Improvisation in Iranian and Indian music

By “improvisation”, a term now much debated within Western musicology and ethnomusicology, we refer to those aspects of a musical performance that are generated by the performer. Even the performance of a pre-composed musical work, fully notated by the composer, will usually include elements that are not pre-determined, such as nuances, ornamentation or variations added by the performer in the course of performance, and today most musicologists recognize such elements as “improvisation” (following Nettl (1974)). In both Iranian and Indian music, however, the performer’s contribution appears to be much greater than this: the performer does not reproduce a written score, and pre-composed, memorized material seems to account for a relatively small proportion of a complete performance of a raga or dastgah. The questions therefore arise, whether the terms “composition” and “improvisation” are adequate in such circumstances, and whether the techniques or processes of performance in Iranian and Indian traditions are similar or different.