RMIM Archive Article "301".
From the RMIM Article Archive maintained by Satish Subramanian
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# RMIM Archives..
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# Subject: The origin of Orchestra
# Author: Saeed Malik
# Source: The Nation Midweek (Pakistan)
# Contact: Khawaja Naveed Aslam (knaslam@paknet1.ptc.pk)
#
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The origin of orchestra
SAEED MALIK
Orchestra was alien to Sub-continental music until it was
introduced by the British along with a number of Western musical
instruments. But in the new Indian environment, this word
acquired a different meaning.
In Western parlance, an orchestra is defined as a large group of
players of musical instruments, including typically strings,
woodwinds, brasses and percussions, organised especially for
performing one of the larger forms of concert music (as a
symphony), or for accompanying an extended choral composition
with a text, more or less, dramatic in character and usually
based on a theme. Orchestras are also used in the West in
performing other dramatic works (as a ballet or opera), or for
small group of musicians organised specially to play for dining
and dancing, in restaurants. While in ancient Greece, it stood
for a circular space used by a chorus in front of the prescenium
in a theatre. It acquired somewhat different connotation during
the Roman period, when the word orchestra was applied to theatre
used for the seats of persons of distinction, in addition to a
group of musicians assembled to play a given number. It now also
stands for a space in a modern theatre or other public hall that
is used by a band of instrumental performers and is commonly
located just in front of the stage and at or below the level of
the auditorium floor. (Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica).
Whereas an orchestra is an essential and integral part of a
polyphonic system of music, it is of least use and importance for
our classical music, which is homophonic in nature. In olden
days, as it is now, our classical vocalists sang only to the
accompaniment of a drone (taanpura), a bow instrument (sarangi)
and a pair of tablas. The requirements and nature of our art
music are such that it does not need the use of any more musical
instruments. Even for a rendition by an instrumentalist, no
musical device other than the one he is playing on is used in the
delineation, elaboration and progression of a raga. The absence
of an orchestra in a recital of classical music is also due to
the fact that our vocalists and instrumentalists do not sing or
play written music. They improvise and perform under the
influence of intuitive impulses and do not have to depend on the
works or scores of someone else (composers) as is the case with
Western music.
With the advent of theatre in the Sub-continent, the use of the
so-called orchestra was introduced in our melodic ethos.
Actually, it meant the playing together by several musicians of a
composition invented by another musician to enhance the dramatic
impact of a play. Such an orchestra, which usually consisted of a
harmonium, an organ, a clarinet, a sarangi and a pair of tablas,
played in unison, certain melodic phrases committed to the memory
of the musicians and was totally devoid of harmony and
improvisation. In other words, the musicians were imprisoned
within the confines of a given composition and were not allowed
any freedom to express their own musical thoughts, or to make any
departure from the original phrases invented by the music
director. For all practical purposes, such a rendition by that
kind of an orchestra amounted to presenting just one extended
musical phrase, or composition over and over again by a group of
instrumentalists.
Police and military bands during the late 19th century helped in
the introduction of several Western musical instruments like
brasses, woodwind, and percussion, which were until then unknown
to the people in the Sub-continent, and also in popularising
"Western-type orchestras among the native audiences."
Gramophone recording companies and the radio broadcasting system
also used combined instrumental groups for their songs, but the
use of an orchestra in a strictly Western sense did not come into
vogue until the advent of sound motion pictures, when our music
directors slowly but surely began to assimilate the nuances of
Western polyphonic system of music.
In their compositions for the films, especially after the mid-
50s, the use of harmony and counterpoints, began to seep into
songs recorded for the movies, particularly the ones produced at
Bombay. This new trend quickly caught up with the younger
generations of composers, who were exceedingly influenced by jazz
and Western pop music. They started the introduction of elements
of harmony and counterpoints, with the help of a number of
Bombay-based Goanese musicians (who were familiar with Western
Staff Notation) and by using an ever-increasing number of new
electronic musical instruments. This resulted "in the full
utilisation of tone, colour and timbre of the instrumental groups
and a well-defined balance of forces in the orchestras came a
little later."
What is harmony? It concerns the building of chords (tones played
together) derived from the scale on which the music is based. It
also involves the order in which successions of chords accompany
the melody. The initial melody is a monotone tune (one with
almost no variation), but the shifting harmony adds colour,
tension, and release to the composition.
The discovery that two voices could sing two separate melodies at
the same time (and still produce pleasing sounds) occurred
sometime during the 9th century in Europe. During the next four
centuries, it is claimed, this type of music gradually replaced
the older monophonic style. First experiments in the new system
of music were confined to organum--one group sang the melody,
while the other sang it at a fourth or fifth interval below it.
In Pakistan and India, in addition to many varieties of regional
folk melodies, two systems of music are generally practiced.
These are the classical, and the popular, which emanate mostly
from films and some from radio and television. So far, our
classical music has tenaciously resisted the pressures from
Western harmonisation and has stood its grounds, but our film
music seems to have capitulated. Today, we can hardly find any
film song which does not have harmonisation as the basic element
of its melodic interludes.
Now, many instrumentalists working for movie orchestras in
Pakistan (and India) have learned the system of Western Staff
Notation which they employ while writing melodies composed by
different musicians. Instead of memorising too many different
songs, they write them on paper from which they reproduce the
melodies during rehearsals and recordings. Whatever may be said
about the use of harmonisation in our film music, it definitely
adds to the sonic enchantment of the compositions.
From the RMIM Article Archive maintained by Satish Subramanian