“Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence.”

World Music Day or Fête de la Musique is an annual celebration that takes place on 21 June every year to honour amateur and professional musicians. On this occasion, how about taking up the hobby of either playing a musical instrument or listening to music?

Playing a musical instrument, especially the guitar, is one of the most popular hobbies worldwide. Millions play the guitar as a leisure activity, as it is one of the easiest musical instruments to learn.

According to research conducted by Fred Cicetti of Live Science, playing the guitar lowers blood pressure, decreases the heart rate, reduces stress and lessens anxiety and depression. Researchers suggest that both listening and playing any musical instrument can improve our memory capacity. There is also emerging evidence that playing music can improve our immunological response to viruses and bacteria. Isn’t this very important in this current scenario?

Playing a musical instrument is a great hobby to have. So if you are thinking of taking on a new hobby this year, music lessons are a great option. A few of the musical instruments one can easily learn and play are: keyboard, piano, recorder, classical guitar, drums, electric guitar and violin.

Five benefits of playing a musical instrument

1. It is a form of therapy.
2. It is good for the heart.
3. It enhances creativity.
4. It can future-proof the brain.
5. It enables us to express our feelings.

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Designed for beginners to pick up guitar skills in a fun way, the PopuTar is a lightweight acoustic smart guitar from Chinese company Popumusic. The 96 LEDs located along the guitar’s neck show users where and when to place their fingers on the guitar. A Bluetooth 5.0 paired app registers what you are doing on the guitar and gives you feedback as you play.

The teaching system is made up of games and tutorials; there’s a section for music theory, classic and modern pop songs, and follow-along playing. Short videos courses take you from basics like how to hold the guitar and pluck the strings to mastering popular songs. Only on completion of a song with a certain degree of proficiency can a student move to the next level.

The final mode unlocks a smart guitar toolkit, where the lights can be encouraged to dance as you play, a chord dictionary shows finger positions for “all kinds of chords in all kinds of keys”, plus a tuner, a metronome and more.

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Music that even camels love

Do you know what the national musical instrument of Mongolia is? Morin khurr. The back story goes like this: Matou Qin, a shepherd boy, found and brought up a beautiful white horse. He took part in a horse race and won but the king seized the horse. Sometime later, the horse escaped and returned to the boy’s house, but not without getting shot. The boy was saddened, but then, the horse appeared in a dream and asked him to make a musical instrument out of its bones and muscles. And thus was morin khurr born! Initially made from a horse’s skull and its hairs, now it’s made with wood and nylon strings. The music is played to mother camels that reject their calves so as to soothe them.

A musical toy

If you are someone who likes practical jokes and annoying your family and friends more than being a dedicated musician, an otamatone is exactly what you need. The musical notes emerge out of the mouth of a comical rubber face when you squeeze it. Sounds freaky? When everyone listens to what comes out, everyone will agree.

Fire!

Surely that’s not a word you’d even remotely associate with music, but to play the pyrophone organ works on the principle of combustion. In other words, to play this instrument, you have to play with fire. The organ is powered by burning gasoline or propane and the heat as well as the explosive force make their way through the tubes and, well, create music. Good news? The sounds can be regulated. Bad news? Hear an explosion. Isn’t it better to stay at a safe distance?

Some jolly wet music

Think the idea of playing with water sounds good? Yes, you can play with water jets to produce soulful music with the hydrolauphone. This instrument consists of numerous holes with water streaming out of them, and music is played by covering these jets of water. Think underwater flute meets a pipe organ. A hydrolauphone set up in the garden ensures joy for the musician and the plants around it!

Let’s play cheese

Blocks of cheese are for consumption. At least that’s what ordinary people think. Extraordinary musicians think differently. When life gives them blocks of cheese, they turn them into drums! It’s probably best to be gentle on the cheese drums, considering that they cannot bear the brunt that regular drums do!

No touch music

Have you heard of a musical instrument that can play music without any physical contact? Sounds intriguing? Theremin is indeed a weird musical device. All you have to do is to move your hands between two antennas. Sounds sci-fi, as well? Well, maybe that’s why the music recorded at the First Theremin Concert was the first musical broadcast dispatched across space for the benefit of musically-inclined extra-terrestrials out there!

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[dropcap]P[/dropcap]epa, yazh, gubguba, sursingar, kuzhal, algoza… and so on. These aren’t just random words. These are a few of the lesser-known musical instruments of India, most of them used in our diverse folk music. Perhaps the terms tabla, santoor, harmonium, sitar, flute, tanpura would be more familiar to you. And then we have instruments like the dilruba, esraj, rudra veena, saraswati veena, jaltarang, pakhawaj, tanpura that are often confused with their more famous counterparts.

I often hear people calling the tanpura a sitar and vice versa, or asking me the difference between a tabla and a dholak. Well, there is as much difference between these instruments as there is between Priyanka Chopra and Alia Bhatt or between a Ferrari and a Mercedes or an apple and a mango (whichever example appeals to you the most)!

Indian music (folk and classical) is so diverse and vast, that I honestly cannot state a number to quantify the musical instruments we have in our country. Every region, state, culture, tribe has their own instruments and unique styles of playing them. These evolved over a millennium, some being new inventions and some improvised versions of other instruments.

Indian Classical music (ICM) has a more systematic approach towards classifying the endless number of instruments. Bharatiya Sangeet Vadya, written by Dr Lalmani Misra, contains one of the most exhaustive research works done on Indian music instruments dating from the Vedic era to modern times. ICM is what it is today because of a beautiful amalgamation and cross-cultural influence in the Indian subcontinent centuries ago. We have instruments that were created taking inspiration from day-to-day objects; existing instruments refined with better material and designs; accidental discoveries that led to new instruments and so on.

There are four basic categories into which music instruments can be compartmentalized, depending on the material used, structure and design or the technique of playing them.

Tat and Vitata Vadya (Chordophones) are more commonly known as string instruments. String instruments can be played either by plucking/striking the strings or using a bow. Accordingly, instruments like the sitar, santoor, tanpura, veena, sarod are examples of plucked string instruments and are termed Tat Vadya. Similarly, instruments like the dilruba, esraj, sarangi are bowed string instruments and are known as Vitata Vadya. An interesting fact to be observed is that Tat Vadya are used for pure ICM, while most of the Vitata Vadya are heard in folk music.

Next come the wind instruments — Sushir Vadya (Aerophones). The name itself clarifies the principle on which these instruments work. The most popular Sushir Vadya is the flute with all its variations. Few know that the harmonium also works using air, obstructed by reeds to create sound. The been, pungi and the ubiquitous shennai are also examples of this category.

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One is such a significant number. We always cherish our ‘firsts’ — our first birthday, first best friend, first time we meet our special someone, first holiday, first prized possession. And topping my list currently is me being thankful and glad for being a part of your lives and THE TEENAGER TODAY family, for a year now! One beautiful year in which I hope I have enriched your minds musically.

Talking of firsts, one of the happiest moments of my life was when my parents gave me a double surprise — my very own guitar and a tabla set on the same day! I still remember strumming the guitar incessantly and staying up late at night trying my hand at the tabla. I am essentially a vocalist, but playing these instruments is the joy of my life.

Instrumental music, i.e., Vadya Sangeet, has a very significant role in music. In Hindustani music, sangeet is defined as an amalgamation of vocal music, instrumental music and dance. Hence, instruments are one of the three important aspects of music. I am sure you will all agree that music is incomplete without the string, percussion, wind and other varieties of instruments. Indian Classical Music (ICM) has a long-accumulated heritage of over thousands of years. While the precise date of when these instruments were created cannot be stated, one can find innumerable references in ancient texts that date back to 5000 BC. Humans have always drawn inspiration from the surroundings, nature and situations. Necessity is the mother of all inventions, they say. The creation and development of music instruments must have followed a similar path. It is said that the primitive bow and arrow used by tribes to hunt, inspired the creation of string instruments that are played using a bow. Stone, wood, bamboo and animal hide were easily available to create more varieties of instruments, which later evolved into more refined designs as compared to the pre-historic versions. Harappa and Mohenjodaro are known to be the ancient civilizations of India. Discoveries of sculptures and pictures have references to different music instruments that were mainly used for religious gatherings and festivals.

Music in ancient India was not as it is today. It was practised only for devotional and religious purposes or on occasions of mass celebrations in the form of folk music. In the later centuries, singers and musicians were patronized by kings and Indian music was confined to the royal courts and gatherings. Thus, music was an indulgence and revered by the chosen few. While the Mughal Emperor Muhammad Shah (18th century) is said to have been one of the last emperors to have famous musicians perform in his court, the epicentre of music and art was Tanjore in South India.

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