Carnatic music

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Carnatic music, also known as karṇāṭaka sangītam is one of the two styles of Indian classical music, the other being Hindustani music. The present form of Carnatic music is based on historical developments that can be traced to the 15th - 16th centuries AD and thereafter. Ancient works tell us that it is one of the oldest classical music traditions, whose origins and history date back about 2500 years.

Carnatic music is completely melodic, with improvised variations. The main emphasis is on vocal music; most compositions are written to be sung, and even when played on instruments, they are meant to be performed in a singing style (known as gāyaki). Like Hindustani music, Carnatic music rests on two main elements: rāga, the modes or melodic formulæ, and tāḷa, the rhythmic cycles.

Carnatic music
IAST	karṇāṭaka sangītam
IPA	kʌrˈnɑːʈʌkʌ ˌsʌŋˈgiːt̪ʌ
Sanskrit	कर्णाटक सङ्गीतं
Kannada	ಕರ್ನಾಟಕ ಸಂಗೀತ
Malayalam	കര്‍‌ണാടക സംഗീതം
Tamil	கருநாடக இசை
Telugu	కర్నాటక సంగీతం
Topics
Sruti • Swara • Raga • Tala • Melakarta • Composers
Timeline
Instruments	Veena - Mridangam - Ghatam - Morsing - Kanjira - Violin
Awards	Sangeetha Kalanidhi - Sangeetha Choodamani
Events
Festivals	Purandaradasa Aradhane – Kanakadasa Aradhane – Hampi Sangeetotsava – Sangeet Natak Akademi – Thyagaraja Aradhana – Cleveland Thyagaraja Aradhana
Media	Sruti, The Music Magazine
Compositions	Varnam - Kriti - Geetham - Swarajati - Ragam Thanam Pallavi - Thillana - Padam - Javali - Mangalam
Famous Carnatic Musicians
Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar • Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavatar • Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer • D. K. Pattammal • M. S. Subbulakshmi • Maharajapuram Viswanatha Iyer • Lalgudi Jayaraman • M.S.Gopalakrishnan • T.N.Krishnan • M.D.Ramanathan • M.Balamuralikrishna • M. L. Vasanthakumari • K. J. Yesudas

Contents 1 Origins and history 2 Composers 3 Important musical treatises 4 Nature of Carnatic music 4.1 Śruti 4.2 Swara 4.3 Raga system 4.4 Tala system 4.5 Kriti 4.6 Varnam 5 Improvisation 5.1 Raga Alapana 5.2 Niraval 5.3 Kalpanaswaram 5.4 Thanam 5.5 Ragam Thanam Pallavi 6 Concerts 6.1 Content 6.2 Audience 6.3 Modern concerts 7 Learning Carnatic music 8 Notations 8.1 Melody 8.2 Rhythm 9 Modern artists 10 See also 11 Notes 12 External links 13 Bibliography

[edit] Origins and history

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Carnatic music has its origins in the Vedas^{[citation needed]}. The Vedic swara system has seven ‘equally-spaced’ tones or swaras per octave^{[citation needed]}. They are called the Shadja, Rishabha, Gandhara, Madhyama, Panchama, Dhaivata and Nishada^{[citation needed]}. Of these, only the second through the fifth are used in the Rik Veda, Yajur Veda and Atharva Veda while all seven are used only in the Sama Veda.^[1]

The Sama Veda laid the foundation^{[citation needed]} for Indian music and consists mainily of hymns of Rigveda set to musical tunes, and sung using three to seven^{[citation needed]} musical notes during Vedic sacrifices sometimes accompanied by an instrument.^[2] The Yajur-Veda, which mainly consists of sacrificial formulae, mentions the veena as an accompaniment to vocal recitations during the sacrifices.^[3]

Like all art forms in Indian culture, Carnatic music is believed to have a divine origin, and music is venerated as an aspect of the supreme (nāda brāhmam).^[4][5] Ancient treatises describe the connection of the origin of swaras to the sounds of nature (as in animals and birds, the sound emanating from a bamboo reed as air passes through its hollows etc), and man’s keen sense of observation and perception that tried stimulating these sounds. Many scholars consider that folk music influenced the structure of Carnatic music too.^[6]

References to Indian classical music are made in many ancient religious texts, including epics like the Ramayana and Mahabharatha. The Yajnavalkya Smriti mentions "Veena vadhana tathvangna sruti, jathi, visartha talanjaaprayasena moksha margam niyachathi" ("The one who is well versed in veena, one who has the knowledge of srutis and one who is adept in tala, attains salvation without doubt.")^[7] Bharata's Natya Shastra mentions many musical concepts (including swara and tala) that continue to be relevant to Carnatic music today.

According to some scholars,^[8] Carnatic music derived certain classical music concepts from ancient Tamil music. The concept of Pann is related to Ragas used in Carnatic music.^[9]. The rhythmic meters found in several musical forms (such as the Tiruppugazh) and other ancient literature, resemble the talas that are in use today^[10][11]

Both Carnatic and Hindustani music shared a common history^{[citation needed]}. Hindustani Music started evolving as a separate genre from the 13th century onwards with increasing Persian influence in North India. In Carnatic music (which was based in South India), the pan-Indian bhakti movement laid a substantial basis as far as the use of religious themes are concerned, while major developments post 13th century also contributed to its divergence from Hindustani music.^[12]

After the musical treatise, the Sangita-Ratnakara of Sarngadeva (1210-1247), the word Carnatic came to represent South Indian Classical Music as a separate system of music^{[citation needed]}. Around the latter half of the 14th century, Hindustani music and Carnatic music were seen as two distinct forms of Indian classical music, which flourished in the southern capital cities, particularly in Vijayanagara and Tanjavur. A number of musical treatises describing the concepts of Carnatic music were written. The present form of Carnatic music is based on historical developments that can be traced to the 15th - 16th AD and thereafter.

Carnatic music saw renewed growth during Vijayanagar Empire by the Kannada Haridasa movement of Vyasaraja, Purandara Dasa, Kanakadasa and others.^[13] Purandara Dasa, laid out the fundamental tenets and framework for teaching carnatic music.^[14]. Venkatamakhin is credited^{[citation needed]} with the classification of ragas in the Melakarta System and wrote his most important work; Chaturdandi Prakasika (c.1635 CE) in Sanskrit. Govindacharya expanded the Melakarta Scheme into the Sampoorna raga system, which is the system in common use today.

[edit] Composers

There are many composers in Carnatic music.

See also: List of Carnatic composers

Purandara Dasa (1480 - 1564) is known as the father (Pitamaha) of Carnatic music due to his pioneering contributions to Carnatic music. Purandara Dasa is renowned for formulating the basic lessons of Carnatic music. He structured graded exercises known as Swaravalis and Alankaras, and at the same time, introduced the Raga Mayamalavagowla as the first scale to be learnt by beginners. He also composed Gitas (simple songs) for novice students. Although only a fraction of his other compositions still exist, he is said to have composed around 475,000 compositions in total.^[15]

The contemporaries Tyagaraja (1759? - 1847), Muthuswami Dikshitar, (1776 - 1827) and Syama Sastri, (1762 - 1827) are regarded as the Trinity of Carnatic music, due to the quality of Syama Sastri's compositions, the varieties of compositions of Muthuswami Dikshitar and Tyagaraja's prolific output in composing kritis.^[16]

Prominent composers prior to the Trinity of Carnatic Music include Vyasatirtha, Kanakadasa, Gopaladasa, Muthu Thandavar (1525-1625), Arunachala Kavi(1712-1779) and Marimuttha Pillai(1717-1787). Other prominent composers are Annamacharya, Oottukkadu Venkata Kavi, Swathi Thirunal, Narayana Teertha, Patnam Subramania Iyer, Poochi Srinivasa Iyengar, Mysore Vasudevacharya, Muthiah Bhagavathar, Kotiswara Iyer, Gopalakrishna Bharathi, Papanasam Sivan and Subramania Bharathiyar.

Composers of Carnatic music were often inspired by religious devotion and were usually scholars proficient in one or more of the following languages Kannada, Sanskrit , Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu. They usually included a signature, called a mudra, in their compositions. For example, all songs by Tyagaraja (who composed in Telugu) have the word Thyagaraja in them, all songs by Muthuswami Dikshitar (who composed in Sanskrit) have the words Guruguha in them, songs by Syama Sastri (who composed in Telugu) have the words Syama Krishna in them, Purandaradasa, who composed in Kannada, used the signature Purandara Vittala and Gopalakrishna Bharathi and Papanasam Sivan who composed in Tamil, used the signatures Gopalakrishnan and Ramadasan respectively.

[edit] Important musical treatises

These are books on Carnatic music considered authoritative and necessary for a serious study of Carnatic music and its evolution. Most of them are in Sanskrit, and some are even dated before the Christian era.

• Sangeetha Ratnakara - Sarngadeva
• Sangeetha Sampradaya Pradarshini - Subbarama Dikshitar
• Sangeetha Chandrikai - Manikka Mudaliar
• Swaramela Kalanidhi - Ramamatya
• Natya Shastra - Bharata Muni
• Chaturdandi Prakasika - Venkatamakhin
• Raga Vibodha - Somanatha
• Sangeetha Makaranda - Narada
• Sangeetha Sudha - Govinda Dikshitar
• Raga Lakshana - Shahji
• Sangraha Choodamani - Govindacharya
• Sangeetha Swaraprastara Sagaramu - Nadamuni Pandithar
• Sangeetha Sudhakara - Haripala Deva
• Sangeethasara - Vidyaranya

[edit] Nature of Carnatic music

There are many aspects of Carnatic music

[edit] Śruti

Main article: Śruti (music)

Śruti commonly refers to musical pitch.^[17] It is the approximate equivalent of a tonic (or less precisely a key) in Western music; it is the note from which all the others are derived. It is also used in the sense of graded pitches in an octave. While there are an infinite number of sounds falling within a scale (or raga) in Carnatic music, the number that can be distinguished by auditory perception is twenty-two (although over the years, several of them have converged). In this sense, while shruti is determined by auditory perception, it is also an expression in the listener's mind.^[18]

[edit] Swara

Main article: Swara

Swara refers to a type of musical sound that is a single note, which defines a relative (higher or lower) position of a note, rather than a defined frequency.^[19] Swaras also refer to the solfege of Carnatic music, which consist of seven notes, "sa-ri-ga-ma-pa-da-ni" (compare with the Hindustani sargam: sa-re-ga-ma-pa-dha-ni or Western do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti). These names are abbreviations of the longer names shadja, rishabha, gandhara. madhyama, panchama, dhaivata and nishada. Unlike other music systems, every member of the solfege (called a swara) has three variants. The exceptions are the drone notes, shadja and panchama (also known as the tonic and the dominant), which have only one form; and madhyama (the subdominant), which has two forms. A 7th century stone inscription in Kudumiyan Malai^[20] in Tamil Nadu shows vowel changes to solfege symbols with ra, ri, ru etc. to denote the higher quarter-tones. In one scale, or ragam, there is usually only one variant of each note present. The exceptions exist in "light" ragas, in which, for artistic effect, there may be two, one ascending (in the arohanam) and another descending (in the avarohanam).

[edit] Raga system

Main article: Raga

A raga in Carnatic music prescribes a set of rules for building a melody - very similar to the Western concept of mode.^[21] It specifies rules for movements up (aarohanam) and down (avarohanam), the scale of which notes should figure more and which notes should be used more sparingly, which notes may be sung with gamaka, which phrases should be used, phrases should be avoided, and so on.

In Carnatic music, the sampoorna ragas (those with all seven notes in their scales) are classified into a system called the melakarta, which groups them according to the kinds of notes that they have. There are seventy two melakarta ragas, thirty six of whose madhyama (subdominant) is sadharana (perfect fourth from the tonic), the remaining thirty six of whose madhyama (subdominant) is prati (an augmented fourth from the tonic). The ragas are grouped into sets of six, called chakras ("wheels", though actually segments in the conventional representation) grouped according to the supertonic and mediant scale degrees. There is a system known as the 'Katapayadi sankhya to determine the names of Melakarta Ragas.

Ragas may be divided into two classes: janaka ragas (i.e melakarta or parent ragas) and janyaragas (descendant ragas of a particular janaka raga). Janya ragas are subclassified into various categories themselves.

There are potentially hundreds and thousands of ragas, with over 5000 that have been used.^[22]

[edit] Tala system

Main article: tala (music)

Tala refers to the beat set for a particular composition (a measure of time). Talas have cycles of a defined number of beats and rarely change within a song. They have specific components, which in combinations can give rise to the variety to exist (over 108), allowing different compositions to have different rhythms.^[23]

Carnatic music singers usually keep the beat by moving their hands up and down in specified patterns, and using their fingers simultaneously to keep time. Tala is formed with three basic parts (called angas) which are laghu, dhrtam, and anudhrtam, though complex talas may have other parts like plutam, guru and kaakapaadam. There are seven basic tala groups which can be formed from the laghu, dhrtam, and anudhrtam:

• Dhruva tala
• Matya tala
• Rupaka tala
• Jhampa tala
• Triputa tala
• Ata tala
• Eka tala

A laghu has five variants (called jathis) based on the counting pattern. Five jathis times seven tala groups gives thirty-five basic talas, although use of other angas results in a total of 108 talas.

[edit] Kriti

Main article: Kriti

Carnatic songs (kritis) are varied in structure and style, but generally consist of three units:

1. Pallavi. This is the equivalent of a refrain in Western music. One or two lines.
2. Anupallavi. The second verse. Also two lines.
3. Charana. The final (and longest) verse that wraps up the song. The Charanam usually borrows patterns from the Anupallavi. There can be multiple charanas.

This kind of song is called a keerthana or a Kriti. There are other possible structure for a Kriti, which may in addition include swara passages named chittaswara. Chittaswara consists only of notes, and has no words. Still others, have a verse at the end of the charana, called the madhyamakāla. It is sung immediately after the charana, but at double speed.

[edit] Varnam

Main article: Varnam

This is a special item which highlights everything important about a raga; not just the scale, but also which notes to stress, how to approach a certain note, classical and characteristic phrases, etc. Though there are a few different types of varnams, in essence, they all have a pallavi, an anupallavi, muktayi swaras, a charana, and chittaswaras. They are sung in multiple speeds, and very good for practice. In concerts, varnams are often sung at the beginning as they are fast and grab the audience's attention.^[24]

There are other kinds of songs such as geethams and swarajatis having their own peculiar composition structures, but are principally meant to serve as basic learning exercises.

[edit] Improvisation

There are four main types of improvisation in Carnatic music.

[edit] Raga Alapana

Main article: Raga Alapana

This is the exposition of the ragam of the song that will be performed. A performer will explore the ragam first by singing lower octaves then moving up to higher ones and touching various aspects of the ragam while giving a hint of the song to be performed. It is a slow improvisation with no rhythm.^[25]

Theoretically, this ought to be the easiest type of improvisation, since the rules are so few, but in fact, it takes much skill to sing a pleasing, comprehensive (in the sense of giving a "feel for the ragam") and, most importantly, original ragam.

[edit] Niraval

Main article: Niraval

This is usually performed by the more advanced concert artists and consists of singing one or two lines of a song repeatedly, but with improvised elaborations.

[edit] Kalpanaswaram

Main article: Kalpanaswaram

The most elementary type of improvisation, usually taught before any other form of improvisation. It consists of singing a pattern of notes which finishes on the beat and the note just before the beat and the note on which the song starts. The swara pattern should adhere to the original raga's swara pattern, which is called as aarohanam-avarohanam

[edit] Thanam

This form of improvisation was originally developed for the veena and consists of expanding the raga with syllables like tha, nam, thom, aa, nom, na, etc

[edit] Ragam Thanam Pallavi

Main article: Ragam Thanam Pallavi

This is a composite form of improvisation. As the name suggests, it consists of Raga Alapana, Thanam, and a pallavi line. The pallavi line is sung twice, and Niraval follows. After Niraval, the pallavi line is sung again, twice in normal speed, then sung once at half the speed, then twice at regular speed, then four times at twice the speed. Kalpanaswarams follow.

[edit] Concerts

Carnatic music concerts are usually performed by a small ensemble of musicians. Although Carnatic music concerts have been traditionally vocal recitals, in recent years, purely instrumental concerts have become popular.

The tambura, the most common kind of drone instrument, is traditionally used at concerts to remind the musicians of the sruti or tonic, so that the musicians maintain their pitch throughout the performance. Tambura is increasingly being replaced by the more compact śruti box. "Electronic tamburas" are also being used.

Traditionally, the group usually has a vocalist, and accompanists; a primary instrumentalist and a percussionist. Primary instruments are usually the violin, although other stringed instruments such as the veena or wind instruments such the flute may also be used. Besides playing along with the main vocalist, the violinist also gets the opportunity to take part in the improvisation. The violinist is expected to play and follow both the melody and the rhythmic aspects presented by the vocalist. The vocalist and the violinist take turns while elaborating or while exhibiting creativity in sections like raga, niraval and kalpanaswaram.

The usual interacting and active percussion instrument is the mridangam. Other percussion instruments that are also used include the ghatam, kanjira and morsing, and accompanies the main percussion instrument and plays almost in a contrapuntal fashion along with the beats. These percussion instruments are used to help the singer in keeping the beat, but they may also improvise.

See also: Indian musical instruments

[edit] Content

Contemporary Carnatic concerts ((called a kutcheri) usually lasts about three hours. In the concert hall, the performers sit on a slightly elevated stage. Accompanists like violin sit to the main performer's left, and percussion instruments sit on the other side of the main performer facing the instrumentalist.

Carnatic concerts comprise of a number of varied compositions. Carnatic songs are composed in a particular raga, which means that they do not deviate from the notes in the raga. Each composition is set with specific notes and beats, but performers improvise extensively. Improvisation occurs in the melody of the composition as well as in using the notes to expound the beauty of the raga.

Concerts usually begin with a varnam or an invocatory item which will act as the opening piece. The varnam is composed with an emphasis on swaras of the raga, but will also have lyrics, the saahityam. It is lively and fast to get the audience's attention. An invocatory item, may alternatively, follow the varnam.

After the varnam and/or invocatory item, the artist sings longer compositions called kirtanas (commonly referred to as kritis). Each kriti sticks to one specific raga, although some are composed with more than one ragas; these are known as ragamalika (a garland of ragas).

After singing the opening kriti, usually, the performer sings the kalpanaswaram of the raga to the beat. The performer must improvise a string of swaras in any octave according to the rules of the raga and return to beginning of the cycle of beats smoothly, joining the swaras with a phrase selected from the kriti. The violin performs these alternately with the main performer. In very long strings of swara, the performers must calculate their notes accurately to ensure that they stick to the raga, have no awkward pauses and lapses in the beat of the song, and create a complex pattern of notes that an experienced audience can follow.

Performers then begin the main compositions with a section called raga alapana exploring the raga. In this, they use the sounds aa, ri, na, ta, etc. instead of swaras to slowly elaborate the notes and flow of the raga. This begins slowly and builds to a crescendo, and finally establishes a complicated exposition of the raga that shows the performer's skill. All of this is done without any rhythmic accompaniment, or beat. Then the melodic accompaniment (violin or veena), expounds the raga. Experienced listeners can identify many ragas after they hear just a few notes. With the raga thus established, the song begins, usually with lyrics. In this, the accompaniment (usually violin, sometimes veena) performs along with the main performer and the percussion (such as a mridangam). In the next stage of the song, they may sing niraval or kalpanaswaram again.

In most concerts, the main item will at least have a section at the end of the item, for the percussion to perform solo (called the tani avartanam). The percussion performers perform complex patterns of rhythm and display their skill. If multiple percussion instruments are employed, they engage in a rhythmic dialogue until the main performer picks up the melody once again. Some experienced artists may follow the main piece with a ragam thanam pallavi mid-concert, if they do not use it as the main item.

Following the main composition, the concert continues with shorter and lighter songs. Some of the types of songs performed towards the end of the concerts are tillanas & thukkadas. Every concert that is the last of the day ends with a mangalam, a thankful prayer and conclusion to the musical event.

[edit] Audience

The audience of a typical concert has a reasonable understanding of Carnatic music. It is also typical to see the audience tapping out the tala in sync with the artist's performance. As and when the artist exhibits creativity, the audience acknowledge it by clapping their hands. With experienced artists, towards the middle of the concert, requests start flowing in. The artist usually plays the request and it helps in exhibiting the artist's broad knowledge of the several thousand kritis that are in existence.

[edit] Modern concerts

Every December, the city of Chennai in India has its six week-long Music Season, which has been described as the world's largest cultural event.^[26] The Music Season was started in 1927, to mark the opening of the Madras Music Academy. It used to be a traditional month-long Carnatic music festival, but since then it has also diversified into dance and drama, as well as non-Carnatic art forms.

See also: Madras Music Season

[edit] Learning Carnatic music

Carnatic music is traditionally taught according to the system formulated by Purandara Dasa. This involves swaravalis (graded exercises), alankaras (exercises based on the seven talas) and gitas or simple songs. After the student has reached a certain standard, varnams are taught, and later, the student learns kritis. It typically takes several years of learning before a student is adept enough to perform at a concert.

The learning texts and exercises are more or less uniform across all the South Indian states. The learning structure is arranged in the increasing order of the complexity. The lessons start with the learning of the sarali varisai (solfege set to a particular raga).

Carnatic music was traditionally taught in the gurukula system, where the student lived with and learnt the art from his guru (perceptor). From the late 20th century onwards, with changes in lifestyles and need for young music aspirants to simultaneously manoeuvre a parallel academic career, this system has found few takers.

Musicians often take great pride in letting people know about their guru parampara, or the hierarchy of disciples from some prominent ancient musician or composer, to which they belong. People whose disciple-hierarchies are often referred to are Thyagaraja, Muthuswami Dikshitar, Syama Sastri, Swathi Thirunal, Papanasam Sivan among others.

In modern times, it is often common for students to visit their gurus daily or weekly to learn music. Though new technology has made learning easier with the availability of quick-learn media such as learning exercises recorded on audio cassettes and CDs, these are discouraged by most gurus who emphasize that face-to-face learning is best for students.

[edit] Notations

Notation is not a new concept in Indian music. However, Carnatic music continued to be transmitted orally for centuries without being written down. The disadvantage with this system was that if one wanted to learn about a kīrtanam composed, for example, by Purandara Dasa, it involved the difficult task of finding a person from Purandara Dasa's lineage of students.

Written notation of Carnatic music was revived in the late 17th century and early 18th century, which coincided with rule of Shahaji II in Tanjore. Copies of Shahaji's musical manuscripts are still available at the Saraswati Mahal Library in Tanjore and they give us an idea of the music and its form. They contain snippets of solfege to be used when performing the mentioned ragas.

[edit] Melody

Unlike Western music, Carnatic music is notated almost exclusively in tonic solfa notation using either a Roman or Indic script to represent the solfa names. Past attempts to use the staff notation have mostly failed. Indian music makes use of hundreds of ragas, many more than the church modes in western music. It becomes difficult to write Carnatic music using the staff notation without the use of too many accidentals. Furthermore, the staff notation requires that the song be played in a certain key. The notions of key and absolute pitch are deeply rooted in western music, whereas the carnatic notation does not specify the key and prefers to use scale degrees (relative pitch) to denote notes. The singer is free to choose actual pitch of the tonic note. In the more precise forms of Carnatic notation, there are symbols placed above the notes indicating how the notes should be played or sung; however, informally this practice is not followed.

To show the length of a note, several devices are used. If the duration of note is to be doubled, the letter is either capitalized (if using Roman script) or lengthened by a diacritic (in Indian languages). For a duration of three, the letter is capitalized (or diacriticized) and followed by a comma. For a length of four, the letter is capitalized (or diacriticized) and then followed by a semicolon. In this way any duration can be indicated using a series of semicolons and commas.

However, a simpler notation has evolved which does not use semicolons and capitalization, but rather indicates all extensions of notes using a corresponding number of commas. Thus, Sā quadrupled in length would be denoted as "S,,,".

[edit] Rhythm

The notation is divided into columns, depending on the structure of the tāḷaṃ. The division between a laghu and a dhrutam is indicated by a ।, called a ḍaṇḍā, and so is the division between two dhrutams or a dhrutam and an anudhrutam. The end of a cycle is marked by a ॥, called a double ḍaṇḍā, and looks like a caesura.

[edit] Modern artists

Popularly referred to as the female trinity of the Carnatic music,^[27] M. L. Vasanthakumari, M. S. Subbulakshmi and D. K. Pattammal, together with the leading male vocalists Muthiah Bhagavathar, Mysore Vasudevachar, Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar, Musiri Subramania Iyer, Maharajapuram Viswanatha Iyer, Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavathar, G N Balasubramaniam and Madurai Mani Iyer created a golden era for Carnatic music during the mid to late twentieth century. Other prominent performers during this era were Alathur Venkatesa Iyer, Prof. Mysore V. Ramarathnam and M.D.Ramanathan, M.Balamuralikrishna, S.Ramanathan, K. V. Narayanaswamy, Maharajapuram Santhanam,
D. K. Jayaraman, Nedunuri Krishnamoorthy, T.K.Rangachari, Sirkazhi Govindarajan, Vairamangalam LakshmiNarayanan, Manakkal Rangarajan, Thanjavur Sankara Iyer, P.S. Narayanaswamy, Jon B Higgins, R. K. Srikantan and R.Vedavalli.

Popular vocalists of today include T.N.Seshagopalan, T.V.Sankaranarayanan, K.J.Yesudas, Nithyashree Mahadevan, Vijay Siva, Sudha Raghunathan, Aruna Sairam, Unni Krishnan, S.Sowmya, Sirkazhi Sivachidambaram, Sanjay Subrahmanyan, Bombay Jayashree, T.M.Krishna, Maharajapuram Ramachandran, O.S.Thyagarajan and O.S.Arun.

T. Chowdiah, Rajamanikkam Pillai, Papa Venkataramiah, Dwaram Venkataswami Naidu among others, excelled in violin. Among living violinists, T.N.Krishnan, M.S.Gopalakrishnan, Lalgudi Jayaraman M.Chandrasekharan, M S N Murthy, M.S.Anantharaman, Dr.Mysore Manjunath,Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan Mysore Nagaraj Delhi P.Sunder Rajan and M.Balamuralikrishna belong to the classical tradition.

Palghat Mani Iyer, Palani Subramaniam Pillai and C.S.Murugabhoopathy redefined the role of mridangam in concerts, in the recent past. Palghat Raghu, Umayalpuram Sivaraman,T.V.Gopalakrishnan, T.K.Murthy, Kamalakar Rao, Mannargudi Easwaran, Mavelikkara Velukkutty Nair, Guruvayur Dorai and Karaikkudi Mani excel in the art of Mridangam playing .

T.H.Vinayakram, T.H.Subhashchandran and N. Govindarajan are famous ghatam players.

Maestros like N. Ramani, G.S. Rajan, Thyagarajan, Mala Chandhrashekharan, Shashank Subramaniam and Sikkil Sisters are famous flute players.

[edit] See also

• List of Carnatic composers

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• Carnatic Corner. This was the first comprehensive portal on Carnatic music. It has links to almost all the Carnatic sites in existence as well as a reference library and page of lists for ragas, compositions and lyrics.
• Carnatica Handbook. An innovative portal on Carnatic music. It has a great deal of information.
• ART INDIA Carnatic. This site is perhaps one of the oldest sites with information on Carnatic music and also other styles of Indian classical music and dance. It also carries information on 'Madras Music Season'.
• Simple Introduction to South Indian Classical Music - Part 1Published by World Music Central
• Simple Introduction to South Indian Classical Music - Part 2Published by World Music Central
• Karnatik A great deal of information on Carnatic music and more.
• Sangeetha Sampradaya Pradarshini A valuable and authoritative text on South Indian Musicology
• DMOZ directory links on carnatic music

[edit] Bibliography

• "Carnatic music". Encyclopædia Britannica (15). (2005).
• Panchapakesa Iyer, A. S. (2003). Gānāmrutha Varna Mālikā. Gānāmrutha Prachuram.