Music has always occupied a central place in the imagination of Indians. The range of musical phenomenon in India, and indeed the rest of South Asia, extends from simple melodies, commonly encountered among hill tribes, to what is one of the most well- developed "systems" of classical music in the world. Indian music can be described as having been inaugurated with the chanting of Vedic hymns, though it is more than probable that the Indus Valley Civilization was not without its musical culture, of which almost nothing is known. There are references to various string and wind instruments, as well as several kinds of drums and cymbals, in the Vedas. Sometime between the 2nd century BC and the 5th century AD, the Natyasastra, on Treatise on the Dramatic Arts, was composed by Bharata. This work has ever since exercised an incalculable influence on the development of Indian music, dance, and the performing arts in general.,

In India, however, music is most commonly associated with film music. Popular Indian films, whether in Hindi, Tamil, or any of the other Indian languages, are most often described and understood in the West as "musicals", as they are seldom without songs, though they by no means constitute a genre as did American musicals. Also popular are ghazals, poetic compositions that aspire more than do popular film songs to poetic qualities: the subject here is usually the loss, memory, and remembrance of love. Qawaalis, compositions in which the subject is also love, though here it is understood that it is the love of man and woman for the Divine, have also attained a certain following, and in recent years the Pakistani qawaali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan has established a world-wide reputation.

Influences on Indian music have been many and varied. The impact of Indian Thought and Philosophy on Indian Classical Music  and of the various customs on the external and internal natural aspects of our melodic musical culture has ever been one major expression of our cultural heritage.

In the chain circle of influences (music-dance-sculpture-music) the art of iconography has also influenced Indian music. Visualization of music is an aspect of visualization of the non-visual or using symbols for comprehension, concentration, idealization and deification. Comprehending the non-visual in the human shape (many a time with modified human shape, with extra arms or faces) could be directly linked to Vedic thought; it is part of Indian theology and an aspect of polytheism. The raaga dhyanamurtis and later picturisation of raagas and raginis are the result of iconographical view of music and the paintings require to be understood in terms of the influence of iconography on music as well.

The influence of the phonic aspects of language on raaga-music has also been quite immense. Sama gana permitted musical vowelling and the effect of sama depended on the type of gana for the desired effects (mystical/magical) and the sacrificial prescriptions. While music demanded vowelization of the words used by the language, language itself produced many such forms of words with phonetic contents suitable for exploitation by the vocal art. For example, the three words: balama, balama and balama; they all mean the same, but have slightly different phonetic contents very well exploited in art-music. Why one feels the Braj-bhasha compositions of Dhrupad, Dhamara, Khayal and Thumri are the best medium for exposition of a raaga is a subject requiring separate treatment. Here, in sum, it could be stated that the Braj Bhasha and ntikalina compositions have influenced the formal as well as the content aspects of the major classical forms and in doing so it has influenced the presentational aspects of raaga music.

The oral-transmission technique, the Shruti - Smriti tradition, is also a part of Indian culture and the raaga has been preserved through this tradition. The song, the cija and bandisa served as the medium to help preservation of ragas and also education in music. This too is a legacy of Shruti - Smriti cultural tradition, and music was held as high as a Pancama-Veda, the fifth stream of knowledge. This aspect of Indian tradition has importance for the history of raagas, as oral transmission tradition is based on psychology of conservation and does not easily admit changes; and as such the pace of evolution and metamorphosis is slow.