Is there indian music that is not "mono chord"?
I failed to find a piece of classical indian music that modulates from a chord to another one. Can anyone give a example of not "mono chord" indian music, and if not possible, is there a reason for this?
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In Indian Classical music we usually don't have a chord system. There is usually a drone (mono chord) playing in the background through a stringed instrument assisted by the tabla,harmonium, flute etc in the foreground. Music is based on a Raga and various forms which are played over the drone in the background.
Majorly two drones are used :
1) ?? (C) , ? ?(G)
2) ??(C) , ?(F)
Check this out
The reason for this may be the answer to the question - Why do some painters choose a plain background for their art over a coloured background?
As of today, most of the film industry music in India is the fusion of the two - pure Classical Indian and the Western Chord system.
In classical music, there is a rare practice called Murchana or graha bheda or shruti bheda, which changes the tonic, but all the notes of the base raga remain the same. As a result the raga sounds different. In light music, the tonic key may change, but the raga remains the same. In the second category, the chords will change, try this out:
To answer your question (in a non fusion context) both traditions of ICM do not have western harmony (i.e. motion of chords from one to other either in a functional or non functional sense).
We do have drones though. A drone fixes reference pitches against which a performer sings/plays their instrument.
The most common drone configuration is 5-8-8-1 (perfect fifth, two octaves, tonic). For the ragas that do not have the perfect fifth you can also use 4-8-8-1 (perfect 4th instead of 5th).
Note there is no harmonic motion in a drone. Its literally these notes played over and over.
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