Ancient Indian Instruments and Songs

Ancient Indian Music By Emma Williams

Ancient Indians used music as their source of basic religious knowledge. When one thinks of ancient Indian music, one's mind often goes right to the sitar. However, the Indian sitar is a redesigned version of an instrument from the ancient Middle East known as the shetar. Some ancient Indian musical instruments, such as the laddishah and the ravan-hatti are now only available in museums. Their numbers dwindled because interest in them dwindled, causing craftsmen to make less and less money off of them, so craftsmen who knew how to make them became fewer and fewer. In other words, as classical Indian music dropped out of the public eye, classical Indian instruments became scarce. http://cnx.org/content/m12459/latest/ (music in religion) Hindu religions songs were called bhajans. They originate from Sama Veda, the fourth Veda. Bhajans are typically sung in groups, with one lead singer on melody. They are also very repetitive. This is one of the reasons that bhajans can relieve stresses of the moment. The repetition allows for freedom from thinking. http://hinduism.about.com/od/audiomusic/a/bhajan.htm .