The Art of Improvisation

One of the essential resources for Indian classical music is The Raga Guide, published in 1999 by Nimbus Records. It gives bite-size introductions, with musical transcriptions, to 74 North Indian ragas, and provides examples on four CDs, featuring Hariprasad Chaurasia on bansuri (bamboo flute). The Art of Improvisation – a double CD and 200-page book – is a companion piece that looks at how a raga is developed and built up into an extended performance. Chaurasia takes on the music, with French flautist Henri Tournier writing the texts. As with The Raga Guide, the project comes out of the World Music Academy at the Rotterdam Conservatoire. Chaurasia has taught there for several months a year since 1991 and it’s where Henri Tournier started working as a go-between, helping Western students get the most out of oral teaching as well as teaching them to transcribe the music.

The first CD, entitled Compositions and Variations, begins with ‘Raga Yaman’, a raga of noble character and melodic clarity considered one of the most important in Indian music. In a series of tracks, Chaurasia outlines the ascending the descending notes of the raga, demonstrating various ornamentations and then the melodic outline. He then gives brief examples of slow and fast compositions which show how short phrases and variations frequently recur. He does this basic intro with two other ragas and then, after an exploration of various rhythmic talas with tabla player Faiyaz Khan, he explores two ragas at length and you start to really understand how a performance works. It is all miraculously transcribed by Tournier, which makes it far easier to follow. Chaurasia likens himself to a ‘craftsman starting the interior decoration of a house… He starts with the entrance hall, and then decorates the rooms one after another in a predefined order.’

The second CD features longer performances of just two ragas and it’s as good a recital disc as Chaurasia has ever made, particularly the emotionally charged ‘Raga Gujari Todi’. There’s something clear and refreshing about this music played on the flute; this package is both an invaluable teaching tool and a record of some magnificent performances as well.