Want to Study Indian Classical Music?

One of my main reasons in creating this website was to put together a comprehensive and easily accessible resource for North Indian (Hindustani) classical music theory, simply explaining and demonstrating all the basic concepts from scratch so that anyone, whether with a background in music or not, can understand.

If you are looking for practical training in vocal or instrumental Indian classical music, there are, again, many resources available for both serious and casual students. Further down on this page, I have also provided voice training tips specific to Hindustani music that you will find useful.

A Few Useful Tools and Resources

Please note that I am not sponsored by or endorsing any of the products or services listed on this page. I simply offer them as examples of what is available out there. The idea is to point you in the right direction if you would like to study Hindustani classical music and do not know where to begin.

Indian Classical Music Education

Typically, those who learn Indian classical music begin their training as children under private tutors. Most Indian towns and cities have private tutors who offer individual or group lessons in vocal or instrumental music, and children usually attend these lessons after school. Chandrakantha.com has a useful list of private tutors in various cities not just in India but around the world. In the larger cities, there are also formal institutions that offer music courses that one can attend. Conveniently, these days, there are many online schools that offer lessons over the internet too. Students can register for paid lessons with a real guru in vocal or instrumental music, for basic or advanced classes, group or individual lessons. The Shankar Mahadevan Academy and the Ali Akbar College of Music are a couple of the better known ones.

Regardless of how you acquire your training, you can register for and take accredited examinations at different points in your musical training. These exams are given by the Akhil Bharatiya Gandharva Mahavidyalaya Mandal, and students earn certificates for each relevant level upon passing. There are many levels, starting at prarambhik (elementary) and going right up to visharad (equivalent to a bachelor's degree), alankar (a master's degree), or sangitacharya (a doctor's degree).

Several universities and institutes across India offer degrees in Hindustani classical music. Here is an incomplete list.

• Department of Music, University of Delhi, Delhi
• Department of Music, University of Mumbai, Mumbai
• Faculty of Fine Arts, SNDT Women's University, Mumbai and Pune
• Centre for Performing Arts, Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune
• Faculty of Performing Arts, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi
• Bhatkhande Music Institute Deemed University, Lucknow
• ITC - Sangeet Research Academy, Kolkata

The traditional Indian gurukul system of learning under a guru by becoming a part of the guru's household still exists to a large extent in the field of music. You can affiliate yourself with a guru, learn under them for an extended period of time, and carry on their tradition in the true sense. Many famous artists have disciples to whom they directly pass on their music and musical styles.

Voice Training Tips

The style of voice production is different in different genres of music. Think of how different an opera sounds compared to jazz music. Or how different Hindustani (North Indian) classical music sounds compared to Carnatic (South Indian) classical music. In fact, almost all genres of music have their own distinct styles of voice production. Therefore, it is important to find role models within the musical genre of your choice.

In Hindustani classical music, a strong and free chest tone is used for most of the pitches, and an appropriate mix of chest and head tones is used to sing the higher pitches - the higher the pitch, the greater the proportion of head tone. The trick is to increase the ratio of head tone so gradually and smoothly that the transition is seamless.

Expanding Your Chest Voice Range

The human voice changes quality at different pitches. The chest voice is the voice that comes most naturally when speaking or singing within your most comfortable pitch range. As you go further down the scale to lower pitches, you will find that your voice begins to acquire a croaking quality (vocal fry) at some point, and it becomes uncomfortable to sing. Now if you go up the scale to higher pitches, you will again find that your natural voice begins to break at a certain point and that you cannot comfortably sing pitches above that using your chest voice. The range you can sing comfortably without straining in any way is your natural vocal range.

Different people have different vocal ranges for their natural (chest) voice. Some people sing low pitches more comfortably, while others sing high pitches more easily. Some people have a naturally wide pitch range and others can barely sing one octave. But everybody's natural pitch range can be expanded to a certain extent with voice training. The first step in vocal training, therefore, is to expand your natural pitch range to the extent possible. (Scroll down for a few exercises recommended for steadying and strengthening your voice as well as for expanding your natural pitch range.)

As you go through the process of initial vocal training, you will find out where your chest voice range begins and ends. You can then chose a tonic (sa) that locates your main octave comfortably in the middle of that range (just for reference: women tend to choose some pitch between G and B as their sa, while men generally settle on some pitch between C and E♭). Once you've found the best sa for you, it is a good idea to stick with it. (Read my page on The Notes to understand this better).

Learning to Sing at Higher Pitches

Serious Hindustani vocalists need a vocal range spanning about two octaves - the main octave, halfway down the lower octave, and halfway up the higher octave. Some people can get this range comfortably with their chest voices, but most people don't. If you don't, you will have to master the technique of mixing chest and head tones smoothly.

Different pitches resonate best in different cavities within the body. Specifically, going from the lowest to the highest pitches, the main resonating areas are the chest cavity, the tracheal tree, the larynx, the pharynx, the oral cavity, the nasal cavity, and the sinuses. The key is to learn how to project your voice appropriately to achieve the maximum resonation possible for all the pitches you are required to produce.

Well, theory is all very well and it is good to be aware of it, but the best way to learn how to mix chest and head tones effectively is by imitation. Most good vocalists have had the good fortune of learning with a teacher whose style they were able to observe and imitate over the years. In other words, if you have access to a good teacher with great voicalization technique, seek training from them. If not, you may want to find a vocal role model and try imitating their style.

Singing in Akar

Right from the outset in Hindustani music, one must learn to sing in akar - which means to sing using only the vowel sound ā. Most people are used to singing songs with lyrics, which contain both consonants and vowels. Consonants play the role of stabilizing the voice and helping it transition from one pitch to another, so it is much easier to sing tunefully when you use consonants. Take the consonants out, and suddenly you are left without a crutch, the notes seem to merge into each other and become blurry.

The challenge is to train your voice to sing each note with precision and clarity without the consonants. Serious students must eventually practice singing in all of the pure vowel sounds - ā, i, u, e and o, as well as the nasal consonants n and m, because the voice behaves differently with different vowels. Some notes are harder to hit with certain vowels.

One of the reasons it is important to learn to sing clearly in akar is because when you are singing rapid note patterns (taans) at dizzying speeds, a pure vowel sound is all there is time for. You cannot afford the luxury of consonants and lyrics at those speeds. Another reason is that Hindustani music requires the artist to improvise melody, and singing in akar allows the artist to focus on and freely explore melody. Apart from all this, there is the very important fact that melody can be experienced at its purest when no distractions in the form of lyrics are present.

Voice Training Exercises

Below are a few practice exercises that will help you condition your voice and familiarize yourself with the notes in an octave. Some exercises also help prepare your voice for singing with ornaments. All the exercises are first done in sargam (solfa syllables) and then in akar.