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Hindustani vocals with the „khayal-singer” JYOTIKA DAYAL

The Indian art of singing clearly shows that Indian classical music is marked by two fundamental characteristics. It is a modal music, in which no change of tone is known i.e. it is held by a constant, unchanging keynote. It is designed vocally.
Even though it is instrumental music, one recognizes that the voice is the ideal. Even if an instrumentalist does not have a good voice or voicetraining, he should be able to softly hum the tunes he wants to express with his instrument, or at least imprivise in his mind. This will ease his improvisation. Whereas the instrumentalist has to learn the techniques of his instrument first, the singer can directly try to express his inner feelings with his voice. However a longstanding training is unavoidable, especially for the breathing techniques of gamakimprovisations (voice vibration).
An important aspect of Indian vocals is that the multitone is accompanied by hand gesticulation. This is not only fascinating for the audience but is extremely important for the artist. Thus all the notes of the 3 octaves are allocated to special points in the body. The lower octave stretches from the toes to the navel. The basic note is situated at the navel, from which all improvisations start. The middle octave stretches from the navel to the spiritual eye located above the temples. In the middle octave, the two other important notes – the quart (chest) and the quint (near the heart) are also located. The upper octave reaches from the spiritual eye to the vertex. The human body shows the basic note at four points viz. Toe, navel, spiritual eye and the vertex.
If a note is played from paper, a musician will hear the note when sung or played. In improvised music, it is important that the musician already feels the note he wants to improvise on the note he is playing at the moment i.e. he has to think a few seconds ahead of what he is playing. That is why the hand gestures are so important, as with them it shows the note he is at with his voice, although mentally he may be a few notes ahead. This also explains the overtone singing, which enables the voice to hold on to the frequency of a particular note, but mentally he is ahead by one or more notes. A music, which grows out of such aspects assums an inwardly directed complementery way of thinking, as is the case with the “vocal acrobat” JYOTIKA DAYAL.

JYOTIKA DAYAL, an upcoming artist has completed her Post Diploma in the field of Hindustani Classical vocal music under the able guidance of “Pandit Amarnath” and “Smt. Shanti Sharma” at Shri Ram Bharatiya Kala Kendra in New Delhi. She was a recipient of the Senior Scholarship from Ministry of Human resource and development, Government of India from 1995-1998.
She has successfully performed at “Yuva Mahotsav”, organized by the Sahitya Kala Parishad, New Delhi in 1998. She has given several performances on various cultural accasions,also at ALL INDIA RADIO.
Since 1995 she peforms also in different countries of Europe and since 2001 she is married in Germany. Beside of her concerts,she is also willing to teach classical Indian vocals to young talented students.


Jyotika Dayal & Smt. Kishori Amonkar waehrend der Preisverleihung des "Sumitra Charat Ram Award" 2011