Abhang:
literally,
1. Absolute; eternal, immutable, ceaseless, unbroken;
impeccable, etc
2. Immortal, primordial; another name for Brahman; inviolable, etc
3. a Marathi metre; also, any metrical compostion in this metre

The abhang is the favourite metre of all Varkari poets since the thirteenth century and unlike classical Sanskrit-based metres it is native to Marathi speech and its colloquial forms. It is extremely flexible. It consists of four lines and each line contains three to eight syllables. It has a fluid symmetry maintained by internal or end rhymes and often designed to be sung. It originates most probably in oral folk poetry. Poets such as Jnanadev, Namdeo and Tukaram have given it a classic status in Marathi poetry.

Varkari (वारकरी)
is one who makes a “vari,” (edited to add: it sounds more like “wari”) which in Marathi means, “round trip” or “pilgrimage” or “regular visit to a place and return from it”; a Varkari is vowed and committed to undertake, twice every year, a pilgrimage to Pandharpur to attend the Ashadhi and the Kartiki festivals of Vitthal.

The above was excerpted from my mother’s yellowing copy of the late great Dilip Chitre’s Says Tuka. This book is out of print, but if one is interested in Abhangs, it’s a must read.

Mahdeobuwa Shahabajkar talks a little about the Varkari Sampradaya in the video below:

This video features Mahadeobuwa Shahabajkar and ensemble singing religious music of the Varkari Sampradaya, an important sect of the Bhakti movement from Maharashtra. Followers of the Varkari sect sing abhangs and other song forms attributed to saint-poets like Dnyaneshwar, Namdeo, Eknath, Tukaram. Because of its obvious influence from Hindustani classical music, the most appropriate label for this kind of presentation would be “sangit bhajan”, which is what the singers calls it in the interview. Use of the term “sangit bhajan” (rather than simply “bhajan”) indicates that he emphasizes musicality in addition to the text being sung…from the notes on youtube by Underscore Records-
link

A brief glimpse of a Pandharpur Waari (pilgrimage):

SOME USEFUL LINKS:
aathavanitli-gani
Abhang Amrit
Abhang Sankirtan
Abhangs: Vakari Sampradaya
Sant Tukaram Ke Barah Abhang (HINDI)
Ramadaskrut abhang.
Alanati Classics – Bhaktha Tukaram
Tukaram
Tukaram
Marathi Poets: Kanhopatra, Arun Kolatkar, Arun Krushnaji Kamble, Dilip Chitre, Dnyaneshwar, Tukaram, Vilas Sarang, Savitribai Phule
Bahina Bai and Her Abhangas

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I reserve a part of my brain to file away music into the category of Tinkle Tankle. A large amount of so-called devotional music falls into this category, with terrible orchestration and even more horrible group singing. Add to this a layer of treacle. You can almost see the strings of syrup forming a halo around everyone’s head.

Classical compositions have an enormous “devotional” component. That is, a lot of them are addressed to the Divine, speak of the relationship with the Divine (often referred to as the Beloved), may address various deities etc. But when we speak of the “devotional” genre in this post, I am largely speaking of lighter forms of Indian music, that don’t strictly adhere to classical grammars.

Classically trained musicians have always sung what are called the “lighter” genres, but have recently entered the “light music” /”devotional” market in a big way. They are singing stotras, shlokas, bhajans,mantras, kirtans, abhangas and other forms of devotional songs and/or setting them to music.

Some of the devotional music rendered by classical singers suffers from the ailments described above. But there has been some that has come out that is very enjoyable, and full of bhakti without diabetes.

Note: The bhajan (devotional song) appears in many different varieties, and can be performed in different ways.

Later posts will examine the different forms of the bhajan etc. For now lets just concentrate on listening samples (I hope to do lots of these “in-between” posts, featuring singers from both the Northern and Southern traditions, my day job and other issues permitting).

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Pandit Bhimsen Joshi is one of India’s most well known classical singers. He is a Khayal singer and belongs to the Hindustani, or North Indian tradition of Indian classical music. He has also sung in the South Indian language, Kannada (he was born in Gadag, Karnataka). Below are a few of my favourites Bhimsen Joshi bhajans (with some reservations on the orchestration). I suggest turning up the volume a little, these are no good on a low setting:

Chalo Ri Murali Suniye (Surdas Bhajan)-Bhimsen Joshi

Sun Surat Rangili(Charandas Bhajan)-Bhimsen Joshi

Aaarambhi Vandin Ayodhyecha Raja (Ramdas Bhajan in Marathi)(lyrics)-Bhimsen Joshi

Madhukar Shyam Hamare Chor-Bhimsen Joshi

A whole lot of Panditji’s Kannada Bhajans are available to hear on youtube.

He is also famous for singing Abhangas in Marathi. I hope I can do a separate post on Abhangas.

USEFUL LINKS:

To Read:
Bhimsen Joshi-A Profile

If you want to buy some of the above they are available as shown below:
To Buy (from amazon.com):
Madhukar Shyam Hamare Chor

Sun Surat Rangili

Chalo Ri Murali

Aarambhi Vandin Ayodhyecha Raja

Deva Bandha Namma

Bhajan-Bhimsen Joshi

Mantra-Bhimsen Joshi

Tantra-Bhimsen Joshi

Jantra

Indu Yenage Govinda-Pt. Bhimsen Joshi

Amazon UK:
Madhukar Shyam Hamare Chor

Chalo Ri Murali

Sun Surat Rangili

Aarambhi Vandin Ayodhyecha Raja

Deva Bandha Namma

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I know that for those not interested in music this may be boring. On the other hand it is likely to be boring even for those who are interested in music, because this is very basic. But I hope those who are not interested, or vaguely interested, do read this post and forgive me for being a little obsessive about wanting us to at least recognise the different instruments if not to hear them. There may be concepts that are difficult to understand, if you want, you can explore them further by clicking on the hyperlinks, or just ignore them for the time being and simply get used to what the instruments look like and sound like so you can tell the difference. There are many video clips (hurrah for youtube!) and it’s not necessary to play them for their full length or to play them at all-they are for the purposes of illustration only.

It’s probably not your fault if you don’t know the difference between these instruments-all three look similar, they have many variations (particularly Veenas), and Indian classical music has often been inaccessible to various groups of people; Gender, caste, social status, language, religion, class and education have all acted in complicated ways to exclude people from learning it or knowing about it. Or it may simply be that one just doesn’t know about it, so let me evangelise (imperfectly).

Tanpura or Tambura:

All Indian classical vocalists, of the well-known styles of Indian classical music i.e. the North Indian style of Hindustani music (further subdivided into the quite distinct Dhrupad and Khayal styles) and the South Indian Carnatic style of music are accompanied by a Tanpura or Tambura (there are other less well-known forms of Indian art music that I shall not refer to here). The instrument is called Tanpura in the North and Tambura in the South. Instrumentalists are accompanied by Tanpuras too, though they often use a smaller version called a tanpuri or tamburi.

There are “male” and “female” Tanpuras-female ones can be smaller and they can be tuned to suit male and female voices (the tuning depends on the strings-so a female can use a “male” Tanpura, with strings suitable for her pitch)

Here is a picture of a North Indian Tanpura:

Picture credit: binaswar.com

And here is a picture of a South Indian Tambura:

Picture credit: chandrakantha.com

Though they might look big and heavy, they are actually quite light and quite fragile.

The North (Miraj) and South Indian (Tanjore) versions are constructed slightly differently and produce a slightly different sound though they perform the same function, that is to provide a “drone” to help the musician sing in pitch (sruti). Maintaining sruti, or singing in pitch is very important and therefore the Tanpura is absolutely essential in Indian classical music. Essentially, the Tanpura sings a recurring melody.

Everyone has a natural pitch. When learning Indian classical music, one chooses one’s “Sa,” called adhara shadja, the basic tonic note-every other note is sung relative to this note. Thus maintaining the basic “Sa,” the fixed reference point is very important, and that is what the Tanpura does (this is different to Western music).

Tanpuras usually have four or five strings. The first string is tuned to Pa (the natural fifth from the adhara shadja), the two middle ones are tuned to the higher Sa and the last, which is the bass string, to the tonic, Sa, an octave lower. The tuning of the first string may change, depending on the raga/ragam (e.g. there may be a raga/ragam without Pa) or an extra string that plays the seventh, i.e. Ni, is added, but we will not get into that here.

Nowadays one gets electronic sruti boxes and electronic tamburas that are much easier to carry around, that look like small radios. Though these are very good and have reached high standards, some people (including yours truly) feel that the traditional Tanpuras and Tamburas provide a richer sound and should not be done away with. Learning to tune a Tanpura is also considered essential in training one’s ear. For a technical view on why traditional Tanpuras sound better see this article.

Here is a link to a podcast by the Carnatic musician Vidya Subramaninan and Devesh Satyavolu that explains, very simply, the functions of the shruti box, the electronic tambura and the traditional Tambura. Vidya sings out the notes of the Tambura-this will help in understanding what’s been said above about how it is tuned.

Here is a video where you can see how Tanpuras are played and hear the rich sound of well tuned (North Indian) Tanpuras clearly. The singer is Ustad H. Sayeeduddin Dagar who sings in the Dhrupad style. He starts off here with a Sanskrit chant:

Here is a video of the Khayal singer Ashwini Bhide Deshpande, singing a bhajan. I’ve chosen this video because it has clear close-ups of her fingers on the Tanpura strings:

And finally, here is a link to a video of a South Indian Tambura being played, that I couldn’t embed here.

A Tanpura is usually held straight up in front of the singer or tanpura accompanist (people can tend to lean it towards their bodies or put it in their laps) or flat down on the floor, whereas a Sitar is usually held diagonally across the body. More on the sitar in the next post.

Updated to add: Here is a video I just found with an explanation of the function of the Tanpura:

Continued: S is for Sitar and Surbahar
V is for Veena

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