Gharana

In Hindustani music (North Indian classical music), a gharānā is a system of social organisation in the Indian subcontinent, linking musicians or dancers by lineage or apprenticeship, and more importantly by adherence to a particular musical style.

The word gharana comes from the Hindi word 'ghar' which is derived from the Sanskrit word Griha, which means 'house'. It typically refers to the place where the musical ideology originated; for example, some of the gharanas well known for singing khyals are: Agra, Gwalior, Indore, Jaipur-Atrauli, Kirana, and Patiala. Four famous kathak gharanas are: Lucknow, Jaipur-Atrauli, Benares and Raigarh.

Vocal gharanas

Khyal gharanas

The gharana system in khyal was rooted in the guru–shishya tradition and was similar to the Dhrupad Bani system. The gharana system was greatly influenced by the gradual fall of the Mughal Empire, which forced musicians to move from Delhi to princely states such as Gwalior, Lucknow, Hyderabad, Patiala and Rampur.

The gharanas have distinct styles of presenting the khyal — how much to emphasize and how to enunciate the words of the composition, when to sing the sthayi and antara, whether to sing an unmetered alap in the beginning, what kinds of improvisations to use, how much importance to give to the rhythmic aspect, and so on. However, an individual performer from a gharana may choose to borrow appealing stylistic aspects of another gharana in his or her gayaki (singing style). There are ten prominent khyal gharanas, and they are:[1]

Gharana	Founding Artists	Approximate founding date	Famous Exponents	Features
Gwalior gharana	Nathan Pir Baksh, Hassu Khan, Haddu Khan, Nathu Khan	Mid 16th Century	Vishnu Digambar Paluskar, Omkarnath Thakur, Ghulam Hassan Shaggan, D. V. Paluskar, Malini Rajurkar, Veena Sahasrabuddhe, N Rajam	Bol-baant, bol-taan, no sargam, wide range in taans, alankarik taans, descending sapaat taans, roughly similar emphasis on melody and rhythm, preference for simple (as opposed to compound) ragas, repertoire of bandishes, variety of taans
Agra gharana	Ghagge Khudabaksh	Mid-19th century	Faiyaz Khan, Vilayat Hussain Khan, Sharafat Hussain Khan, Jitendra Abhisheki	Closer to dhrupad with nom-tom type alap and other elements, rhythmic play, frequent use of tisra jati in teentaal, emphasis on voice culture to achieve wide range and powerful throw of voice, bol-baant, bol-taan, rare use of sargam, slower taans, use of jabda taan, repertoire of traditional and self-composed bandishes
Kirana gharana	Abdul Karim Khan, Abdul Wahid Khan	Late 17th century	Sawai Gandharva, Bhimsen Joshi, Prabha Atre, Hirabai Barodekar, Gangubai Hangal	Slow-tempo raga development, emphasis on melody, long and sustained pitches, usually traditional ragas, use of sargam, very little bol-baant, clarity of text pronunciation, use of some Carnatic ragas and raga features, emphasis on vocal as opposed to instrumental form
Bhendibazaar gharana	Chhajju Khan, Nazeer Khan, Khadim Hussain Khan	Late 19th century	Aman Ali Khan, Anjanibai Malpekar	Emphasis on breath control to be able to sing long passages in a single breath, use of merukhand for extended alaps, use of gamak taan and sargam, use of some Carnatic ragas
Jaipur-Atrauli gharana	Alladiya Khan	Late 19th century	Kishori Amonkar, Ashwini Bhide-Deshpande, Mallikarjun Mansur	Repertoire of rare and complex ragas, based on Agra gharana, use of aakaar for badhat, heavy use of teentaal, rupak, jhaptaal and ada-chautaal, rhythmic play, use of bol-baant and bol-taan, rippling taans, heavy emphasis on taans
Patiala gharana	Bade Fateh Ali Khan, Ali Baksh Khan	Late 19th century	Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Vasantrao Deshpande, Ajoy Chakrabarty	Emphasis on voice development, roughly similar emphasis on melody and rhythm, bol-baant-like sargam with occasional tonic transpositions, occasional use of bol-taan, variety of taans, fast sargam and taan patterns, may or may not include antara, influence of tappa style
Rampur-Sahaswan gharana	Inayat Hussain Khan	Mid 19th century	Mushtaq Hussain Khan, Rashid Khan (musician), Nissar Hussain Khan, Ghulam Mustafa Khan (singer),Ghulam Sadiq Khan, Ghulam Abbas Khan	Emphasis on melody, bol-taans, sargam taans, sapaat taans
Indore gharana	Amir Khan	Mid 20th century		Slow-tempo and leisurely raga development, improvisation mostly in lower and middle octaves, tendency towards serious and expansive ragas, emphasis on melody, judicious use of pause between improvisations, bol alap and sargam using merukhand patterns, sparing application of murki, use of kan swaras in all parts of performance, controlled use of embellishments to preserve introspective quality, rare use of tihai, careful enunciation of text, may or may not include antara, multiple laya jatis in a single taan, mixture of taan types in a single taan, known for ruba'idar tarana (considered similar to chhota khyal)
Mewati gharana	Ghagge Nazir Khan	Mid 19th century	Jasraj, Kala Ramnath, Sanjeev Abhyankar	Emphasis on melody, known for bhajans, sapaat taans and gamak taans, use of sargam
Sham Chaurasia gharana	Miyan Chand Khan, Miyan Suraj Khan	Late 16th century	Salamat Ali and Nazakat Ali Khan	Emphasis on layakari using bol-taan and tihai, fast sargam and taan patterns

Dhrupad gharanas

Dagar gharana, founded by the Dagar family
Bishnupur gharana, founded by Kirtankars in West Bengal (13th century)
Darbhanga gharana, founded in Darbhanga, Bihar
Bettiah gharana, founded in Bettiah, Bihar
Talwandi gharana

Thumri gharanas

In the Benares gharana, the words in the text of a song are musically embellished to bring out their meaning, while the Lucknow gharana presents intricately embellished and delicate thumris that are explicit in their eroticism. The principal feature of the thumri of the Patiala gharana is its incorporation of the tappa from the Punjab region. It is with this tappa element that the Patiala gharana makes its impact, departing from the khyal-dominated Benares thumris and the dance-oriented Lucknow thumris.[2] The Benares gharana was founded by Kirtankars in the 13th century and revived by Siddheshwari Devi, Rasoolan Bai, Badi Moti Bai, Mahadev Mishra, and Girija Devi (mid-20th century).

Instrumental gharanas

Tabla gharanas

The following are the six widely accepted gharanas (ordered based on chronology of founding):[1]

Delhi gharana is the oldest of the tabla gharanas
Ajrara gharana is an offshoot of and closely associated with the Delhi Gharana
Lucknow gharana has rhythmic development through Kathak
Benares gharana
Punjab gharana, popularized by Alla Rakha and Zakir Hussain, developed through its original Pakhavaj repertoire
Farrukhabad gharana is the youngest accepted tabla gharana, and an offshoot of all of the Gharanas, featuring their main concepts

Gharana	Founding artists	Approximate founding date	Founding location	Famous exponents
Delhi gharana	Siddhar Khan	Early 18th century	Delhi	Ghami Khan, Imam Ali Khan, Munnu Khan, Latif Ahmed Khan, Shafaat Ahmed Khan
Ajrara gharana	Kallu Khan, Miru Khan	Early 19th century	Ajrara	Habibuddin Khan, Mehboob Hussain Khan, Sudhirkumar Saxena, Manju Khan, Yusuf Khan, Ramjan Khan, Sarwar Sabri, Akram Khan
Lucknow gharana	Miyan Bakshu	19th century	Lucknow	Ilmas Hussain Khan, Timir Roy Chowdhury, Achchan Maharaj, Anil Bhattacharjee, Biswajit Bhattacharjee, Santosh Biswas, Swapan Chaudhuri, Faiyaz Khan
Benares gharana	Ram Sahai	Late 18th century	Benares	Ram Sahai, Kanthe Maharaj, Anokhelal Mishra, Shamta Prasad, Kishen Maharaj, Mahapurush Mishra, Kumar Bose, Ananda Gopal Bandopadhyay, Sandeep Das
Farrukhabad gharana	Haji Vilayat Ali Khan	19th century	Farrukhabad	Masit Khan, Ahmedjan Thirakwa, Jnan Prakash Ghosh, Keramatullah Khan, Kanai Dutta, Shyamal Bose, Shankar Ghosh, Anindo Chatterjee, Bickram Ghosh
Punjab gharana	Miyan Qader Baksh	19th century	Punjab	Qadeer Buksh, Shaukat Hussein Khan, Abdul Sattar Tari Khan, Alla Rakha Khan, Zakir Hussain, Yogesh Samsi

Wind and string instruments

Bishnupur gharana
Sufiana gharana of Kashmir (Santoor)

Sitar gharanas

Sarod gharanas

Senia-Maihar gharana
Senia-Shahjahanpur gharana
Lucknow-Shahjahanpur gharana
Senia-Bangash gharana

Dance gharanas

In Kathak performers today generally draw their lineage from four major schools of Kathak: the Jaipur-Atrauli gharana, the Lucknow gharana, the Benares gharana (born in the courts of the Kachwaha Rajput kings, the Nawab of Oudh, and Varanasi respectively.) and the Raigarh gharana (born in the court of Maharaja Chakradhar Singh of Raigarh.)

The Lucknow gharana remains the most popular throughout the country. However, in recent times the Jaipur-Atrauli gharana has caught up and today most performers throughout India perform techniques belonging to both styles. With amalgamation of the techniques and poses from other dance forms, the purity of the movements and gestures may be diluted or modified along with the contemporary trends. Raigarh gharana is famous for its own distinctive composition and thousands of followers.

References

External links

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[itc-1] Gharanas at ITC Sangeet Research Academy.

[2] Modern history of Hindustani classical music at ITC Sangeet Research Academy.