Acoustics and temporality in an Indian classical monsoon raag

Indian Classical Music is structured such that every raag, or scalar formation, elicits the atmosphere of a season or time of day. Yet, musicologists and theorists of sound have primarily studied the form within urban concert halls—often dislocated from the raag’s originary temporal context and its relation to the earth. My paper studies the monsoon raag “Malhar” within the seasonal soundscapes of drought-prone rural India. It focuses in particular on how Malhar is sung at a village shrine during the course of a rain-making-ritual, conducted annually at the brink of the monsoon season. My paper examines how the musical strategies of Malhar transform when it moves from concert hall to shrine. Specifically, it compares how each Malhar renders the call of the hawk-cuckoo, known across the Indian sub-continent to usher in the monsoons. My research shows that while concert hall audiences decry singers’ renditions of the cuckoo’s call as “gimmicky” and “mere mimicry,” followers at the shrine ascribe to it a ritual potency, and rely on it to evoke rain. I study this difference in musical perception as a way in which to better understand how acoustical and temporal context intersect, in concert hall and shrine, respectively, to transform the aesthetic experience of Indian Classical Music.