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Rabindra Sangeet

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The name Rabindra Sangeet was first introduced by the noted Indian author, economist and sociologist Dhurjati Prasad Mukherjee in the anthology Jayanti Utsarga, published on 27 December 1931, to commemorate Tagore’s 70th birthday. Rabindra Sangeet merges fluidly into Tagore’s literature, most of which—poems or parts of novels, stories, or plays alike—were lyricised. Influenced by the thumri style of Hindustani music, they ran the entire gamut of human emotion, ranging from his early dirge-like Brahmo devotional hymns to quasi-erotic compositions. They emulated the tonal color of classical ragas to varying extents. Some songs mimicked a given raga’s melody and rhythm faithfully; others newly blended elements of different ragas. Yet about nine-tenths of his work was not bhanga gaan, the body of tunes revamped with “fresh value” from select Western, Hindustani, Bengali folk and other regional flavours “external” to Tagore’s own ancestral culture. In fact, Tagore drew influence from sources as diverse as traditional Hindusthani Thumri (“O Miya Bejanewale”) to Scottish ballads (“Purano Shei Diner Kotha” from “Auld Lang Syne”). Scholars have attempted to gauge the emotive force and range of Hindustani ragas: Tagore influenced sitar maestro Vilayat Khan and sarodiyas Buddhadev Dasgupta and Amjad Ali Khan. His songs are widely popular and undergird the Bengali ethos to an extent perhaps rivalling Shakespeare’s impact on the English-speaking world. It is said that his songs are the outcome of five centuries of Bengali literary churning and communal yearning. Dhan Gopal Mukerji has said that these songs transcend the mundane to the aesthetic and express all ranges and categories of human emotion. The poet gave voice to all—big or small, rich or poor. The poor Ganges boatman and the rich landlord air their emotions in them. They birthed a distinctive school of music whose practitioners can be fiercely traditional: novel interpretations have drawn severe censure in both West Bengal and Bangladesh. For Bengalis, the songs’ appeal, stemming from the combination of emotive strength and beauty described as surpassing even Tagore’s poetry, was such that the Modern Review observed that " t here is in Bengal no cultured home where Rabindranath’s songs are not sung or at least attempted to be sung … Even illiterate villagers sing his songs". A. H. Fox Strangways of The Observer introduced non-Bengalis to rabindrasangit in The Music of Hindostan, calling it a “vehicle of a personality … that go behind this or that system of music to that beauty of sound which all systems put out their hands to seize.” In 1971, Amar Shonar Bangla became the national anthem of Bangladesh. It was written—ironically—to protest the 1905 Partition of Bengal along communal lines: lopping Muslim-majority East Bengal from Hindu-dominated West Bengal was to avert a regional bloodbath. Tagore saw the partition as a ploy to upend the independence movement, and he aimed to rekindle Bengali unity and tar communalism. Jana Gana Mana was written in shadhu-bhasha, a Sanskritised register of Bengali, and is the first of five stanzas of a Brahmo hymn that Tagore composed. It was first sung in 1911 at a Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress, and was adopted in 1950 by the Constituent Assembly of the Republic of India as its national anthem.

Rabiz

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

Despite the term’s widespread use, the etymology or definition of the word “rabiz” is not clearly understood. According to some sources it stems from the Russian phrase “работники искусства” (rabotniki iskusstva) used during Soviet times, meaning “Art Workers”, in reference to unions which specialized in new music composition. Others believe that the word has Arabic roots, since the word rab () means creator or god, while the Arabic name aziz (; ), which is used by many Armenians as meaning “darling” could perhaps be considered another root, thus referring to the genre performers as dear creators.

Rabòday

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

First mentioned with Pouchon Duverger, the lead singer of Djakout in late 2000s. When Djakout music is performed in live events. Djakout music always plays short Raboday rhythm, with the help T Pouch, the keyboardist and T Reggie, the guitarist together they help created the sound of the Raboday. Pouchon Duverger always say ‘Men Raboday la’ each times you hear the keyboard or the guitar sound play. Pouchon Duverger is the creator of Raboday.

Radif (music)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Definition#

Radif is a collection of traditional melodies in Iranian music that, in various instrumental and vocal renditions, are organized with a specific order within different dastgahs and avazes (modal systems). In other words, the radif is a method for categorizing gushehs (melodic pieces) to facilitate their learning through repetition. Radif is not merely a set of gushehs; as its name suggests, it also refers to the specific order of these gushehs. In each dastgah, the gusheh with the lowest pitch range is usually selected as the first and is called daramad (introduction), with the other gushehs following it. The gushehs have been compiled based on the taste and judgment of masters of Iranian modal music and have been arranged in the maqams (musical modes) of Iranian music in a particular sequence.

Radio drama

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The Roman playwright Seneca has claim as a forerunner of radio drama because “his plays were performed by readers as sound plays, not by actors as stage plays… In this respect Seneca had no significant successors until 20th-century technology made possible the widespread dissemination of sound plays.”

1880–1930: early years#

English-language radio drama seems to have started in the United States. A Rural Line on Education, a brief sketch specifically written for radio, aired on Pittsburgh’s KDKA in 1921, according to historian Bill Jaker. Newspaper accounts of the era report on a number of other drama experiments by America’s commercial radio stations: KYW broadcast a season of complete operas from Chicago starting in November 1921. In February 1922, entire Broadway musical comedies with the original casts aired from WJZ’s Newark studios. Actors Grace George and Herbert Hayes performed an entire play from a San Francisco station in the summer of 1922. An important turning point in radio drama came when Schenectady, New York’s WGY, after a successful tryout on 3 August 1922, began weekly studio broadcasts of full-length stage plays in September 1922, using music, sound effects and a regular troupe of actors, The WGY Players. Aware of this series, the director of Cincinnati’s WLW began regularly broadcasting one-acts (as well as excerpts from longer works) in November. The success of these projects led to imitators at other stations. By early 1923, original dramatic pieces written specially for radio were airing on stations in Cincinnati (When Love Wakens by WLW’s Fred Smith), Philadelphia (The Secret Wave by Clyde A. Criswell) and Los Angeles (At Home over KHJ). That same year, WLW (in May) and WGY (in September) sponsored scripting contests, inviting listeners to create original plays to be performed by those stations’ dramatic troupes. Listings in The New York Times and other sources for May 1923 reveal at least 20 dramatic offerings were scheduled (including one-acts, excerpts from longer dramas, complete three- and four-act plays, operettas and a Molière adaptation), either as in-studio productions or by remote broadcast from local theatres and opera houses. An early British drama broadcast was of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream on 2LO on 25 July 1923. Serious study of American radio drama of the 1920s and early 1930s is, at best, very limited. Unsung pioneers of the art include: WLW’s Fred Smith; Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll (who popularised the dramatic serial); The Eveready Hour creative team (which began with one-act plays but was soon experimenting with hour-long combinations of drama and music on its weekly variety program); the various acting troupes at stations like WLW, WGY, KGO and a number of others, frequently run by women like Helen Schuster Martin and Wilda Wilson Church; early network continuity writers like Henry Fisk Carlton, William Ford Manley and Don Clark; producers and directors like Clarence Menser and Gerald Stopp; and a long list of others who were credited at the time with any number of innovations but who are largely forgotten or undiscussed today. Elizabeth McLeod’s 2005 book on Gosden and Correll’s early work is a major exception, as is Richard J. Hand’s 2006 study of horror radio, which examines some programs from the late 1920s and early 1930s. Another notable early radio drama, one of the first specially written for the medium in the UK, was A Comedy of Danger by Richard Hughes, broadcast by the BBC on 15 January 1924, about a group of people trapped in a Welsh coal mine. One of the earliest and most influential French radio plays was the prize-winning Marémoto (‘Seaquake’), by Gabriel Germinet and Pierre Cusy, which presents a realistic account of a sinking ship before revealing that the characters are actually actors rehearsing for a broadcast. Translated and broadcast in Germany and England by 1925, the play was originally scheduled by Radio-Paris to air on 23 October 1924, but was instead banned from French radio until 1937 because the government feared that the dramatic SOS messages would be mistaken for genuine distress signals. In 1951, American writer and producer Arch Oboler suggested that Wyllis Cooper’s Lights Out (1934–47) was the first true radio drama to make use of the unique qualities of radio: Though the series is often remembered solely for its gruesome stories and sound effects, Cooper’s scripts for Lights Out were later recognised as well written and offered innovations seldom heard in early radio dramas, including multiple first-person narrators, stream of consciousness monologues and scripts that contrasted a duplicitous character’s internal monologue and his spoken words. The question of who was the first to write stream-of-consciousness drama for radio is a difficult one to answer. By 1930, Tyrone Guthrie had written plays for the BBC like Matrimonial News (which consists entirely of the thoughts of a shopgirl awaiting a blind date) and The Flowers Are Not for You to Pick (which takes place inside the mind of a drowning man). After they were published in 1931, Guthrie’s plays aired on the American networks. Around the same time, Guthrie himself also worked for the Canadian National Railway radio network, producing plays written by Merrill Denison that used similar techniques. A 1940 article in Variety credited a 1932 NBC play, Drink Deep by Don Johnson, as the first stream-of-consciousness play written for American radio. The climax of Lawrence Holcomb’s 1931 NBC play Skyscraper also uses a variation of the technique (so that the listener can hear the final thoughts and relived memories of a man falling to his death from the title building). There were probably earlier examples of stream-of-consciousness drama on the radio. For example, in December 1924, actor Paul Robeson, then appearing in a revival of Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones, performed a scene from the play over New York’s WGBS to critical acclaim. Some of the many storytellers and monologuists on early 1920s American radio might be able to claim even earlier dates.

Radionovela

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

In Argentina#

The first example of serial radio drama in Argentina was probably Francisco Mastandrea’s La caricia del lobo in the late 1920s. But their golden age was the 1940s, making a star of future First Lady Eva Perón. Los Pérez García, a long serial about a typical Argentine family, was perhaps the highlight of the 1950s. Later, more innovative crime fiction and noir-themed shows emerged.

In Chile#

In addition to , a creation of Eva Martinic and Juan Marino, Eduardo Calixto is considered a pioneer of radio stories in Chile, through his work ¡Hogar, dulce hogar! This was conceived by the author in a cafe in Santiago, where he wrote in dashed lines on a napkin. It remained on the air for over 40 years.

Raga

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Terminology#

The Sanskrit word rāga (Sanskrit: राग) has Indian roots, as the Indo-European root *reg- connotes ’to dye’. Cognates are found in Greek, Persian, Khwarezmian, Kurdish. The words “red” and “rado” are also related. According to Monier Monier-Williams, the term comes from a Sanskrit word for “the act of colouring or dyeing”, or simply a “colour, hue, tint, dye”. The term also connotes an emotional state referring to a “feeling, affection, desire, interest, joy or delight”, particularly related to passion, love, or sympathy for a subject or something. In the context of ancient Indian music, the term refers to a harmonious note, melody, formula, building block of music available to a musician to construct a state of experience in the audience. The word appears in the ancient Principal Upanishads of Hinduism, as well as the Bhagavad Gita. The Maitri Upanishad uses the term in the sense of “passion, inner quality, psychological state”. The term rāga is also found in ancient texts of Buddhism where it connotes “passion, sensuality, lust, desire” for pleasurable experiences as one of three impurities of a character. The term rāga in the modern connotation of a melodic format occurs in the Brihaddeshi by Mataṅga Muni dated , or possibly 9th century. The Brihaddeshi describes rāga as “a combination of tones which, with beautiful illuminating graces, pleases the people in general”. According to Emmie te Nijenhuis, a professor in Indian musicology, the Dattilam section of Brihaddeshi has survived into the modern times, but the details of ancient music scholars mentioned in the extant text suggest a more established tradition by the time this text was composed. The same essential idea and prototypical framework is found in ancient Hindu texts, such as the Naradiyasiksa and the classic Sanskrit work Natya Shastra by Bharata Muni, whose chronology has been estimated to sometime between 500 BCE and 500 CE, probably between 200 BCE and 200 CE. Bharata describes a series of empirical experiments he did with the Veena, then compared what he heard, noting the relationship of fifth intervals as a function of intentionally induced change to the instrument’s tuning. Bharata states that certain combinations of notes are pleasant, and certain others are not so. His methods of experimenting with the instrument triggered further work by ancient Indian scholars, leading to the development of successive permutations, as well as theories of musical note inter-relationships, interlocking scales and how this makes the listener feel. Bharata discusses Bhairava, Kaushika, Hindola, Dipaka, SrI-rāga, and Megha. Bharata states that these can to trigger a certain affection and the ability to “color the emotional state” in the audience. His encyclopedic Natya Shastra links his studies on music to the performance arts, and it has been influential in Indian performance arts tradition. The other ancient text, Naradiyasiksa dated to be from the 1st century BCE, discusses secular and religious music, compares the respective musical notes. This is earliest known text that reverentially names each musical note to be a deity, describing it in terms of varna (‘colours’) and other motifs such as parts of fingers, an approach that is conceptually similar to the 12th century Guidonian hand in European music. The study that mathematically arranges rhythms and modes (rāga) has been called prastāra (‘matrix’). In the ancient texts of Hinduism, the term for the technical mode part of rāga was jati. Later, jati evolved to mean quantitative class of scales, while rāga evolved to become a more sophisticated concept that included the experience of the audience. A figurative sense of the word as ‘passion, love, desire, delight’ is also found in the Mahabharata. The specialized sense of ’loveliness, beauty’, especially of voice or song, emerges in classical Sanskrit, used by Kalidasa and in the Panchatantra.

Raga rock

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Definition#

Ragas are specific melodic modes used in the classical music of the Indian subcontinent. The term “raga rock” originated in March 1966 as a description of rock music that featured Indian sitar styling. According to musicologist Jonathan Bellman, citing Lillian Roxon’s 1969 book Rock Encyclopedia: “This catchphrase eventually came to describe any Rock song that evoked an Indian or general Oriental mood, whether by use of sitar or another instrument imitating it.” Music journalist Rob Chapman says the phrase was a “catch-all term” and “something of a misnomer”, since it was often applied to any piece of rock music that “used non-European instrumentation or music styles to denote its exotic qualities”. A major influence on raga rock was the music of Bengali sitarist Ravi Shankar. He himself became a pop music icon in 1966, following the rise of the raga rock trend. Rock’s use of elements from the Indian classical tradition included: * sitar (usually serving the role of an electric guitar) * drone, provided by tambura in raga performances and by Indian harmonium in vocal pieces * modal melodies based on Indian scales * vocal stylings * additive, rather than divisive, rhythms (tal) * question-and-answer interplay (jawab-sawal) between lead instruments * lead instruments mirroring the vocal line * lyrical themes related to mysticism or religious symbolism. Don Snowden of The Los Angeles Times acknowledges the 1960s raga rock movement, as well as Santana’s mix of blues rock and Afro-Cuban percussion later in the decade, as parts of a broader phenomenon that would come to be known as worldbeat in the 1980s.

Rage (music genre)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

The term “rage” in reference to the microgenre comes from “Miss the Rage”, a genre-pioneering track made in 2021 by Trippie Redd and Playboi Carti whose title references mosh pits during rap concerts that Trippie Redd longed for during COVID-19 lockdowns. During the 2010s, multiple artists and critics used the word “rage” in the context of hip-hop, mostly either referring to overdriven energetic sound or the moshing that would ensue at rap shows, examples being Lil Uzi Vert’s Luv Is Rage (2015) and Luv Is Rage 2 (2017) releases.

Rage aria

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

According to the doctrine of the affections, a theory of aesthetics that dictates emotions based on outward visible and auditory signs, each aria in an opera must have a single emotion. According to the philosophy of affects, complex musical gestures are more easily suited to the emotions of hatred, retaliation, and fury than to those of gentle affects. Rage arias were amongst various types of aria which were employed in 18th century opera, including the more restrained , the (lament), and the showy . Others include “No, no, I’ll take no less”, from Handel’s Semele, “I am the wife of Mao Tse-Tung” from John Adams’ Nixon in China, “D’Oreste, d’Ajace” in Mozart’s Idomeneo.

Ragga

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

Ragga originated in Jamaica during the 1980s, at the same time that electronic dance music’s popularity was increasing globally. It differs marginally from its dancehall predecessor “other than a slightly more aggressive attitude, and an alignment with the kind of concerns of its youthful audience”. Ragga spread to Europe, North America, and Africa, eventually spreading to Japan, India, and the rest of the world. Ragga heavily influenced early jungle music, and also spawned the syncretistic bhangragga style when fused with bhangra. In the 1990s, ragga and breakcore music fused, creating a style known as raggacore. Ragga also brought with its own fashion designers. Andrew Dunbar working in London produced designs, one of which showed at the Victoria & Albert Museum’s 1994 ‘Street Style’ Street Style exhibition. The term “raggamuffin” is an intentional misspelling of “ragamuffin”, a word that entered the Jamaican Patois lexicon after the British Empire colonized Jamaica in the 17th century. Despite the British colonialists’ pejorative application of the term, Jamaican youth appropriated it as an ingroup designation. The term “raggamuffin music” describes the music of Jamaica’s “ghetto dwellers”.

Ragtime

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

While the word ragtime was first recorded in 1896, the term probably originates in the dance events known as “rags”, hosted by enslaved black folk bound to the plantation system. The first recorded use of the term ragtime was by vaudeville musician Ben Harney who in 1896 used it to describe the piano music he played (which he had extracted from banjo and fiddle players) and first published the year prior.

Raï

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

Raï is a type of Algerian popular music whose origins in the port city of Oran go back to the 1920s. Raï later emerged as a major genre of Algerian popular music whose early development was shaped by cheikhs and cheikhas and later by younger singers called cheb or – for women singers – chebba. The lyrics often address social, religious, and cultural change. Following a long period of marginalization, the genre spread internationally through Algerian migration to Europe, eventually gaining global recognition and becoming associated with the world music market. Raï ran counter to accepted artistic and social mores and appealed to young people who sought to modernize the traditional Islamic values and attitudes. Regional, secular and religious musical traditions, melodies, and instruments were blended with Western electric instrumentation. Raï emerged as a major world music genre in the late 1980s. In the years just following World War I, the Algerian city of Oran (known as “little Paris”) was a melting pot of various cultures, full of nightclubs and cabarets; it was the place to go for a bawdy good time. Out of this milieu arose a group of male and female Muslim singers called chioukhs and cheikhates, who rejected the refined, classical poetry of traditional Algerian music. Instead, to the accompaniment of pottery drums and end-blown flutes, they sang about the adversity of urban life in a raw, gritty, sometimes vulgar, and inevitably controversial language that appealed especially to the socially and economically disadvantaged. The cheikhates further departed from tradition in that they performed not only for women but also and especially for men. The music performed was called raï. It drew its name from the Algerian Arabic word (‘opinion’ or ‘advice’), which was typically inserted—and repeated—by singers to fill time as they formulated a new phrase of improvised lyrics. By the early 1940s Cheikha Rimitti el Reliziana had emerged locally as a musical and linguistic luminary in the raï tradition, and she continued to be among the music’s most prominent performers into the 21st century. In the early 20th century, Oran was divided into Jewish, French, Spanish, and Native Algerian quarters. By independence in 1962, the Jewish quarter (known as the Derb), was home to musicians like Reinette L’Oranaise, Saoud l’Oranais, and Larbi Bensari. Sidi el Houari (the old quarter where Sidi El Houari has his shrine) was home to Spanish fishermen and many refugees from Spain who arrived after 1939. These two areas had active music scenes, and the French inhabitants of the city went to the Jewish and Spanish areas to examine the music. The Arabs of Oran were known for al-Andalous, a classical style of music imported from Southern Spain after 1492. Hawzi classical music was popular during this time, and female singers of the genre included Cheikha Tetma, Fadila D’zirya and Myriam Fekkai. Another common musical genre was (‘Bedouin’) or (‘Western’), which originated from Bedouin chants. Bedoui consisted of Malhun poetry being sung with accompaniment from guellal drums and gaspa Flutes. Bedoui was sung by male singers, known as s, who were dressed in long, white jellabas and turbans. Lyrics came from the poetry of people such as Mestfa ben Brahim and Zenagui Bouhafs. Performers of bedoui included Cheikh Hamada, Cheikh Mohammed Senoussi, Cheikh Madani, Cheikh Hachemi Bensmir and Cheikh Khaldi. Senoussi was the first to have had recorded the music in 1906. French colonization of Algeria changed the organization of society, producing a class of poor, uneducated urban men and women. Bedoui singers mostly collaborated with the French colonizers, though one exception from such collaboration was Cheikh Hamada. The problems of survival in a life of poverty were the domain of street musicians who sang bar-songs called zendanis. A common characteristic of these songs included exclamations of the word and variations thereof. The word implies that an opinion is being expressed. In the 1920s, the women of Oran were held to strict code of conduct. Many of those that failed became social outcasts and singers and dancers. They sang medh songs in praise of the prophet Mohammad and performed for female audiences at ceremonies such as weddings and circumcision feasts. These performers included Les Trois Filles de Baghdad, Soubira bent Menad and Kheira Essebsadija. Another group of female social outcasts were called , who were known for their alluring dress, hedonistic lyrics, and their display of a form of music that was influenced from meddhahates and zendani singers. These cheikhas, who sang for both men and women, included people such as Cheikha Remitti el Reliziana, Cheikha Grélo, Cheikha Djenia el Mostganmia, Cheikha Bachitta de Mascara, and Cheikha Ouachma el Tmouchentia. The 1930s saw the rise of revolutionary organizations, including organizations motivated by Marxism, which mostly despised the earlier generation of raï singers. At the same time, Arabic classical music was gaining huge popularity across the Maghreb, especially the music of Egypt’s Umm Kulthum. When first developed, raï was a hybrid blend of rural and cabaret musical genres, invented by and targeted toward distillery workers and peasants who had lost their land to European settlers, and other types of lower class citizens. The geographical location of Oran allowed for the spread of many cultural influences, allowing raï musicians to absorb an assortment of musical styles such as flamenco from Spain, gnawa music, and French cabaret, allowing them to combine with the rhythms typical of Arab nomads. In the early 1930s, social issues afflicting the native population in the colony, such as the disease of typhus, harassment and imprisonment by the colonial police, and poverty were prominent themes of raï lyrics. However, other main lyrical themes concerned the likes of wine, love, and the meaning and experiences of leading a marginal life. From its origins, women played a significant role in the music and performance of raï. In contrast to other Algerian music, raï incorporated dancing in addition to music, particularly in a mixed-gender environment. In the 1930s, Raï, al-Andalousm, and the Egyptian classical style influenced the formation of wahrani, a musical style popularized by Blaoui Houari. Musicians like Mohammed Belarbi and Djelloul Bendaoud added these influences to other Oranian styles, as well as Western piano and accordion, resulting in a style called bedoui citadinisé. Revolt began in the mid-1950s, and musicians which included Houari and Ahmed Saber supported the Front de Libération National. After independence in 1962, however, the government of the Houari Boumédienne regime, along with President Ahmed Ben Bella, did not tolerate criticism from musicians such as Saber, and suppression of Raï and Oranian culture ensued. The number of public performances by female raï singers decreased which led to men playing an increased role in this genre of music. Meanwhile, traditional raï instruments such as the gasba (reed flute), and the derbouka (North African drums) were replaced with the violin and accordion.

Rakugo

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Description#

The speaker is in the middle of the stage, and their purpose is to stimulate the general hilarity with tone and limited, yet specific body gestures. The monologue always ends with a narrative stunt (punch line) known as or , consisting of a sudden interruption of the wordplay flow. Twelve kinds of ochi are codified and recognized, with more complex variations having evolved through time from the more basic forms. Early rakugo has developed into various styles, including the , the , the , and . In many of these forms the ochi, which is essential to the original rakugo, is absent. Rakugo has been described as “a sitcom with one person playing all the parts” by Noriko Watanabe, assistant professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Comparative Literature at Baruch College.

Ramprasadi

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Influence#

Ramprasad Sen was the first shakta poet to address Kali with such as intimate devotion and to sing of her as a tender loving mother or even as a little girl. He is credited with creating a new compositional form that combined the Bengali folk style of Baul music with classical melodies and kirtan. After him, a school of shakta poets continued the Kali-bhakti tradition. Krishna Chandra Roy, Siraj ud-Daulah, Rabindranath Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islam were immensely inspired by the songs of Ramprasad. Many of his songs were sung by famous Shyama sangeet singers like Dhananjay Bhattacharya, Pannalal Bhattacharya and Anup Ghoshal.

Rampur–Sahaswan gharana

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The gharana finds its origins in Mehboob Khan, the chief khayal singer in the royal court of Rampur State (in present Uttar Pradesh), his tradition was followed by his son Inayat Hussain Khan (1849–1919) and in turn by Inyat’s brothers-in-law, Haider Khan (1857–1927), Ustad Fida Hussain Khan and Padma Bhushan Ustad Mushtaq Hussain Khan (1878–1964; first recipient of the Padma Bhushan Award), thus all the singers were connected with each other, and the gharana was named after their ancestral place, Sahaswan, in present Badaun district. Amongst the most famous and relevant vocalists of the Gharana are Mushtaq Hussain Khan, Nisar Hussain Khan, Ghulam Mustafa Khan, Ghulam Sadiq Khan and Rashid Khan.

Ranchera

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Definitions#

The word ranchera was derived from the word rancho because the songs originated on the ranches and in the countryside of rural Mexico. Traditional themes in rancheras are about love, heartbreak, patriotism or nature. Rhythms can have a meter in (in slow tempo: ranchera lenta and faster tempo: ranchera marcha), (ranchera vals), or (bolero ranchero). Songs are usually in a major key, and consist of an instrumental introduction, verse and refrain, instrumental section repeating the verse, and another verse and refrain, with a tag ending. Rancheras are also noted for the grito mexicano, a yell that is done at musical interludes within a song, either by the musicians and/or the listening audience. The normal musical pattern of rancheras is a–b–a–b. Rancheras usually begin with an instrumental introduction (a). The first lyrical portion then begins (b), with instrumental adornments interrupting the lines in between. The instruments then repeat the theme again, and then the lyrics may either be repeated or begin a new set of words. One also finds the form a–b–a–b–c–b used, in which the intro (a) is played, followed by the verse (b). This form is repeated, and then a refrain (c) is added, ending with the verse. The most popular ranchera composers include Lucha Reyes, Cuco Sánchez, Antonio Aguilar, Juan Gabriel and José Alfredo Jiménez, who composed many of the best-known rancheras, with compositions totaling more than 1,000 songs, making him one of the most prolific songwriters in the history of western music. Another closely related style of music is the corrido, which is often played by the same ensembles that regularly play rancheras. The corrido, however, is apt to be an epic story about heroes and villains, or the narrator’s lifestyle.

Rap metal

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins and early development (1980s–early 1990s)#

Rap metal’s roots are based both in hip hop acts who sampled heavy metal music, such as Beastie Boys, Cypress Hill, Esham and Run-DMC, and rock bands who fused heavy metal and hip hop influences, such as 24-7 Spyz and Faith No More. Scott Ian of Anthrax (who helped pioneer the genre) believes Rage Against the Machine invented the genre. In 1987, the heavy metal band Anthrax fused hip hop with heavy metal for their extended play I’m the Man. The next year rapper Sir Mix-a-Lot teamed up with Metal Church for his 1988 single “Iron Man”, from his debut album Swass, loosely based upon the Black Sabbath song of the same name. Rap metal can be found in a track from the industrial metal band Ministry in their 1989 album The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste on the track “Test” for which they hired rappers The Grand Wizard (K. Lite) and The Slogan God (Tommie Boyskee) to perform vocals. In 1990, the rapper Ice-T formed a heavy metal band called Body Count, and while performing at the 1991 Lollapalooza tour performed a set that was half rap songs and half metal songs. Stuck Mojo and Clawfinger, both formed in 1989, are considered to be another two pioneers of the genre. Anthrax in 1991 teamed up with Public Enemy for a remake of the latter’s “Bring the Noise” that fused hip hop with thrash metal. Also in 1991, the thrash metal band Tourniquet featured the hip hop group P.I.D. on the song “Spineless” from their album Psycho Surgery. That same year the hair metal band Whitecross featured a rap by Alton Hood of the hip hop group D.O.C. on their album In The Kingdom.

Rap opera

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

The word hip hopera is a portmanteau of hip hop and opera. An early use of the phrase was a 1994 album of that name by Volume 10 (although not a concept album). The first dramatic production to use the term was a 2001 telefilm by MTV, titled Carmen: A Hip Hopera. The word received increased use after 2005, in describing R&B singer R. Kelly’s Trapped in the Closet series.

Rap rock

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

AllMusic characterized rap rock songs as rock songs in which the vocals were rapped rather than sung. Session player Eddie Martinez, who created the guitar parts for hip hop group Run-DMC’s rap rock song “Rock Box”, recognized that “a rap-rock song needn’t feature a new change in the chorus; rather, it’s a spot where the guitarist can just solo over the same riff that drives the verses.”

Old school rap rock (1980s to mid-1990s)#

Early hip hop DJs utilized breaks from rock records, such as Billy Squier’s “the Big Beat”, the Monkees’ “Mary, Mary” and Steve Miller Band’s “Take the Money and Run”, in order to “flaunt their vinyl guile”. Although the Cold Crush Brothers’ “Punk Rock Rap” did not see much success and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five would wind up being jeered opening for the Clash, Run-DMC saw a crossover audience with their rap rock sound, helping gain rock fans’ acceptance of hip hop. Public Enemy brought a punk rock attitude to hip hop; Another link between hip hop and punk rock was producer Rick Rubin, who split his time between working with hip hop artists Run-DMC and Beastie Boys, and punk-influenced bands like Slayer and the Cult. However, a rap rock collaboration between Run-DMC and the rock band Aerosmith helped diminish such biases. It was the first Billboard top ten rap rock success played on radio. The music video signaled “both a literal and metaphoric merging of hard rock and rap”; the recording revitalized Aerosmith’s career. as demonstrated by songs like “Rhymin’ and Stealin’”, which was built around samples from Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and the Clash, “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)” and “No Sleep till Brooklyn”, which featured guitar playing by Slayer’s Kerry King. Public Enemy’s 1988 album It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back contained a song which sampled Slayer, and in 1991, the hip hop group would re-record their song “Bring the Noise” with the metal band Anthrax, After releasing “two albums of pure Beastie Boys worship”, Kid Rock began to explore his Southern rock influences on Early Mornin’ Stoned Pimp (1996), and Devil Without a Cause (1998), the latter of which “extended the lineage of rap-rock” and helped to “ignite the rap-rock genre”.

Rapping

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology and usage#

The English verb rap has various meanings; these include “to strike, especially with a quick, smart, or light blow”, as well “to utter sharply or vigorously: to rap out a command”. Wentworth and Flexner’s Dictionary of American Slang gives the meaning “to speak to, recognize, or acknowledge acquaintance with someone”, dated 1932, and a later meaning of “to converse, esp. in an open and frank manner”. It is these meanings from which the musical form of rapping derives, and this definition may be from a shortening of repartee. A rapper refers to a performer who “raps”. By the late 1960s, when Hubert G. Brown changed his name to H. Rap Brown, rap was a slang term referring to an oration or speech, such as was common among the “hip” crowd in the protest movements, but it did not come to be associated with a musical style for another decade. Rap was used to describe talking on records as early as 1970 on Isaac Hayes’ album …To Be Continued with the track name “Monologue: Ike’s Rap I”. Hayes’ “husky-voiced sexy spoken ‘raps’ became key components in his signature sound”. Del the Funky Homosapien similarly states that rap was used to refer to talking in a stylistic manner in the early 1970s: “I was born in ‘72 … back then what rapping meant, basically, was you trying to convey something—you’re trying to convince somebody. That’s what rapping is, it’s in the way you talk.” It is sometimes claimed that “rap" is an acronym for Rhythm And Poetry’, but this does not reflect the history of the word and thus is best seen as a backronym.

Rapso

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Rapso music is itself an evolution of the chantwell or griot tradition of African music in the diaspora. It is called “the poetry of Calypso” and “”. Rapso is the poetic “rap” form of Trinbagonian music—the next evolutionary step of Calypso and Soca music. It also has origins in the oral tradition elements of the performances of traditional masquerade characters in Trinidad Carnival. Traditional masquerade characters, such as the Midnight Robber, Pierrot Grenade, and the chantuelle, each have particular forms of poetic and musical speeches that echoed ancient African masking and poetic traditions. Rapso borrowed many of the rhythmic and performance elements of these forms. The first wave of rapso music occurred with the invention of rapso by its pioneer Lancelot Layne in the late 1960s. The second wave occurred in the late 1970s with Cheryl Byron who was the first woman to perform poetry in calypso tents, and mushroomed in the early ’80s with the work of Brother Resistance and the Network Rhythm Band, alongside other artists such as Brother Cetewayo and Brother Book. This wave mainstreamed rapso music in Trinidad and Tobago and World Music. The third wave of rapso occurred with the advent of young groups including Kindred, Homefront and Boyz ‘N The Road in the early 1990s. They were part of a musical movement entitled the “Kiskadee Karavan” that was led by businessman Robert Amar, who invested his money in the unleashing of the young musical genius of Trinidad and Tobago. The Karavan revolutionised Trinidad’s music by taking “traditional” forms such as the rapso and giving it modern production and promotional methods to take the music to stadiums in the native Trinidad and Tobago. This opportunity uncovered many talents on the ground, and created a series of anthemic musical singles. The song “This Trini Could Flow” by super-group Kindred took rapso into the 21st century and firmly entrenched the music as a form comparable to hip-hop and dancehall. Modern Rapso music can be described today as the Trinbagonian equivalent of what is known as American rap music as groups like Boyz ‘N The Road and Khay (from Boyz ‘N The Road) produce and chant to beats and rhythms more heavily influenced by the modern American hip-hop music culture fused with R&B and Jazz, as opposed to the traditional or “Roots” rapso (with calypso and soca music). Nonetheless, traditional rapso continues to live on as super-group Kindred and 3 Canal maintain the balance with the calypso and soca music influences.

Raptor house

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

External links#

Documentary video of Raptor house (in Spanish)
Raptor house dancers
Raptor house dancer
Raptor house girls

Rara music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

References#

McAlister, Elizabeth. Rara! Vodou, Power, and Performance in Haiti and its Diaspora. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Book on Rara in Haiti and New York City.

Rara tech

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Rasin

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Rasin bands combine the Vodou ceremonial and folk music traditions with various musical styles. The Haitian Vodou musical tradition includes “cool” rada rhythms often associated with Africa and the “hot” petro rhythms that speak of a New World, and bands incorporate both styles in their music, although rarely in the same song. On top of the basic horn and drum rhythms, melodies are layered that include structure from rock and roll and jazz. instrumentation can include a variety of drums (including distinct rada and petro styles), rara horns, electronic keyboards, electronic drums, electric guitars, an electric bass, one or more vocalists, and other percussionists. Most song lyrics are written in Creole and often incorporate traditional Vodou ceremonial lyrics or poetry. Songs can speak to traditional Vodou themes such as spying and betraying, feeling lost or estranged, the need for judgement and justice, or the urge to reconnect with an ancestral homeland. Some songs are based on prayers directed to particular loa, or gods, while others may be ballads relating to Haitian mythology. Many songs contain multiple layers of meaning, and can be interpreted as social or political commentary. Songs often emphasize spiritual messages of tolerance, faith, justice, and universal love. The music is upbeat and rhythmic and, like Vodou ceremonial music, intended for dancing.

Rasiya

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Rasiyas are characterised by a frequent use of a set of stock melodies which are used equally throughout the genre. Modern Rasiyas contain erotic lyrics and euphemisms while traditional Rasiyas are devotional portrayals of Radha and Krishna. They are most commonly sung in informal song meetings by members of the rural community in the Braj region of Uttar Pradesh. There are different variants and styles of rasiya’s, and villagers will sing their own respective regional variants during their local festivities. During the Holi season, rasiyas are widely performed in temples. Rasiyas tend to encompass a traditional set of themes, however, the range of topics that the songs can be based on within the genre is limitless. Author Peter Manuel has argued that “to some extent, rasiya is distinguished by its characteristic melodies, styles, and contexts rather than text content, and is thus able to accommodate any sort of text topic”.

RA on Music Theory Print

Rabindra Sangeet

History#

Rabiz

Etymology#

Rabòday

Etymology#

Radif (music)

Definition#

Radio drama

History#

1880–1930: early years#

Radionovela

In Argentina#

In Chile#

Raga

Terminology#

Raga rock

Definition#

Rage (music genre)

Etymology#

Rage aria

History#

Ragga

Origins#

Ragtime

Etymology#

Raï

Origins#

Rakugo

Description#

Ramprasadi

Influence#

Rampur–Sahaswan gharana

History#

Ranchera

Definitions#

Rap metal

Origins and early development (1980s–early 1990s)#

Rap opera

Etymology#

Rap rock

Characteristics#

Old school rap rock (1980s to mid-1990s)#

Rapping

Etymology and usage#

Rapso

History#

Raptor house

External links#

Rara music

References#

See also#

Rara tech

Rasin

Characteristics#

Rasiya

Characteristics#