Raga rock is rock or pop music with a pronounced Indian influence, either in its construction, its timbre, or its use of Indian musical instruments, such as the sitar and tabla. In addition, rock music from the 1960s and 1970s that incorporates South Asian musical influences and instruments, along with Western ideas of the Indian subcontinent, is often regarded as raga rock. Since Indian influences in popular music are primarily limited to the 1960s, most raga rock recordings originate from that decade, although there are examples of Indian-derived sounds in post-1960s rock and pop music. Development Definition Ragas are specific melodic modes used in the classical music of the Indian subcontinent. The term "raga rock" originated in March 1966 as a description of rock music that featured Indian sitar styling. According to musicologist Jonathan Bellman, citing Lillian Roxon's 1969 book Rock Encyclopedia: "This catchphrase eventually came to describe any Rock song that evoked an Indian or general Oriental mood, whether by use of sitar or another instrument imitating it." Music journalist Rob Chapman says the phrase was a "catch-all term" and "something of a misnomer", since it was often applied to any piece of rock music that "used non-European instrumentation or music styles to denote its exotic qualities". A major influence on raga rock was the music of Bengali sitarist Ravi Shankar. He himself became a pop music icon in 1966, following the rise of the raga rock trend. Rock's use of elements from the Indian classical tradition included: sitar (usually serving the role of an electric guitar) drone, provided by tambura in raga performances and by Indian harmonium in vocal pieces modal melodies based on Indian scales vocal stylings additive, rather than divisive, rhythms (tal) question-and-answer interplay (jawab-sawal) between lead instruments lead instruments mirroring the vocal line lyrical themes related to mysticism or religious symbolism. Antecedents Writing for Crawdaddy! in December 1966, Sandy Pearlman traced the origins of raga rock to folk music, specifically the drone-producing guitar tunings which American folk musician Sandy Bull had been incorporating into his music since 1963. More recently, Chapman and author John Schaefer have both noted that English folk guitarist Davey Graham's raga-tinged arrangement of the Irish ballad "She Moved Through the Fair", from 1963's From a London Hootenanny EP, predated the raga rock experimentation of 1960s rock groups by two years. 1960s Early examples Music researcher William Echard states that "Heart Full