ABSTRACT
The capability of electronic media to amplify, transmit, and record musical sound has radically transformed the nature of Indian music performance and its propagation. To begin with, broadcast and recording technology have contributed to an extension of Indian music’s accessibility for a potentially unlimited audience. Thanks to recording, Indian musical performance is no longer limited to being a momentary phenomenon, captured only in fading memory; a performance of Indian music can now become a concrete, permanent artifact, subject to continued and repeated reexamination over short and long periods of time. Recording has contributed to an unprecedented codification of an improvisational music that traditionally had no full-scale notation. At the same time, it has promoted an expansion of the scope and expressive possibilities of that music through more widespread dispersal, which promotes cross-fertilization. Recordings have served as invaluable tools to musicians for self-assessment and the improvement of their own musical skills. They have also provided precise documentation of the traditions of past masters, as well as a source of new ideas for musicians to study the techniques and approaches of other (often competing) musicians, allowing them to incorporate such techniques into their own performance styles. Certain classical artists have been able virtually to duplicate styles of other musical traditions (gharānā) without any direct study within those traditions, even identifying themselves explicitly as exponents of the traditions (the disciples of the late vocalist Amir Khan, for example).
