Carnatic music
Carnatic music is a system of music commonly associated with South India, including the modern Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana. Most Carnatic compositions are only in Telugu and Sanskrit.
It is one of two main subgenres of Indian classical music that evolved from ancient Hindu texts and traditions, particularly the Samaveda is cited as a key foundation. The main emphasis in Carnatic music is on vocal music; most compositions are written to be sung, and even when played on instruments, they are meant to be performed in gāyaki style.
Although there are stylistic differences, the basic elements of , , , and form the foundation of improvisation and composition in both Carnatic and Hindustani music. Although improvisation plays an important role, Carnatic music is mainly sung through compositions, especially the kriti – a form developed between the 14th and 20th centuries by composers such as Purandara Dasa, and the Trinity of Carnatic music. Carnatic music is also usually taught and learned through compositions. Telugu language predominates in the evolution of Carnatic music.
Carnatic music is usually performed by a small ensemble of musicians, consisting of a principal performer, a melodic accompaniment, a rhythm accompaniment, and a tambura, which acts as a drone throughout the performance. Other typical instruments used in performances may include the ghatam, kanjira, morsing, venu flute, veena, and chitraveena. The greatest concentration of Carnatic musicians is to be found in the city of Chennai. Various Carnatic music festivals are held throughout India and abroad, including the Madras Music Season, which has been considered to be one of the world's largest cultural events.
Origin and history
Carnatic music originated in Karnataka and was named after it, known as Karnāṭaka Saṁgīta which spread through Andhra and Tamil countries where it flourished.Like all art forms in Indian culture, Indian classical music is believed to be a divine art form that originated from the devas and devis, and is venerated as symbolic of. Ancient treatises also describe the connection of the origin of the svaras, or notes, to the sounds of animals and birds and man's effort to simulate these sounds through a keen sense of observation and perception. The Samaveda, which is believed to have laid the foundation for Indian classical music, consists of hymns from the Rigveda, set to musical tunes that would be sung using three to seven musical notes during Vedic yajnas. The Yajurveda, which mainly consists of sacrificial formulae, mentions the veena as an accompaniment to vocal recitations. References to Indian classical music are made in many ancient texts, including epics like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. The Yajnavalkya Smriti states, "vīṇāvādana tattvajñaḥ śrutijātiviśāradaḥ tālajñaścāprayāsena mokṣamārgaṃ niyacchati". Contemporray Carnatic music is based on musical concepts that were described in detail in several ancient works, particularly the Bharata's Natya Shastra and Cilappatikaram by Ilango Adigal.
Owing to Persian and Islamic influences in North India from the 12th century onwards, Indian classical music began to diverge into two distinct styles — Hindustani music and Carnatic music. Commentaries and other works, such as Sharngadeva's Sangita Ratnakara, further elaborated on the musical concepts found in Indian classical music. By the 16th and 17th centuries, there was a clear demarcation between Carnatic and Hindustani music; Carnatic music remained relatively unaffected by Persian and Arabic influences. It was at this time that Carnatic music flourished in Vijayanagara, while the Vijayanagara Empire reached its greatest extent. Purandara Dasa, who is known as the "father of Carnatic music", formulated the system that is commonly used for the teaching of Carnatic music. Venkatamakhin invented and authored the formula for the melakarta system of raga classification in his Sanskrit work, the Chaturdandi Prakasika. Govindacharya is known for expanding the melakarta system into the sampurna raga scheme – the system that is in common use today.
By the 16th century, Indian classical music split into two styles: Hindustani in the North and Karnataka in the South. The term "Karnataka" music originated from the Vijayanagara Empire, historically known as the Karnataka Empire. The British later influenced the change in name to "Carnatic" music, and the term is only about 150–200 years old.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, Carnatic music was mainly patronised by the local kings of the Kingdom of Mysore, Kingdom of Travancore, and the Maratha rulers of Tanjore. Some of the royalty of the kingdoms of Mysore and Travancore were themselves noted composers and proficient in playing musical instruments, such as the veena, rudra veena, violin, ghatam, venu, mridangam, nadaswaram, and swarabat. Some famous court-musicians proficient in music were Veene Sheshanna and Veene Subbanna, among others.
During the late 19th century, the city of Madras emerged as the locus for Carnatic music. With the dissolution of the erstwhile princely states and the Indian independence movement reaching its conclusion in 1947, Carnatic music went through a radical shift in patronage into an art of the masses with ticketed performances organised by private institutions called sabhās.
Carnatic music outside of South India
From the 18th century, South Indian immigrant communities abroad increased, especially in Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka. Communities such as the Nattukottai Chettiars participate in the extension of the Carnatic cultural scene abroad, thanks to their rich patronage activity. Carnatic music artists therefore perform abroad among South Indian communities who request their coming, in order to enliven local community life. For a long time in Sri Lanka, Carnatic music was associated with Indian immigrants, and was often derogatorily referred to as "thosai kade music", in reference to the South Indians-owned restaurants and eateries that typically played this kind of music.From the 20th century, Carnatic music gained significant popularity among certain social strata of the Sri Lankan population, who were then heavily influenced by a prominent cultural movement known as the Hindu revival. Carnatic music was thus appropriated and highly promoted during the 1920s and 1930s as a cultural and identity marker of the Colombo and Jaffna bourgeoisies, and by extension of the Sri Lankan Tamils. The place given to Carnatic music in the construction of a modern Sri Lankan Tamil identity has reached significant proportions, such as its rise in the curricula of most Jaffna colleges, where it gradually replaced from the mid-1930s the teaching of Western classical music, or its high esteem among the upper social classes of Colombo and Jaffna, where the learning of Carnatic music among young women is expected as a sign of good education. Many people have travelled to India for improving their skills, and the flow of students to India from Sri Lanka or of Sri Lankan Tamil origin is constantly increasing.
Nature
The main emphasis in Carnatic music 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. Like Hindustani music, Carnatic music rests on two main elements:, the modes or melodic formulae, and, the rhythmic cycles.Today, Carnatic music is presented by musicians in concerts or recordings, either vocally or through instruments. Carnatic music itself developed around musical works or compositions of phenomenal composers.
Important elements
Śruti
Śruti commonly refers to musical pitch. It is the approximate equivalent of a tonic 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 in Carnatic music, the number that can be distinguished by auditory perception is twenty-two. In this sense, while sruti is determined by auditory perception, it is also an expression in the listener's mind.Svara
Svara refers to a type of musical sound that is a single note, which defines a relative position of a note, rather than a defined frequency. Svaras also refer to the solfege of Carnatic music, which consist of seven notes, "sa-ri-ga-ma-pa-da-ni". 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 has three variants. The exceptions are the drone notes, shadja and panchama, which have only one form; and madhyama, which has two forms. A 7th century stone inscription in Kudumiyan Malai in Tamil Nadu shows vowel changes to solfege symbols with ra, ri, ru etc. to denote the higher quarter-tones. In one scale, or raga, 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 and another descending.Raga system
A raga in Carnatic music prescribes a set of rules for building a melody – very similar to the Western concept of mode. It specifies rules for movements up and down, 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 or avoided, and so on. In effect, it is a series of obligatory musical events that must be observed, either absolutely or with a particular frequency.In Carnatic music, the sampoorna ragas 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 is shuddha, the remaining thirty-six of whose madhyama is prati. The ragas are grouped into sets of six, called chakras 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 and janya ragas. Janya ragas are themselves subclassified into various categories.