Much like any other country's contribution to the art form of music, Indian Music is well-known for its variants in the form of classical, contemporary and folk music that has evolved since the dawn of time. Indian Music, in today's world, has touched many lives through its popular form of Bollywood music. Almost every variant [read: genre] found in folk and classical music has been interpreted and composed into many a popular movie song. Almost every playback singer (with the rare exception of Kishore Kumar) have made their start by studying music classically.The same goes for the music directors such as S.D Burman and his son, R.D Burman. Yet with the turn of Bollywood towards a more Wester direction musically, that era came to an abrupt although it continues to and has offered us so much. So what is being implied here through this piece of writing is that the source of inspiration for some of India's most popular music is derived from its older cousin, classical music. Interestingly, classical music stems from two distinct forms that dates back to Vedic times found in the Sama Veda, where music was considered a method by which one can meditate and attain self-realization. If you aren’t aware of this fact, Indian Classical music in both its forms is far more complex than its Western counterpart where the basic octave (the eight notes from low C to high C) is further subdivided into 12 semitones.A video posted at the end will show just why!!! Hindustani Classical music, a heavy influence on the music of Bollywood, has evolved over the years in northern parts of India. With its influence stemming from Persian music and the Vedic chant tradition, it has broken boundaries in terms of religion. Musicians in this form at their height are given titles of respect such as ‘Ustad’ for Muslim artistes and ‘Pandit’ for Hindu artistes. Composers like Amir Khusro and Tansen paved the way for Hindustani Classical Music to flourish in India, for which the former is responsible for bringing order and definition into a form of music that until then was disorganized. While the Mughal empire dissolved, musicians during their time in creating their particular style in music and dance formed their own ‘gharanas’, of which the ones in the cities of Agra, Gwalior, Patiala, Kirana, Indore and Jaipur are still prominent until this day. With the decline of this form of music over the last century, government-run radio stations promoted (and still continue to do so) this form of music so that this dying art form, an essential part of our cultural heritage, would not disappear forever buried in the sands of time. As Hindustani Music has been primarily developed to showcase the vocal talent with the music in the background, there are a number of styles that have been developed over the years, of which the major vocal forms-cum-styles are the Dhrupad, Khayal, and Tarana. Yet the purpose of music is to change with the changing times, and artistes such as Zakir Hussain, the son of the famous Ustad Alla Rakha, Trilok Gurtu and Talvin Singh have found a way to express the rich tradition of music in country through ‘fusion’ music with several Western Artistes such John McLaughlin, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Madonna, Bjork and the list goes on. Here’s a video of the band Tabla Beat Science that plays ‘fusion’ music with some of the great hindustani classical musicians of our times: By any standards, this is what they call a 'jam'!