Pandit Jasraj

Today for my Understanding World Music blog about Hindustani music I listened to Pandit Jasraj's Bhajan. The most prominent sound is an idiophone and the harmony which is played by an membranophone. The idiophone and the singer share the melody by singing at different times which leads me to believe it would be classified as a polyrhythm. The song instantly starts to speed up at about two minutes and thirty seconds in. This is called tans and causes everything to be happening much faster than it seems. The first time I listened to the song it almost startled me because I was not expecting it. These scalar runs usually happens in the vocal genre, khyal, which is very prominent in Hindustani culture according to the Music of the People of the World textbook. Another very intresting thing is how long some of these songs last. Some of these songs will last up to thirty minutes such as Govind Damodar Madhavati, another song by Pandit Jasraj. Each song seems to focus mainly on the lyrics while there is a simple harmony and the background. The idiophone in this song seems to take over the melody whenever Pandit Jasraj runs out of breath.