Analytical Approaches to World Music (Dec 2023)
Musical Improvisation and Elegant Writing: Ālāpana in South Indian Karnatak Music Performed by U. Srinivas
Abstract
When ethnomusicologists and music theorists analytically approach how musicians improvise, some scholars utilize concepts drawn from linguistics and linguistic anthropology. In this area of scholarship, it is common for ethnomusicologists and music theorists to make analogies between musical improvisation and forms of extemporized spoken language. One lacuna in this scholarship is connections between musical improvisation and written language. To address this gap in the knowledge I analyze one form of musical improvisation with concepts pertaining to elegant writing. In Karnatak music of South India, melodic improvisation of rāga in free rhythm is known as ālāpana. I argue that underlying principles of ālāpana are coherence, cohesion, and rhetorical climax. I seek to bear out my argument through the analysis of coherence, cohesion, and climax in four ālāpana performed by Karnatak mandolinist U. Srinivas (1969–2014).
