A report on Indian classical music, Dhrupad, Hindustani classical music and Ravi Shankar

Dhrupad is a genre in Hindustani classical music from the Indian subcontinent.

Hindustani classical music is the classical music of northern regions of the Indian subcontinent.

It has two major traditions: the North Indian classical music known as Hindustani and the South Indian expression known as Carnatic.

In 1956, Shankar began to tour Europe and the Americas playing Indian classical music and increased its popularity there in the 1960s through teaching, performance, and his association with violinist Yehudi Menuhin and Beatles guitarist George Harrison.

Khan was a rigorous teacher and Shankar had training on sitar and surbahar, learned ragas and the musical styles dhrupad, dhamar, and khyal, and was taught the techniques of the instruments rudra veena, rubab, and sursingar.

Ravi Shankar states that the form appeared in the fifteenth century as a development from the prabandha, which it replaced.

Like all Indian classical music, dhrupad is modal and monophonic, with a single melodic line and no chord progression.

In particular, the musical form known as dhrupad saw considerable development in his court and remained a strong point of the Gwalior gharana for many centuries.

Meanwhile, Hindustani classical music has become popular across the world through the influence of artists such as Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan.

It exists in four major forms: Dhrupad, Khyal (or Khayal), Tarana, and the semi-classical Thumri.

Shankar's interplay with Alla Rakha improved appreciation for tabla playing in Hindustani classical music.

In 1958, Ravi Shankar came to the US and started making albums.