L16: Folk Music Traditions

Good morning, class! Excellent work last session — I noticed several of you went out of your way to find Shigmo footage online, and a few even attended the Shigmo procession at Panaji. That is exactly the engagement I want to see. Quick recap: Lecture 14 was Tiatr and Konkani theatre. Lecture 15 was folk dance — Dekhni, Fugdi, Goff. Today: Lecture 16 — Folk Music Traditions of Goa. [INTRODUCTION — 0 to 10 minutes] Music is perhaps the most intimate of all the performing arts. Dance requires space, theatre requires a stage and an audience, but music can be made in any condition — in a field at harvest time, in a fishing boat at sea, in a kitchen while cooking, at a bedside while nursing a sick child. Music accompanies every human activity and every human emotion, and nowhere is this more true than in Goa. I want to begin with a provocation: Goa is musically unique in all of India. I do not say this for local pride — I say it because it is analytically true. No other place in India has the same combination of influences at work in its music: Sanskrit-rooted Konkani folk melody, Dravidian rhythmic sensibility from Karnataka, Persian and Arabic modal influences through the Muslim trading communities of the coast, and — crucially — four and a half centuries of Portuguese Catholic musical culture, including Western harmonic structure, tonal harmony, violin technique, and European forms like the waltz, the mazurka, and the polka. This combination is found nowhere else. The result is a musical culture that sounds unlike anything you will hear anywhere else in India. Play a Mando for someone from Delhi — they will be fascinated and slightly baffled. Play a Ghumat rhythm for a musician from Rajasthan — they will recognise the Indian pulse but find the timbre alien. Goan music inhabits a unique sonic world. [CORE CONTENT — 10 to 40 minutes] Let me begin with the Mando, because it is the crown jewel of Goan folk music. The Mando is a song form created by Goan Catholics, most actively developed in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The word Mando is believed to derive from Mandkara, a Sanskrit root related to circular or flowing movement. The Mando is a couple dance and song — traditionally performed at genteel social gatherings, at weddings and Christmas celebrations, in the parlours of Goan Catholic houses. The women wear the Pano Bhaju — a traditional Catholic Goan dress of Indian cut — and the men wear European suits. They dance in pairs, in a slow, graceful waltz-like movement, while the song is sung by a soloist or small group. The musical structure of the Mando is fascinating. The melody is modal — it draws on scales that are neither purely Western nor purely classical Indian, but something in between. The harmony, however, is unambiguously Western — the accompaniment uses triads, dominant-tonic progressions, and the characteristic violin and guitar combination. The rhythm in the classic Mando is a slow 6/8 or 3/4 — a triple-time, flowing meter that gives the dance its characteristic gentle swaying quality. The themes of Mando songs are almost entirely about love and longing — but a particular kind of love and longing. Mando songs are saturated with sadness, with departure, with separation, with the sea. They are the songs of a community that has always been moving — leaving for Bombay, for Mozambique, for Portugal, for the Gulf, for England. The longing in a Mando is specifically the longing of migrants for their homeland. The most famous Mando, "Hanv Saiba Poltodi Veta," is about crossing the river — which every Goan Catholic scholar interprets as a metaphor for leaving Goa. There is also a strong religious element in some Mandos — devotion to the Virgin Mary expressed in musical terms borrowed from the European Ave Maria tradition but translated into a completely Goan emotional register. The great composers and lyricists of the Mando tradition include Joao Agostinho Fernandes, who composed in the mid-19th century and is considered the father of the Mando form. His compositions established the musical idiom. C. Alvares — yes, the same Tiatr figure — also composed Mandos. Tomazinho Cardozo, Tukaram Shett, and many others contributed. In the 20th century, Lorna Cordeiro became the voice most associated with the Mando — her recordings, made from the 1960s through the 1990s, are the definitive interpretations that most contemporary Goans know. The Dulpod is the Mando's more energetic companion. Where the Mando is slow and melancholic, the Dulpod is fast and joyful. The word means "double step" — and the dance step is indeed quicker. Dulpod songs are comic, satirical, celebratory. At a traditional Catholic gathering, the evening would typically begin with Mandos — solemn and nostalgic — and end with Dulpods — lively and humorous. Together they represent the emotional range of the Goan Catholic musical experience. The Mando received international recognition when it was included in UNESCO's Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2021, along with the Dulpod. This was an important moment — it placed Goan Catholic folk music alongside the great musical traditions of humanity as something deserving of protection and promotion. Now let me turn to the musical instruments of Goa, because the instruments tell you as much as the music itself. The Ghumat is Goa's most iconic instrument. It is an earthen pot drum — a clay vessel, shaped like a large water pot, with one open mouth and one sealed opening. The sealed face is traditionally made from the dried skin of a monitor lizard — the Goh — though today synthetic materials are increasingly used as monitor lizards are a protected species. The Ghumat is played by wedging it under the arm and striking the skin with the fingers and palm, while the other hand modulates the pitch and tone by covering or uncovering the open mouth. The resulting sound is deep, resonant, and unlike any other drum on earth. The Ghumat is used in virtually all Goan folk traditions — it accompanies the Mando, the Dulpod, the Dekhni, the Ovi, the devotional songs. Its sound is the sonic signature of Goa. The Mridangam-like Tabla is also used in more formal musical settings. The Shehnai — a double-reed wind instrument — is used in Hindu temple music, at weddings, and in Shigmo processions. The Sarangi, Bansuri flute, and Tanpura appear in the classical music dimensions of Goan Hindu culture. In the Catholic tradition, the Violin was introduced through the Portuguese church music system and became so thoroughly embedded that it is now considered a Goan instrument. Villages that were mission centres in the Portuguese period had church choirs that trained violinists — and these violinists then played at village weddings, at Tiatr performances, at Mando evenings. The Guitar — Spanish guitar, flat-body — is the other quintessential instrument of Catholic Goa. The harmonium, introduced in the 19th century, is now used across both Hindu and Catholic performing traditions. The Ghumot Ensemble — Ghumat, Cymbals, and the horn-shaped Sundaraa — is the specific instrumentation of the Shigmo festival music and certain Hindu temple festival music. The sound of this ensemble, in the open air of a temple festival, with hundreds of people dancing, is one of the primal sonic experiences of Goa. Let me also talk about devotional music — Ovi and Bhajan. The Ovi is a form of women's devotional song, sung in grinding stone time — traditionally women sang Ovis while grinding grain at the mill, rhythmically keeping time with the grinding stone. Ovis are in the Konkani language, short verses, often in praise of deities, often about agricultural themes. The grinding stone has vanished from most Goan homes — replaced by flour mills and blenders — but the Ovi song form has been collected and preserved by scholars. The Bhajan tradition in Goa draws from the all-India tradition of devotional singing, but with Konkani lyrics and Goan melodic idioms. The bhajan sessions — called Bhajan Sapath — are all-night devotional singing events associated with particular festivals and temple traditions, found especially in Salcette and Ponda. Catholic church music in Goa deserves mention as a performing tradition. The Portuguese built magnificent churches in Goa and equipped them with pipe organs — the Church of St. Cajetan in Old Goa has a pipe organ, one of the oldest in Asia. Church choirs singing Gregorian chant and 16th-century Portuguese polyphony were a major musical institution. The tradition of the Mass set to Western classical music, sung in Latin in Goa's historic churches, is itself an intangible heritage. Some churches, particularly in Old Goa and Margao, maintain choral traditions that are genuinely centuries old. Contemporary Goan music is a fascinating field — local pop music called Goan Pop or Konkani Pop blends Konkani lyrics with Western pop production. Bands like the Remo Fernandes project have brought Goan musical fusion to international audiences. Remo Fernandes — Goa's most internationally recognised musician — is himself a product of this hybridised musical culture, combining fado influences, bossa nova, reggae, and Indian folk elements in music that is distinctly Goan. [ACTIVITY AND DISCUSSION — 40 to 55 minutes] I want to do a listening exercise. I am going to hum — I cannot sing beautifully but I can carry a tune — two short melodies. The first is a few bars of a Mando. The second is a few bars of a Dulpod. I want you to close your eyes and just listen. [Hums a slow, lilting melody in 3/4 time — slow and melancholic] That is the Mando feel. Now the Dulpod: [Hums a brisk, rhythmic tune, faster] Open your eyes. What did you feel in each case? The Mando evokes — what? Sadness, longing, evening, nostalgia. The Dulpod evokes what? Joy, festivity, energy. The emotional function of the music is built into its tempo and melodic contour. Discussion Question 1: The Mando was developed by Goan Catholic elites in the 19th century as a parlour music form for educated, Westernised Goans. Does its elite origin affect how we should categorise it? Is it truly folk music, or is it a kind of Goan art music? Does this distinction matter? Discussion Question 2: The Ghumat drum is made from monitor lizard skin. Monitor lizards are now a protected species. What does this tell us about the intersection of cultural heritage and wildlife conservation? How should this conflict be resolved? Both are genuinely contested questions in Goan cultural policy discussions, so your answers will be interesting to hear. [SUMMARY AND ASSIGNMENT — 55 to 60 minutes] Today we covered the major folk music traditions of Goa. We gave detailed attention to the Mando — its musical structure, its themes of migration and longing, its great composers, and its UNESCO recognition. We contrasted it with the energetic Dulpod. We examined Goa's musical instruments — the iconic Ghumat, the violin in Catholic tradition, the Shehnai in Hindu ritual. We discussed devotional music forms — Ovi, Bhajan, and church choral traditions. And we briefly noted how contemporary Goan music continues to evolve this heritage. Assignment: Find a Mando recording — Lorna Cordeiro's recordings are widely available on YouTube. Listen to it fully. Then listen to a Dulpod. Write a one-page musical appreciation: what language is the song in, what is the apparent theme, what instruments do you hear, what does the song make you feel, and why do you think this form has survived for over 150 years? Next lecture — Lecture 17 — we shift from the performing arts to culinary heritage. Specifically, we start with Goan Hindu cuisine: the ingredients, the cooking methods, the festival foods, and what they tell us about Goan Hindu cultural identity. If you had a particular Goan Hindu dish recently that you love, bring that food memory to class. We will use it. See you Thursday!