Carnatic Music

Classical Music of South India

India

• Population: Over 1 billion• Area 1/3 of United States• 15 major languages and alphabets–Many regional dialects

• 5,000 year history

Influenced and Unique

• Cut off from neighboring lands by ocean• Deserts• Impenetrable jungle• Major mountain ranges – highest in the

world

LONG History

• Stone Age Evidence Found• 2500 BCE: Indus Valley Civilization– Birth of high culture

• 1700 – 500 BCE: The Aryans– Invaders from Central Asia– Brought literature: The Vedas– Prototypes of Gods– Believed to be source of Indian classical music

KINGDOMS 500 BCE – 1400 CE

• Burgeoning of Hindiusm• Patronage of arts• Natya Sastra• Literature and sciences• Ramayana and Mahabarata written• Painting, sculpture, music (sound?)

• Saraswati: Hindu God• of music • (playing the veena)

•

The Moghuls 1527 - 1867

• Muslim traders and warlords from Central Asia and Afghanistan

• General Babur – 1527 Created powerful Moghul Dynasty which dominated until 1700s

• Muslim • Lavish patrons of arts• Great cultural mixing – ragas, hybrid

instruments

British Colonization 1600s-1947

• Economic Exploitation and inherent racism• Also contributions:– Railways, communications infrastructure,

universities (English) – Imported their own music- i.e. pianos and bands

• Pax Britannica

Golden Age of Carnatic Music

• Flourished under British Rule (1700-1900)• 1920s- recording industry in India• 1930s movies with sound• Adapted European instruments into Carnatic

music – i.e. violin, harmonium (portable reed organ) clarinet

Recent Carnatic Music History

• “Golden Age” – Late-18th and early-19th century

• Three saint-poet-composers dominate– Best-known is Tyagaraja (1767-1847)– Very accessible songs

• Noted female composers

South India

• Encompasses states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu

• Occupies 19.31% of area of India

Geography

• Very diverse• Lies in peninsular Deccan Plateau• Bounded by Arabian Sea (West), Indian Ocean

(South) and Bay of Bengal (East)• Two mountain ranges – Western Ghats and

Eastern Ghats• Major rivers: Godavari, Krishna …

Culture

• Very diverse culture• Most speak one of five Dravidian Languages –

• A number of dynastic kingdoms ruled over parts of South India

• Most recently colonized by the British

Carnatic Music

• Roots in distant past–Courts, palaces, kingdoms, temples

• Vivid imagery from sculpture, murals and miniature paintings

• Actual sound and style?

Oral Tradition

• Cannot be frozen in time by transcription

• Lives uniquely in each performance:–Particular day, particular hour,

spontaneity of improvisation

• Effect of recording technology?

Dance

• Very similar to classical music is music for South India’s dance traditions

• Particularly bharata natyam• Nattavangam – chanted rhythmic

syllables (with dance)

• Lyrics often repeated many times

2 BASIC CONCEPTS: RAGA AND TALA

Raga• Melodic system/Musical personality• “That which colors the mind.”• No Western equivalent

Definition• A collection of notes, a scale, intonation,

ornaments, resting tones. It has particular musical characteristics and phrases that give it a distinct recognizable identity.

More on Raga

• Each raga has its own rules–Ornamentation–Changing notes

• Learn a raga GRADUALLY. Over many years.

• “Like getting to know a close friend.”

Raga Continued

• Connected with human emotions• 9 traditional rasa – “flavors”– Love, anger, sadness, fear, disgust, wonder,

heroism, laughter, religious devotion (peacefulness)

• Can be very powerful- magical properties– Causing rain, auspiciousness, charm snakes

• Can be associated with deities, seasons, time of day

Raga-mala

• Genre of miniature paintings of raga• Viewers of painting hear raga• Listeners of raga imagine painting

• 1650?• Scene?

Melakarta System

• All ragas relate to a melakarta – a basic parent scale

• Each melakarta scale has seven notes:– Sa, ri, ga, ma, pa, da ni– Sa is tonal center. Never changes!– Pa is the perfect fifth. Never changes!

• Five of the seven notes change to form 72 possible scales!

Hundreds of raga

• Hundreds of raga in use• Some are popular, some are rare• Some are “major” some are “minor”• Some are simple some are complicated• Some are very old some are recent inventions

• Raga are heart and soul of India’s music

Tala

• Organization of time in music• Tala: regularly recurring metric cycle

• Spectrum of time in Indian thought–Fraction of a second–Yugahs – goelogical time periods

Tala Continued

• Theoretically there are hundreds of tala• Four dominate today• Most tala can be performed at a fast, medium

or slow tempo

• Differ from Western time signatures: accents occur in uneven groupings

3 Functioning Layers

• Melodic Layer

• Drone

• Rhythm

–Associated with particular instruments

Melodic Layer

• Two Parts:• Principal melodic soloist that dominates the

ensemble– Usually voice. Can be violin, bamboo flute, veena..

• Melodic Accompanist who aids the soloist– Plays with vocalist– Echoes and supports improvisations– Plays solo improvisations

Veena

Drone

• Holds one or two notes throughout a piece• Specialized drone instruments– Tambura: four-stringed plucked instrument tuned

to tonal center and fifth• Purposeful Buzzing timbre

– Sruti Box: Played with bellows– Today electronic synthesizer

Tambur

• Sruti Box

Rhythm/Percussion

• Bedrock of the ensemble• Mridangam: principal percussion instrument

• Ghatam: large clay pot• Kanjira: tambourine• Morsang: jaw’s harp

Mridangam

Drummer’s Art

• Improvisatory style• Based on hundreds of memorized rhythm

patterns and drum strokes• Art centers on drum strokes

• Sollukattu – spoken syllables

• Drummer is crucial!

Gurukula System

• Apprenticeship with guru

• Very rigorous training

Concert Song Forms

• Start: Varnam• Continues: Kriti• Main Item: Often a Kriti• End: More relaxed atmosphere– Devotional music

Kriti

• Made up of numerous sections• i.e.– Alapana– Tanam– Kriti “Sarasiruha”– Kalpana svaras 1 & 2– Tani avartanam– Kriti (return and close)

Alapana

• First section of a performance• Free-flowing exposition and exploration of the

raga of the kriti• Voice/instrument and drone background• Nonmetrical (no regular beat/tala)• Has general plan– Slow, low high, fast slow, low

Tanam

• Highly-rhythmic exposition of the raga• Improvised• No tala cycles but strong sense of beat• Like Alapana trace from low to high in

graduated steps and back down again.

Kriti

• The major song form of the concert• May be short or very long• Very flexible structure

• Sung or not, the words influence the performance

Kalpana Svaras

• Improvised section• At the end of or after a kriti• Singer sings names of notes!• Returns to phrase from kriti as home base

(idam)

• First short simple improvisations• Then longer and more complex

Tani Avartanam

• Improvised and precomposed rhythmic solo• By mridangam• Conclusion of the main item in a concert• Can be 10/15 minutes or more• Displays his skills and imagination

• Ends on korvai – big pattern repeated three times• Leads back into kriti phrase

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI9RJbljBLw Rohan Krishnamurthy video

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLA58vT-FI0&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PL91F824B8ECE3D33C Veena Master

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBwAV8urkvw Shruti Box

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxPwJ93aWcI With Tampura