Happy Diwali and Indian music study

Last Tuesday, our good friend invited our family to celebrate Diwali together. At her home, we lit small oil lamps, listened to sacred chants, enjoyed delicious festival sweets, and exchanged warm wishes. The atmosphere was full of joy and light. In the living room, her parents played beautiful Indian music, which made me very curious — how are those graceful, trembling sounds created?

Indian music is characterized by its rich use of ornamentation and expressive pitch movement. Unlike Western music, which focuses on fixed notes, Indian melodies emphasize the fluid connection between tones. This creates a sense of motion and emotional depth. The frequent use of vibrato-like effects—called gamak, meend, and andolan—gives Indian music its unique voice. Each technique has a specific emotional purpose: meend slides smoothly between notes, andolan creates slow oscillations around a pitch, and gamak produces fast, rhythmic tremors. These effects are achieved through precise control of the voice, string bends on instruments like the sitar, or subtle changes in air pressure on the flute.

Philosophically, Indian musicians believe that music should mirror the natural flow of life and emotion. Therefore, sound is treated as something alive and breathing, not rigid or mechanical. The result is a deeply expressive art form where each note seems to move, shimmer, and speak with soul.