SITAR HERO The Sitar has movable frets and 21–23 strings, six or seven of which are playable.

In This Is Spinal Tap, the band stands over Elvis’s grave, wildly harmonizing “Heartbreak Hotel.” Michael McKean’s character turns to Christopher Guest’s and says, “You don’t wanna go raga on this stuff.” For many Westerners, the joke encapsulates a general aversion and ignorance toward Indian classical music—most familiar through George Harrison tracks, Bollywood nods in comedies and the token Ravi Shankar LP in your parents’ collection.

This week, audiences can expand their expertise with two rare performances. First, Maahaul, a local collective of Indian classical students, brings sitarist Anupama Bhagwat and tabla master Pandit Samar Saha to the University of Chicago on Saturday 26. Then on Wednesday 30, British DJ-producer-composer Nitin Sawhney delivers the American premiere of his symphonic accompaniment to the 1929 silent Indian film A Throw of Dice with the Grant Park Orchestra.

A former comedian on BBC, Sawhney, 44, began exploring traditional Indian sounds through New Agey electronica, fusing sitar to hip-hop beats. Eventually, he moved into scoring for television, film and even video games. His traditional collaboration with the London Symphony Orchestra for A Throw of Dice marked a conscious leap into classical roots in 2007. But what exactly is Indian classical music?

According to University of Chicago ethnomusicologist Kaley Thomas, it’s important to recognize that Indian classical traditions also include Pakistan and Bangladesh; calling it “South Asian” music is least likely to offend. North and South Indian traditions are synonymous with Hindustani and Karnatak music, respectively. In the north there’s a larger Muslim influence from Central Asia, while the south stays more firmly within its subcontinental traditions.

In the 20th century, this musical environment gradually transformed from elite court patronage to a more inclusive state-sponsored form. Prior to Gandhi, one could play music only through birthright. Once the art form was made available to more people, Thomas says, it was held up as “the supreme artistic expression of the nation.”

Now the ancient lineage reaches to Chicago through Maahaul. Born in the city of Bhilai, Bhagwat, 33, studied under Bimalendu Mukherjee, guru at the Imdadkhani Gharana school. The word gharana describes a chain of tutelage, and Imdadkhani traces guru-to-guru back to the 16th-century Gwalior Gharana. The Kolkata-born Saha apprenticed at Banaras Gharana and now acts as guru for two Maahaul students, including Vibhav Garg, who was introduced to Saha by Maninder Singh, tabla teacher at Old Town School of Folk Music; last year Garg traveled to India to study under the guru.

From a Western viewpoint, the spontaneous, improvisational music resembles jazz more than rigid classical. Saha, for instance, tells us the pieces he will perform with Bhagwat “all depend on our mood at the time.” Hence, the filing of Shankar next to Wayne Shorter in bins.

The two cornerstones of South Asian classical are the tala and raga. The tala (Sanskrit for “clap”) marks time and determines the rhythmic cycle and number of beats. In Hindustani style, Saha will begin at 15 beats per half-hour and accelerate into a furious tempo over 90 minutes. Bhagwat adds the raga, a complex system of sequenced pitches, for melody.

Traditionally, crowds would sing out the beats in intimate settings that approximated the space of a parlor chamber concert. Now, as Indian classical music becomes fused with Western musical principles, it adapts to our code of hushed concert halls. So don’t be afraid to lend a hand.

Bhagwat and Saha play the University of Chicago’s International House on Saturday 26. The Grant Park Music Festival presents A Throw of Dice at Pritzker Pavilion on Wednesday 30.

For further listening, Brian Keigher of the Department of Cultural Affairs recommends Ravi Shankar’s Sounds of India (Sony) for an introduction to North Indian music and L. Subramaniam’s Three Ragas for Solo Violin (Nimbus) for South Indian.