In my earlier article, I contemplated on the vital difference between what is true in life and art. Rambling thoughts on the process of evaluation of music came to mind. After all, music is a fine art. It represents the divine beauty and grandeur of creation and is, no doubt, the art of God. It is also a balm that heals the aching hearts of human beings and animals.
In the earlier days, people sang and danced in the course of their multifarious activities and anxieties. They did so because they found solace.
At times I wonder what is the difference between the will to work and the will to music, as the former creates the net of desires that binds men in the den of delusion, while the latter makes him free from the fetters of desire.
Music is recognized as spiritual food and the human soul finds in it, the goal of a seemingly unending journey and obtains tranquility and everlasting bliss.
In the process of the evaluation of music, as I outlined in my earlier article, 'as a painter draws at first, the bare outline of a portrait and then fills it up with colours, moods and graces, so too, an artist of Indian music first designs a skeletal form of the raga by the arrangement of tones and tunes and then follows the process of ornamentation', revealing that an artist of music creates music to appreciate and enjoy the inner significance of his own creation. What is the appreciation of music ?
When we appreciate music which is the combination of words, tune, rhythm, tempo, grace and sentiment, are we not holding onto the compact of music and then lose our separate entity and become one with it? Is this not the real meaning and significance of appreciation of music?
The process of appreciation creates a permanent inseparable bond that makes the singer and the listener into an undivided one.
Indian music is introspective. It moves gracefully upwards and downwards from a fixed point and completes its circuit.
(The writer is a well known music critic who has won awards both in India and abroad forpropagation of classical arts and music)
