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Music is a universal language which transcends all barriers of country, race or religion. It unites man to man, but even more, it unites man to God. Music, it is said, is the language of the soul.


It is through the medium of the arts that people of different nations and backgrounds are able to communicate and understand each other better. The West is becoming more familiar with Indian music - it is no longer merely an exotic expression of the East, but is reaching an ever growing and more knowledgeable and appreciative audience.

Indian music has a very long, unbroken tradition - the accumulated heritge of centuries. The origin can be traced back to Vedic days - nearly two thousand years. The culture of India today is an outcome of the interaction and interweaving of races and cultures, both indigenous and foreign; and it is the study of the contribution of these various races and tribes that gives us the picture of the evolution of Indian music. The Negrito, the Mongoloid, the Dravidian, and the Aryan, have all contributed to the complexity of Indian culture.

The tradition of Indian classical music is an oral one. It is taught directly by the guru to the disciple, rather than by the notation method used in the West. The very heart of Indian music is the raga: the melodic form upon which the musician improvises. This framework is established by tradition and inspired by the creative spirits of master musicians

Although Indian music is now divided into the two major classes of Hindusthani (Northern Indian) and Karnatak or Carnatic (Southern Indian), the origins and fundamental concepts of both these types of music are the same. The form of presentation may however vary between the two systems, as well as from one gharana (family) to another in the former system

The ancient Vedic scriptures teach that there are two types of sound. One is a vibration of ether, the upper or purer air near the celestral realm. This sound is called Anahata Nad or unstruck sound. Sought after by great enlightened yogis, it can only be heard by them. The sound of the universe is the vibration thought by some to be like the music of the spheres that the Greek Pythagoras described in the 6th century B.C. The other sound Ahata Nad or struck sound, is the vibration of air in the lower atmosphere closer to the earth. It is any sound that we hear in nature or man-make sounds, musical and non-musical.