From the temples, royal courts, ashrams, town halls, community
functions classical music is finding new avenues to showcase itself in
the new urban realities of our times. Today we find it packed in CDs
and electronic files to be able to listen to whenever one feels like
suiting his mood or lifestyle. Tradition of Live concerts prevail in
places which have nurtured the music traditionally like Pune, Dharwad,
Banaras, Calcutta, Gwalior which have been famous for their legacy of
centers of Indian Hindustani classical music.

Leaving aside tradition, urban centers with promising economic opportunities have attracted new generation of musicians to settle and perform in front of the “New Audience”. Cosmopolitan in nature, cities like Bangalore, Chandigarh, Delhi, Bombay, Hyderabad attract urban audience due to artistes striving presence and their willingness and need to participate in turbulent urban lifestyle.

There exists a deep variety and diversity of listeners across the land
for classical music. Let it be an enthusiastic student of engineering
listening standing along the corridors of a fully occupied hall at a
college festival, serious listener at the Sawai Gandharv Music
Festival at Pune or a villager of Kundgol who has come to listen after
his chores in the farm at the local festival -the magic of classical
music still draws crowds whether it is in urban centers or villages.

Classical music due to its very nature extends the freedom for
artistes to express the tunes in elements “Swaras” to achieve a
composition. This process of elaboration of creation in its elements
makes the rendering of tunes finely articulate in a sense. The
listener experiences a journey of Swaras and Compositions in a well -
woven rhythmic pattern to extend his expression at a personal level.
The listener has to extend his senses to hear the complexity of the
pattern of tunes created to experience the artistes rendering of
tunes. In a live concert, of a modest size, one can see lively
interactions between the audience and the artiste in praise of a Rag
or Tan. Many times one can observe the “nods” by audience to a musical
pattern or even claps after a reverberating “tan”. Audience forms an
important part in a concert that has primarily come in the spirit of
appreciation and to experience the joyous qualities the music can
offer. Listening to Classical Music demands a certain calmness and
involvement with the artiste in his quest to an ideal composition.

Concerts in Urban centers are an obligatory experience. People not
being familiar to each other make the place unusually silent. The
educated middle class collectively expresses their sophisticated
mannerisms. While the old lady is worried about her shoe which is
being guarded by a security personnel, her son is worried about the car
parking situation, wife about the dinner plans, father about the late
night TV show. The Mobiles are asked to switch off, the lights are
dimmed, the spotlight is focused on the artiste and the performance
seems to silently happen. The concert is timed between 6:30pm in the
evening till 9:00 pm to maximum where the organizer hints the artiste
to sing Bhairavi as soon as the clock ticks 8:30 pm. Concerts have
become an insertion into a generalized urban schedule. The listener
manages to adjust his mood to listen to artistes “planned”
articulation of a rag and mentally, intellectually creates a viewpoint
an image of that concert later useful for his opinionated world. The
artiste looks for the next day newspaper for his coverage of his
concert as part of city’s events. Somewhere the rich possibility of a
spiritual inquiry seems to get lost in the list of events made by the
ruthless city. Though urban concerts do not bring the charm of a
community concerts sometimes it has the power to ignite inspiring
experiences. In cities, the humbleness of the music is taken to advantage to satisfy a personal need like arranging a performance for an elder’s birthday, death ceremony, marriage, a community party etc. Sometimes private “Bhaitaks” render more freedom and respect to the artistes, which usually happen in private homes organized by “fans” of music.

The next generation audiences who are the heart of the urban centers
influenced by rapid economic growth and fast pace development are of
special interest to watch. An increasingly changing social structure,
behavior, attitudes, mannerisms, lifestyles of the urban working class
who spend most of their time in a tight paced competitive corporate
environments trying to take Indian economic pace deep into the Global
race seem to desperately look out for various forms of entertainments
and spiritual satisfaction ranging from Cult Followers to late night
parties. It is not surprising to bump into a listener of classical
music who listens most of his music from the Internet, collected CDs
or being a part of a virtual forum, or he is simply there to give
company to his friends. A recording on a CD will have a complete
composition while on the Internet it could be simply cut pieces of
audio units. On the Internet a classical audio piece could be along
with a textual reading an image etc reducing the listening to reading
and understanding. This complete mix of listening along with reading,
writing - this multiplicity of activities reduces the totality of
music into mere reading material. Since the mediums have allowed the
music to enter their ways, the new audience falls in a trap of defining
the musical experience as they wish. This creates an uncertainty among
the audience, a questionable situation to themselves leaving them in a
conflict. This reduction of humbleness from the fact of purely
enjoying the music to complicating leads to a doubtful experience
syndrome. The simplicity of the experience gets lost in the chaotic
build up of listening mediums.

The artiste is introduced on the Internet through a brief bio data to which are attached a few clippings of his recordings. These clippings compete with million other audio channels around the globe. The culture of search results in an introduction to an artiste. Audience getting introduced to classical music from the web builds diverse notions (relative, comparative notions) about the art and the artiste in a personal style lacking depth, clarity defeating the very purpose of the music, which is in its essence an absolute complete experience. The classical performance in urban centers is shortening in time and depth due to this very reason of short span listening culture.

While narrating the nuances of modern listening of classical music, it is evident that we take a certain care of our tradition by associating it internally before planning to experience the beauty of classical music in a detached manner. We hope not to mix the problems of modernity into well-evolved musical system, which has touched the heart of millions around the world. It is time to nourish the spirit of the artiste and listen to his expression.

Kiran Kulkarni

The author is a Senior Lecturer at IIT, Bombay. His area of research is cultural studies and music. He has learnt sitar under Pt N V Gopinath, and currently pursues interests in elements of classical teaching and its impacts on education systems. He is a Product Designer by education from Industrial Design centre, IIT, Bombay.