Megumi Terry and Faculty Mentor: Dr. Jeremy Grimshaw, Department of Music

Introduction
As a classically trained violinist, having studied since the age of four, I have had an
unlikely fascination with other world music cultures. In the summer of 2015 I had the
opportunity to live in India and explore the culture and come to love the music of the
Hindustani tradition. As a violinist, I wanted to expand my training beyond the
boundaries of traditional Western classical music and examine one of the richest non-
European violin traditions by taking lessons with Anabil Chaudhuri, a Hindustani
classical violinist.
The goal of the project was to be able to better understand music of the Indian culture.
Through my training with Mr. Chaudhuri, Dr. Grimshaw and I plan to discover the ties
between Indian traditional music and how it relates to their culture and their people. In
other words, “how does the music sound relate to what it means?”

Methodology
I began my formal training with Mr. Chaudhuri on March 4, 2017. We continued to meet
several times throughout the course of the summer and I was able to video record our
lessons. He has studied with teachers throughout India before he moved to America to
pursue his engineering career. Mr. Chaudhuri is from northern India, where musicians
practice Hindustani music. In southern India, musicians practice Carnatic music
A gifted musician, Mr. Chaudhuri is also an innovator and has implemented Western
styles of playing to the Indian violin. A traditional Indian violinist, whether they be of the
Hindustani tradition or Carnatic tradition, sits crossed-legged on the floor, shoes off, and
places the scroll of the violin into the arch of the foot. This frees the left hand and allows
for proper sliding and ornamentation in Indian music. Mr. Chaudhuri, however, invented
a device with a 3D printer that holds his scroll for him so he does not have to place it in
his foot. This scroll holder is level to his shoulder so he can hold it up like Western
classical violinists would hold the violin. Because of this invention, Mr. Chaudhuri does
not feel obligated to sit on the floor, and sits in a chair.

Results
Going into my research, my mindset was very open to different ideas when it came to
how the Hindustani music related to the intense cultures of India that I had experienced
two summers ago. I was forcing questions that were, in a sense, generalizing an entire
population so I could learn about Indian people as a whole based on findings I had
discovered in the music. But the more questions I asked, trying to find differences
between American culture and Indian culture, the more I realized how many similarities
there are between the two music traditions. I could tell my guru grew tired of my
relentless questions and explained that we are all humans. He stated the following in my
fourth lesson:
“We are both human beings. Western people are humans, Indian people are humans.
When we cry we are expressing the same emotion. Indians might have two more drops of
tears…I don’t know…but crying doesn’t mean that they are very happy, right? For both
people. The expression through music is similar. If you express a certain mood, like
happiness, it should have a good correlation whether you are Western or Indian.”
Similar to Western Classical music, the mood in a composition is important and
expression is key in Indian music. All throughout my training as a classical violinist,
there has always been a discussion on musical line and phrasing. How do we make the
music tell a story? How do we make it interesting? How can I make this piece
expressive? Hindustani music has the same goals. Each raga (essentially a set of notes
and ornamentations that are specific to certain compositions) in Indian music has a mood.
The mood is vital to the composition. This mood is how they express emotions. Likewise,
Western Classical music uses its compositions to express emotions. This is only one
example of how Western Classical music is similar to Indian music.

Discussion
One of the best things I had learned while attending BYU was the importance of being an
informed global citizen. If we understand one another’s cultures, this leads to more
harmony within our global community. The requirement of the global and cultural
awareness GE is that “Students will develop greater empathy and charity, and begin to
gain a global perspective, by learning to see themselves from another’s point of view.”
And one of the expected outcomes is to “be able to recognize and deal with prejudice,
bigotry, ethnocentrism, false pride and other barriers to effective intercultural
communication at the local, state, national, and international levels.”
Through this project, I was able to obtain this GE’s expected outcome firsthand. I was
able to work with a musician from a different part of the world and come to understand
their music, which in turn allowed me to better understand their culture and allow a more
empathetic relationship and open up a dialogue between the two types of music. I learned
that rather than focusing on the differences, we can work on finding the similarities. The
sooner we realize that we are all humans and want the same things, the sooner we can
break through barriers and allow for more communication to happen “at the local, state,
national and international levels.”

Conclusion
The findings of my research will be implemented into Dr. Grimshaw’s Music 307: World
Music class. I hope that my findings will bring more enlightenment to the students of the
School of Music and also allow them to see the similarities between the Western
Classical tradition and Hindustani tradition.