Category Archives: Musicology

“Ethnomusicology can be considered as the holistic and cultural study of music existing in various folk, tribal and other ethnic societies. Ethnomusicology is an approach to the study of any music not only in terms of itself but also in relation to its cultural context. […] In India, not much attention was paid to study folk music before independence. The first Indian scholar who took an interest in studying the folk songs was Rabindranath Tagore.” – Bisakha Goswami (Assistant Professor in Musicology, Rabindra Bharati University) in “Emergence of Ethnomusicology: As Traced in Indian Perspectives”, International Journal of Multidisciplinary Approach and Studies (Volume 01, No.6, Nov-Dec 2014)
https://www.academia.edu/10205543/
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=3488

“Cultural music and dance forms among the adivasis have evolved over centuries. Beautified by elements and nuances of their surroundings, these forms depict their very lifestyles. Played for hours together in the same tempo, music is an integral part of celebrations and mourning. […] Each instrument has a purpose and belief related to it and they call for agile fingers, sturdy nails and strength of breath. Chaudhari who hails from Padamdungri, mentioned how the playing of Dera – exclusively a woman’s art – is now almost non-existent.” – Vikram Chaudhari interviewed by Ashleshaa Khurana for Times Of India (30 January 2014)
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=13780

“[G]reeting songs, lullabies, love and courtship songs, ballads, and humorous songs […] might well be completely unaccompanied, or accompanied by just a drum. Sometimes the male musicians play one-stringed, long-necked lutes, which provide a drone. Certain tribes, however, have stringed melody instruments, either a small fiddle or a stick zither with attached resonators, and these may be used to accompany the songs. This stick zither may well have been the prototype of the vina depicted in miniature paintings during the Muslim period.” – NA Jairazbhoy, “Tribal, Folk and Devotional Music” in: A Cultural History of India (London: Oxford University Press 1975)
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=3488

“Tribal and folk music is not taught in the same way that Indian classical music is taught.” – David Courtney
https://chandrakantha.com/articles/indian_music/folk_music.html
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=13574

“It is by now common knowledge that Adivasi artistic-creative traditions have been organically interwoven into a total way of life, which has, over generations, been developed on the basis of an eco-centric world view that considers the human world and nature as parts of the same continuum. Such traditions, whether wall/floor decorations, iconography, fine and/or performing arts, are deeply related to one another, and all of them are related to the everyday Adivasi way of life.” –  Jayasri Banerjee in “Adivasi music and the public stage” (Indian Folklife, January 2002)
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=6448