Regional Classic Folks Music

Famous Regional Classic Folks Music

India is a land of art and culture, with wonderful cultural diversity but unified tradition and heritage , folk music playing important role in every occasion, having lot of regional flavor but with meaningful message and spirit.

Starting with the northern region, the regional classical folk music includes Bhangra which is of Punjabi origin, but popular throughout India, which goes with dancing with joy and good spirit, while the traditional folk music also called Bhangra, with its female dance version called Giddha, both occupying important place in all functions and festivals when people join together to enjoy the season.

In the East, one would enjoy the folk music Bauls of Bengal, which is practiced since 18th century, the folk songs sung with the accompaniment of classical music instruments such as khamak, dotara or ektara, the term Baul meaning Insanity aroused by divine force, for those involved in this folk music  lose themselves to feelings of very high order, invoking celestial bliss.

Pandavani is the folk music rendering joy and ecstasy, which is music oriented narration of the great epic Mahabharata, keeping Bhima as the hero, is popular in the State of Chattisgarh, while Dandiya is the dance oriented classical folk music, which is now popular throughout the world as pop music number, which is sung and danced especially during Navratri festivals in the Northern part of the country.

As one goes to the Southern part of India, there are quite a number of Classical folk music encompassing different occasions of the life events, right from the birth to the death ceremonies, most of them played at the appropriate occasions, if not for entertainment, which are popularly known as Nattuppurapadalkal which literally means the songs of the rural places, such as  ‘thalattu’ for singing while making the child sleep, ‘Nalungu’ while enthusing the newly married couple, ‘Pilakkanam’ during death ceremonies, ‘Oppari’ on sad occasions, etc, while there are many folk songs sung by those working in paddy fields during harvest times.

Karnataka region patronizes the folk music form called Bhavageete, emotion rich rendition of excellent poetry, similar to Ghazals of Maharashtra, covering themes of Love, nature, philosophy etc, for which folklore many popular writers of Kannada have contributed good number of lyrics.

Lavani is a popular form of classical folk music in Maharashtra, traditionally sung by female folks, sometimes males too sing these songs, while the dance accompanying this folk music is called Tamsha, the entire redndition done by the team of Tamashabai as the dancer, dance assistant Maavshi, the drummer called Dholkivaala and the flutist BaasriVaala.