Megan Quilliam
September 29, 2015
World Music 2772
Anoushka Shankar - Indian Classical Raga - Jog
Raga is a melodic mode that is included in traditional Indian music. A raga has around five to nine music notes, however, the notes themselves are not as important as how they are laid out and expressed through the music. Traditionally, ragas are strictly associated with other factors such as seasons, time of the day, etc. Ravi Shankar is a musician who introduced Indian classical music to the world. He is referred as the ambassador of Indian classical music in one of his interview with the NPRMusic. The piece of music that is being analyzed is called Jog and this piece was performed by his daughter, Anoushka Shankar, her colleges …show more content…
Patma Shankar, the violinist, starts her section with a very gentle, soft touch on her violin. Unlike the first part, the second part of Jog have more of a conjunct descending melodic movement. The texture of the violin is also a lot smoother and harmonized rather than the sitar. Towards the end of the second part of the song, the melody changes from conjunct movement to a more disjunct movement. The sound the violin makes is also sharper and more choppy towards the end. Until the outro of the first part, again, being used in the second part. The third part is indicated to the Shehnai, a traditional instrument that is commonly used in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. This part of the song particularly use a lot of portamento and vibrato. Most of the endings of each music line were fortes. Strong, long-lasting notes were played by Shajiv Shankar, the Shehnai player with a crescendo dynamic. The increase in the volume of the instrument creates sudden waves of sounds which results a slower, more settled mood for the song. The forth part and also the last one in this shortened-version of Jog is the drum solo. Also still follow the same eight beats cycle, it is harder to follow the beat since the drum was being played really fast. At 9:15, we could quickly catch sixteen beats that the drum filled out perfectly with the beat before the whole video