Natya Shastra of Bharata is another important landmark in the history of Indian music. It is supposed to have been written sometime between the 2nd century B.C. and the 2nd century A.D. Some scholars are even doubtful whether it is the work of one author and the work might well have been a compendium - at least, the version which is available to us. The Natya Shastra is a comprehensive work mainly dealing with dramaturgy. But a few chapters of this deal with music. Therein we get information on scales, melodic forms, tala and musical instruments. The then contemporary music recognized two standard scales. These were called gramas. The word grama is itself perhaps derivable from the idea of group or sect: a village, for instance. This probably lead to a set of svaras or notes being called grama. This could roughly be translated as scales. There were then two gramas prevalent. One was called the Shadja grama, the other one was the Madhyama grama. The difference between the two was only in one note, the panchama. To speak more accurately. we say that the panchama in madhyama grama was one sruti lower than the panchama in shadja grama.

The whole scheme, what is often called the modal music, seems so strange to us now. But there is no doubting the fact that it was a very highly advanced and a scientific one.

From about the 11th century, music from Central and West Asia began to influence our music tradition. Gradually this influence took a deeper root and many changes took place. Of these, an important one is the disappearance of gramas and moorcchanas.

Sometime around about the 15th century, this process of change became manifest, the grama system became obsolete. The concept of mela or thata takes its place. In this there is only one standard scale. All known notes are referred to a common note Sa.

By about the 18th century even the standard or shuddha svara in Hindustani music becomes different. The following is the current one, accepted from the 18th century.

This is the mela aaroh of the modern raga Bilaval. Besides these seven shuddha notes or svaras there are five variants, making in all twelve notes to a saptak.

Sa re re ga ga ma ma pa dha dha ni ni

There are, of course, finer variations: these are the shrutis, It is better, therefore, to call these 12 tonal regions rather than notes.

So far we have been speaking of scales: the grama, moorcchana and mela. These are obviously concepts developed after melodies were born. No folk singer thinks of a grama or a mela. The tribal and folk songs existed and still exist without a conscious grammar. It is the musicologist who later classifies melodies or ragas into scales.

We shall now turn our attention to the melodic structures. Again it is to the Vedas that we must turn for the first codified melody. In the Natya Shastra of Bharata are found descriptions of melodic forms called jati. How they were sung or played, we have no idea; but some salient points can be called from Natya Shastra and later commentaries. Every one of these jatis could be put in some moorcchana or the other. They were distinguished by characteristics like the graha (starting note) nyasa (note on which a phrase stops). the range of notes - from low pitch to high - and so on. Many scholars are of the opinion that the concept of raga which is so basic to our music, was born and developed out of jati. The major work dealing with the raga is the Brihaddesi of Matanga. The work is dated around the 6th century, A.D. By this time, the idea of the raga as a melodic scheme had become clear and well defined. Matanga was from the southern areas of India, to be specific he was from Carnatic. This shows that up to this era, at least, the grammar of Indian music was more or less one throughout the country. Secondly, what he deals with is desi music. That is why he had titled the work Brihaddesi.

A characteristic contribution of India to musical rhythm is the tala. Tala is a cyclic arrangement of time units. The basic units of time division are laghu, guru, and pluta. These are actually derived from poetic prosody. Laghu comprises one syllable,guru two, and pluta three. There are also larger units. Bharata's Natya Shastra gives details of construction of tala out of various time units, how they should be played and so on. Later authors developed a scheme of 108 talas. Besides some ancient talas new ones, as for example, Firdost, seem to have entered Hindustani music. The most important aspect of playing the tala in the Hindustani system has been the development of the ideas of theka. This technique is characteristic of Hindustani music. A theka is the definition of a tala by the stroke of a tabla. Each stroke on the drum has a name called a bol or syllable. For instance, dha, ta, ghe. etc.

In any language one can have an epic, a sonnet, a lyric, a short story and so on. Similarly, given a raga and a tala, various musical forms have been created. Right from ancient times, musical forms can be divided into two broad categories. These were the anibaddha and the nibaddha sangeeta. The first may be called the open or free form and the second as the closed or bound form.

Anibaddha sangeeta is one which is not restricted by meaningful words and tala. It is a free improvisation. The finest form is the alap.

Of the nibaddha variety, there are many. The earliest about which some knowledge is available is the prabandha giti. Indeed,prabandha is often used as a generic term to indicate any nibaddha song or musical composition. We have little evidence of these closed forms, except that they were set to definite ragas and talas. Of all known prabandhas those of Jayadeva are the best known. This poet lived in Bengal in the 12th century and composed his Gita Govinda, a Sanskrit work with songs and verses. The songs are ashtapadis: that is, each song has eight couplets. Today, the songs have spread throughout the country and each region has its own style. As a matter of fact, singers have taken the liberty of giving the prabandhas their own tunes. In the face of this, it is impossible to determine the original tunes of the ashtapadis.

While the Godhead takes on many forms to the bhakta, as Shiva or as Parabrahma - the Bhagavata, as the story of the ten avataras of Sri Vishnu, has captured the Indian mind. Round this were woven songs and hymns, preachings and psalms of these two travelled in waves to North India to give us singer saints like Jayadeva ,Chaitanya, Sankardeva, Kabir, Tulsi, Meera, Tukaram, Eknath, Narsi and Nanak. This bhakti movement engulfed all religions and classes including the sufis. It has given us numerous devotional forms such as abhangas, kirtans, bhajans, baul songs.

The next great formal aspect in Nibaddha Sangeet is met within the Dhrupad. It is believed to have been a further elaboration of the prabandha structure. While it might have had an impetus for popularity even by the 14th century, it finds a blossoming period from 15th century onwards to about the 18th century. During these centuries we meet the most respected and renowned singers and patrons of this form. There was Man Singh Tomar, the Maharaja of Gwalior. It was he who was mainly responsible for the enormous vogue of dhrupad. There were Baiju, Bakshu and others. Swami Haridasa a hermit of Brindavan was not only a dhrupadiya, but one of the most central figures in the Bhakti cult in the Northern areas of India. By tradition he was the guru of Tansen, one of the best known dhrupad singers and one of the nine jewels of Emperor Akbar's court.

In structure dhrupad has two parts, the anibaddha section and the sanchari dhrupad proper. The first is free alap. The dhrupad proper is a song in four parts: the asthayee, the antara, the Sanchari and the abhoga.

The essential quality of the dhrupadic approach is its sombre atmosphere and emphasis on rhythm.

There were four schools or vanis of singing the dhrupad. The Gauhar vani developed the raga or unadorned melodic figures. The Dagar vani emphasized melodic curves and graces. The Khandar vani specialised in quick ornamentation of the notes. Nauhar vani was known for its broad musical leaps and jumps. These vanis 'are now indistinguishable.

The dhrupad is even now highly respected and can be heard on the concert platform but more often in temples of North India. The dhrupad has somewhat receded to the background and is not so popular with the masses. The Been and Pakhawaj which were closely associated with the dhrupad also do not find much patronage these days.

As sung today, the khyal has two varieties: the slow or vilambit khyal and the fast or drut khyal. In form both are similar, they have two sections - the asthayee and the antara. The vilambit is sung in slow tempo and the drut at a faster speed. In technique. the exposition is less grave than the dhrupad. There are more delicate gamkas and ornamentations.

Both types of khyals have two sections. The asthayee and the antara. The asthayee mostly confines itself to the low and middle octaves. The antara generally moves in the middle and upper octaves. Together asthayee and antara make one song, a composition, or bandish, 'cheez' as it is called. As a total work it reveals the essence of the raga in which it is set.

Comparable to the vanis of the dhrupads, we have gharanas, in the khyal. These are schools of singing founded or developed by various individuals or patrons such as kings or noblemen.

The oldest of these is the Gwalior gharana. The father of this school was one Nathan Peerbaksh, who settled down in Gwalior, and hence the name. He had two grandsons Haddu Khan and Hassu Khan who lived in the 19th century and were regarded as great masters of this style. The qualities of this gharana are an open voice clear enunciation of words, a comprehensive attention to raga. svara and tala. Some of the prominent musicians of this gharana are Krishna Rao Shankar Pandit, Raja Bhaiya Poonchwale etc.

The Agra Gharana is said to have been founded by one Khuda Baksh of Agra. He had studied with Nathan Peerbaksh of Gwalior, but developed his own style. Here again the voice is open and clear, a speciality of this gharana is its bol taan: that is, a fast or medium layakari passage using the bols or words of the song. The song itself is rendered in medium tempo. Of the most well known musicians of this gharana in recent times are Vilayat Hussain Khan and Fayyaz Khan.