Kirana Gharana - Singing Style

Singing Style

Much to the credit of Abdul Karim Khan, today most Hindustani musicians from Karnataka are exponents of Kirana Gharana and Kirana Gharana has imbibed many of the features of the Carnatic tradition. Particularly the culturally fecund border region between Karnataka and Maharashtra is famous for its tradition of the Kirana school of singing.

Another towering figure of this gharana in the early 20th century was Abdul Karim Khan’s cousin Abdul Wahid Khan (1871?-1949).

It was late in the nineteenth century that the two ustads Abdul Karim Khansahab and Abdul Waheed Khansahab revolutionized the very concept of khayal gayaki by introducing the vilambit or the slow tempo method to delineate the raga note by note.

In the Kirana Gayaki, the individual swaras (notes) of the raga are considered not just random points in the scale but independent realms of music capable of horizontal expansion. Mind blowing, emotion drenched Pukars in the higher octaves form a part of the musical experience. Another unique feature of this gharana is the highly intricate and ornate use of the Sargam Taan (weaving patterns with the notations themselves) which was improvised by Ustad Abdul Karim Khansahab as a direct influence of the Carnatic Classical style.

Favorite ragas of performers from the Kirana gharana include Todi, Lalit, Multani, Patdeep, Puriya, Marwa, Shuddha Kalyan, Darbari Kanhara, and Komal-Rishabh Asavari. Noted Marathi thespian PuLa Deshpande has pointed out that performers from the Kirana gharana have had a "soft corner" for the Komal Rishabh note of the Indian Classical Music scale. The ragas mentioned above as Kirana favorites support this observation.