. She refused to act as a royal daughter-in-law, however, and persisted in her single-minded devotion to Krishna. She even left the household to join groups of wandering devotees, a great offense in the social environment of sixteenth-century Rajasthan. Bhajans tell of her persecution by her father-in-law, who even tried to poison her. Her poems express longing, suffering, and the ecstatic joy of pure devotion. USAD Music Resource Guide • 2015-2016 • Revised Page 31 SECTION III Indian Classical Music What Is “Classical”? The term classical came to be applied to the art music of the courts and temples of the Indian subcontinent when it came to urban centers in the nineteenth century. The term implies a long history, sophisticated techniques, and refined theory. In practical terms, “Indian Classical Music” is a term for the music based on raga and tala. Hindustani and Carnatic (or Karnatak) are the terms for the classical music of North and South India, respectively, which developed distinctive systems by about the fifteenth century. The sections below will introduce you to the principles shared by both Hindustani and Carnatic music. Theory and Practice A long history of music theory is preserved in written texts in Sanskrit and other languages. The field is called sangita shastra (“music technical works”), and music historians study them to reconstruct the thought and practices of the ancient and medieval periods. The written texts reflect and represent a long-standing oral tradition. Formal rules were transmitted through memorization for many generations. A sixteenth-century scholar would be able to recite many verses on the definition of musical sound, or on the categories of ragas, or the virtues of a good vocalist. Even now, specialists in the shastra can recite appealing verses or definitions from medieval theory. The Natyashastra, compiled before 400 ce, is a compendium of theory on theater, dance, and music. It includes an elaborate theory of musical pitch (svara and shruti) that is still studied today. The Natyashastra, like other technical works, was composed in tightly condensed rhyming verses so that it could be memorized and handed down in oral traditions. Theory texts specifically on music were produced all over North and South India in the centuries that followed, often by court scholars who were also composing texts on philosophy, poetry, architecture, and many other 40 arts and sciences. The ninth-century Brihaddesi contains the first extended treatment of raga, beginning with the definition of the word: A special sound, ornamented with specific pitches and syllables, which delights the minds of listeners, is called raga. The thirteenth-century Sangitaratnakara is the premier text of the medieval period. Its seven chapters became the basis for many later texts written in Persian and regional languages. The chapters cover pitch (svara), melody (raga), various techniques (prakiranaka), compositions (prabandha), rhythm (tala), instruments (vadya), and dance (nrtya). Traditional scholars memorize technical verses and call them up as necessary for teaching and in debates. Thus there is interplay between text and oral tradition. In the context of South Asia, “theory” and “text” should not be understood as being entirely dependent on written books. Modern Theory In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, musicians came to the growing cities where classical music was promoted as an urbane art. Some students sought out a professional musician and studied in an apprenticeship arrangement. But many more went to one of the schools for music that were founded on Western models. Educators saw the practices of traditional musicians generally as unsystematic and out of touch with modern education. They even accused professionals of not being grounded in the theory of the Sanskrit texts. They set out to create a standardized theory and notation, a project that spanned the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the North, two high-caste Hindus from western India were successful in creating curricula that are still used in many schools today. Vishnu Digambar Paluskar (1872–1931) was a charismatic performer who attracted students with his focus on devotional sensibilities. Vish- USAD Music Resource Guide • 2015-2016 1858 British government commences to formally rule India. 1859 Death of Baluswamy Dikshitar, who is credited with introducing the violin in Carnatic music c.1875 Dwarkin & Son, a seller of Western and Indian instruments, is founded in Kolkata and begins manufacturing the Indian harmonium. 1901 Vishnu Digambar Paluskar founds the first branch of his music school (Gandharva Mahavidyalaya) in Lahore. 1902 Fred Gaisberg records musicians for the British Gramophone Company in Kolkata. 1925 78rpm vinyl record technology is standardized. 1926 V. N. Bhatkhande founds a Music College in Lucknow. 1928 The Madras Music Academy is founded in Chennai. 1931 Alam Ara, the first Bollywood and Indian sound film, premieres. 1932 First regular broadcasts by All India Radio 1947 Indian Independence and Partition (15 August) 1950s Home record-playing capacity grows, in 78- and 33 1/3-speed formats. 1965 India’s government TV begins daily broadcasts in the greater Delhi area. 1980s Cassette technology allows for the expansion of regional music studios and mass marketing. 1991 Economic liberalization policies are enacted in India, inviting international investment as a strategy for economic growth. 1992 Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian award, goes to Bengali-language filmmaker Satyajit Ray. 1995 VSNL (later Tata Communications) launches internet services in India. 1998 Bharat Ratna award goes to Carnatic singer M. S. Subbulakshmi. 1999 Bharat Ratna award goes to Hindustani sitar player Ravi Shankar. 2000 India’s billionth official birth 2001 Bharat Ratna awards go to playback singer Lata Mangeshkar and Hindustani shehnai player Bismillah Khan. 2009 Bharat Ratna award goes to Hindustani singer Bhimsen Joshi. USAD Music Resource Guide • 2015-2016 • Revised Page 79