India's Most Famous Music Styles

The art that speaks without speaking, the art that easily touches a person’s heart and soul without much effort, Music is an art that needs no language to understand or admire. In fact, music is the wellspring of energy. On the other hand, music is an integral part of Indian culture or social-religious life. It’s true that India is rich in terms of musical heritage as well as artistic musicians. Thus, the country is blessed with several numbers of world-renowned music genres or styles, where a countless number of people are opting musical classes today. To know more about Indian music, below are some of India’s most famous music styles.

Indian Classical Music

Known as one of the most famous art music, Indian classical music is likely to be enjoyed by many future generations as it rooted in regional cultures. Indian classical music is an art music tradition, which was found in the ancient Natya Shastra and Hinduism Vedic literature. The two foundational elements of Indian classical music are “Raga” and “Tala”. The raga frames the texture of a melodic structure where the tala measures the time cycle.

With regards to the main traditions of Indian classical music, there is two diverse sorts viz., Carnatic music, which was discovered predominantly in the peninsula regions where Hindustani music was found in the Northern, Eastern and Central locales of India. India’s most regarded classical music vocalists are Mohammed Rafi, Bhimsen Joshi, Zakir Hussain and so on.

Indian Pop Music

This popular music style is recognized as an Indian-Pop or Hindi Pop or Indipop. Indian pop music is originated in the South Asian region during 1966. Pop music lyrics are generally focused on love, relationships, joy and so on. This form of music is characterized as the blended sort because of its mixing nature of western style with Indian classical music. Bombay Vikings is considered amongst the famous pop music group.

Indian Film Music

The film music or Bollywood music is India’s most famous form of music. Truth be told, it is one of the most predominate components of Indian pop music and classical music along with western music culture. This form of music was developed over time and it's surviving since the first sound Hindi film called Alam Ara in 1931. Amongst all, “The Nightingale of India”; Lata Mangeshkar, and other Bollywood singers including Sonu Nigam, Udit Narayan and Arijit Singh etc are the famous Indian Bollywood Singers.

Indian Bhajan

Like the other Indian classical dance or music form, this famous Indian music art “Bhajan” is alluded to a tune with a religious theme or spiritual ideas. This genre of music is ingrained in the ancient metric and musical traditions of the Vedic era. Bhajan is considered reverential and truly divine. Deeply rooted in the Indian tradition, some of the Indian Bhajan songs are century old. Among the most famous India’s Bhajan singers, Jagjit Singh is renowned for his indissoluble vocal.

Indian Sufi Music

Derived from the Arabic word “Suf”, Sufi traditions was started in India during the Delhi Sultanate. The devotional genre of music, Sufi is inspired by the nature of Sufi poets. Therefore, the music is accompanied by poetry until today, which leads to multiple versions of the same song. In India, Qawwali is the most famous form of Sufi music. The Oscar-winning Indian musician, A. R. Rahman composed several songs in the Sufi genre including “Khwaja Mere Khwaja”.

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