Hindustani classical vocal music is the singing tradition of North Indian art music. Singers develop a raga through composition and improvisation in khayal and dhrupad.
Khayal took shape at the Mughal courts of North India, and its origin is disputed. Popular accounts credit Amir Khusrau (1253-1325), Sultan Hussain Shah Sharqi of Jaunpur in the fifteenth century, or Niyamat Khan "Sadarang" at the court of Muhammad Shah; the scholar Katherine Butler Schofield questions all three. A Persian treatise of about 1675 classes khayal as a speciality of the qawwals, singers of Sufi devotional song, while dhrupad belonged to the court kalawants. In the eighteenth century khayal took on features of dhrupad.
A gharana is a lineage, or school, of hereditary musicians and their pupils with a recognisable style, usually named after a place. Bonnie Wade's study of khayal treats six: Gwalior, Agra, Rampur-Sahaswan, Jaipur-Atrauli, Kirana and Patiala. Gwalior singers favour straight (sapat) taans and bol-bant, rhythmic play on the words of the song. Kirana singers build the raga note by note at slow tempi. Jaipur-Atrauli singers favour rare and compound ragas and intricate rhythmic play. The gharanas emerged in the mid-nineteenth century, and Mukund Lath argues that the received story of their descent from Sadarang's pupils is largely a later myth.
Chronicles of Shah Jahan's reign (1628-1658) name khayal singers among the court performers. Under Muhammad Shah (r. 1719-1748), Niyamat Khan "Sadarang", a dhrupad singer and bin player, composed khayals that became highly fashionable.
As court patronage shrank, hereditary families guarded their knowledge, and their teaching hardened into recognisable styles named after places such as Gwalior, Agra and Kirana. From the late 19th century they began teaching pupils from outside the family.
Khayal singers were among the first Indian musicians recorded, between 1899 and 1908. Magriel and du Perron name Gauhar Jan's Sur Malhar of 1902 as the first khayal recording. Radio carried recorded music into urban homes from the 1930s.
The Sangeet Natak Akademi, inaugurated in 1953, All India Radio and later Doordarshan supported khayal. Cassettes from the 1970s, then digital media and online teaching, widened access, and singers now move more freely between gharana styles.
A bandish, also called cheez, is the fixed khayal composition, a short text set to a raga and tala. Its sthayi sits in the lower and middle register and returns as a refrain; the antara rises towards the upper octave and carries more text. In bada khayal the singer may sing only its mukhda (opening phrase); chhota khayal presents it more fully. Texts, mostly in Braj Bhasha, treat love and devotion.
A taan is a fast melodic run and the main focus of khayal improvisation. Akar taans use only the vowel "aa", bol taans the words of the song, and gamak taans a heavy shake of the voice. Jaipur-Atrauli singers favour spiralling gamak taans; Kirana singers favour sargam taans. Wade notes that dhrupad alap uses nom-tom, rhythmic syllables such as "nom" and "tom", but no taans.
The sam is the first beat of the tala cycle, where every variation aims to land. Specific tabla strokes mark each beat, which lets the singer keep their place. Common talas are tintal (16 beats), ektal (12) and jhumra (14). In bol-bant the singer uses the words of the composition for layakari, rhythmic play against the tala.
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