The music of the people, folk music, is so old that only a guess can be hazarded about its antiquity. We do not know when it was made up or who made it up. We do know, however, that music itself always tells us a great deal about the people.
Folk music is usually simple and direct and often tells stories of the things that interested the people, such as tales of unhappy love, epochs, important battles, and fears or sufferings. Some folk melodies are sad while some are happy. Folk music does not necessarily have words to go with it, although it often does.
A singer might not like the words or the music of some particular song and would change them. He might not remember just how the words went and would have to make up his own words. So our oldest folk songs have come down to us in different versions. The same story may be told, with the words or the music, or both, being changed.
Classical music, it is recognized the world over, had its osmosis in devotional and folk songs. Anthropologists and musicologists have also agreed on the almost simultaneous evolution of poetry, legends, epochs and folktales. The esoteric art music, therefore, has traditionally been furbished by succeeding generations of musicians in consonance with the cultural yearnings of later generations of groups, tribes and individual musicians.
As a natural corollary to this phenomenon, many classical formulations invariably bear the names of tribes or individual musicians, who inhabited different areas in the Punjab during different periods of history. A close scrutiny of the names of the tribes currently inhabiting different regions of the Punjab reveals clear relationship with the names of a number of ragas. In support of the argument, several examples can be cited, some of which are:
Tilanga for raga Tilang
Multan for raag Multani
Ahir for raga Ahir Bhairon
Mian Taansen for Mian ki Malhaar or Mian ki Todi
Sindh for Sindhi Bhairveen
The region specific classical ragas clearly reflect the cultural atmospherics of these areas. For the sake of brevity, only the origin of a few ragas will be discussed in this brief article. These are particularly suited for the transmission of social yearnings of the people of Punjab and reflect and also interpret their cultural sensibilities. These ragas have often been used for the people also to express their creative urges, and for the communication of their sentiments spawned by different seasons of the year like sowing and harvesting of crops. The inhabitants of other areas have also creatively employed the cathartic potential of these ragas. (So did the composers of film songs). However, the Punjabis have a prior claim to these classical formulations because these ragas are claimed to have originated, were refined and are extensively used by the people in different parts of the Punjab.
Raga Bhairveen can be discussed to substantiate the point. Its "thath" or scalar foundations are based on all soft (komal) notes of the scale. It is used for reciting mystical poetry of Punjabi saints, especially Waris Shah.
Almost all crooners of Heer Waris Shah render the versified story of legendary love between Heer and Ranjha in raga Bhairveen, reflecting the cultural atmospherics of the rural hinterland. Bards also recite other versified folktales and epochs from the Punjab and wandering minstrels, who use melodies composed in this seven-note raga. Similarly, songs composed in the pentatonic raga Tilang and seven-note raga Khammach are used in this province, especially during wedding ceremonies. A majority of songs crooned by female friends of the brides is composed in these classical modes as these were found to be especially suited to conveying the mixed feelings of euphoria and sweet melancholia witnessed and experienced on such occasions.
It is the synthesis of such feelings that the evolution of a common mode of musical expression, which after continued refinement acquires the status of classical formulations. Raga Tilang, Khammach and Bhairveen have undergone this metamorphosis in the process of attaining the ambience of classical modes.
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