| Khayāl |
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| History. Perhaps the most important vocal genre in the Hindustāni saṅgīt paddhati is the khayāl [Arabic-Persian "lyric" or "imagination"]. The origins of khayāl are often associated the famous musician, Amir Khusrau Dihlavi (1251-1326) — an Indian raised in a Turko-Iranian ethnic environment — because of his role in the fusion of Persio-Arabic, Turki-Iranian, and Indic musical systems during his lifetime. |
| The sultans of Jaunpur — Mohammad Sharqi (1401-1440) and Hussain Sarqi (r. 1458-1499) who were contemporaries and sometimes adversaries of the first Delhi Moghul emperor, Babur — were patrons of musicians who developed khayāl. |
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| For them, the genre was "ornate and romantic, and popular with musicians other than those who performed at Hindu temples" (Thakur Jaidev Singh 1961:132 in Wade 1984:1). Thus, khayāl was originally embraced by Muslims, not Hindus. |
| Khayāl grew in importance during the seventeenth-century Jaipur (Powers 1980:88a) as demonstrated in the compositions of Niyamat Khan (also known as Sadarang) who was a musician in the court of Muhammed Shah (r. 1719-1748) and was a descendant of Tan Sen through Tan Sen's daughter. Niyamat Khan / Sadarang was a singer of dhrupad who adopted the musical techniques of qawwāli musicians. Because he and his nephew, Adarang, were officially dhrupad singers, the performance of this new genre was not part of their duties. However, they could teach khayāl to others, especially disciples who were not their sons. Khayāl thus offered a contrast to the more austere dhrupad, particularly for the "romantic, luxury-loving Muhammad Shah" (Powers 1980:88a). |
| During the seventeenth century Delhi-Agra rule of Shah Jahan (r. 1627-1658) khayāliyas (singers of khayāl) are mentioned among the royal performers. In eighteenth century northern India, hereditary musicians began to foster musical knowledge within their families. The khayāliyas of mid-eighteenth century came from families who specialized in either dhrupad or qawwālī. The social contexts of these
early performances were Muslim (by and large) and earliest performers were mostly Muslim. During nineteenth and twentieth centuries performers of khayāl diversified their renditions of the genre which became the "predominant vocal genre in the improvisatory system of North Indian music" (Wade 1985:2). |
| Khayāl texts can be of a variety of types and have often been composed by musicians. Their subjects can be advice, religious devotion, Krishna, praise of patrons, or descriptions of seasons, to name a few. Love is a common theme (both divine and human). |
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| Musical Structure. A full performance of khayāl is organized of two main parts — baḍā khayāl and choṭā khayāl — and each of these has at its core a musical theme, the cīz. |
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The baḍā khayāl [Hindustani "big" khayāl] is performed in very slow tempo (ati vilambit lay). Tintal, Ektal, and Jhumra are the most common tāls for khayāl. The baḍā khayāl serves as a parallel to the ālāp of dhrupad in that the performer has considerable rhythmic freedom. Ho
wever, the baḍā khayāl is often preceeded by a very brief non-metric introduction referred to as an āocār ālāp. |
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Although the baḍā khayāl replaces the ālāp of other forms in the Hindustani saṅgīt paddhati, some similarities remain. The rūpak ālāpti [Sanskrit "shape" or "form" ālāp] is an ālāp-like section of the baḍā khayāl, sung to the pre-existing shape of the cīz and set metrically rather than in free time. It is distinguished from rāga ālāp in which the fundamental organizing feature is the rāga, not the shape of the composition. Sometimes, when singers use the text, this improvisation is call a bol ālāp. |
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In the baḍā khayāl, the distinction between sthā'ī and antarā relates to the shape of rāg ālāp. The pitch ranges of two sections almost always overlap. In the baḍā khayāl the singer often refers only briefly to the original composition, singing just the mukhṛā — the phrase leading up to the sam (beat one). |
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The choṭā khayāl [Hindustani "small" khayāl] is in fast tempo (drut lay) and commonly in Tintal. The cīz (composition) is heard more extensively and plainly than in baḍā khayāl. Cīz [Persian "thing"] consists of two parts: sthā'ī (composed in mandrā sthān and the bottom half of the madhya sthān) and the antarā (composed in the upper half of the madhya sthān and the lower half of the tār sthān). The former is the more important, recurring regularly, while the latter generally has more syllables. |
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| Elaborative Techniques. Most of the musical attention in khayāl is focused on the various kinds of tān, "fast melodic figures of a virtuosic nature" (Wade 1985:27). These include... |
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ākār tān, [ā-kār Hindustani literally "to do 'ā'"] (elaborations in which the singer uses only the syllable "ā") |
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gamak tān [gamak, Hindustani "syllable"] (elaborations using a heavy glottal shake) |
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bol tān [bol, Hindusani "syllable"] (elaborations intended to expand upon the meaning of the words of the text) |
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| A number of these improvisations are common to both khayal and dhrupad. For example, and |
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bol bāṇṭ [Hindustani "syllable distribution"]: the use of the cīz bols for purposes of rhythmic play [laykāri] such as the creation of tihā'īs using the text |
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sārgam (also sargam tān) [Hindustani "sā-re-ga-ma"]: elaborations using the mnemonic pitch syllables sā-re-ga-mā,
etc. |
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nom-tom: elaborations with a rhythmic pulse created through the use of syllables like "nom," "tom," and "ta-rā-nā." Sometimes, musicians also call these elaborations "ta-rā-nā" (which South Indians adapted and called "tilāna"). |
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| References |
| Powers, Harold. "India, Subcontinent of. The Region, Its Music and Music History. Music and Theory in the Canonical Styles after the sixteenth Century. Hindustani Traditions from the Seventeenth Century to the Nineteenth." In The New Grove's
Dictionary of Music and Musicians (Stanley Sadie, ed.), 1980. |
| Wade, Bonnie. Khayal: Creativity within North India's Classical Music Tradition. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1985 |
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| Selected Performances |
| Niaz Ahmed and Fayyaz Ahmed Khan, "Guniyān kī sangat..." / "Kal Nahi Aye..." (rāga Yaman) |
| Parveen Sultana, "Saijaina Aesi Bana Aye..." / "Mohi Chedo na Ghiridari..." (rāga Ahir Bhairav) |
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