Elements of Karnatak Music

[a] Karnatak music, the classical music tradition of South India, boasts a rich history dating back over two millennia. Much of what we know of musical practice before the modern era comes from historical treatises; important landmarks include the Natyasastra of Bharata (first two centuries of the common era), the Sangitaratnakara of Sarngadeva (c. 1240 C.E.), the Caturdandi Prakasika of Venkatamakhi (c. 1620), and the Sangita Sampradaya-Pradasini of Subbarama Dikshitar (1904). No clear division was made between the musical traditions of the North and South (Hindustani and Karnatak musics, respectively) until the mid-sixteenth century, when treatises began reflecting a “decisive shift” in philosophy and practice between the two (Simms 1999, 44).⁽¹⁾ For most of its history, Karnatak musical performance was concentrated in religious and court settings, but in the nineteenth century it transitioned to the public sphere, with a concert culture dominated by professional musicians (L. Subramanian 2006, 1–19). Since the end of the nineteenth century, the southeastern coastal city of Madras has served as its epicenter.⁽²⁾ This geographic and cultural transition was cemented in 1928 with the advent of the Madras Musical Academy, which, according to historian Lakshmi Subramanian, “presided over what was quintessentially the world of modern classical music, a form it reinvented as a self-conscious cultural practice and wove into the larger and compelling narrative of nation building” (2006, 2).

[b] Karnatak music is essentially monodic, with all of its tonal and rhythmic activity organized around a single melodic voice. The two most central concepts in Karnatak music are tala, which governs the rhythmic content, and raga, which governs the tonal content.⁽³⁾ The word tala can refer to the metrical system that organizes time into recurring beat cycles, as well as one specific metrical cycle within that system. Similarly, raga can refer to the strict modal system that governs melodic material in Karnatak music, as well as one specific mode within that system. A single raga is defined by its lakshanas, or differentiating qualities, which include the following: (a) its svaras, or primary scale tones; (b) how these svaras might change in ascent (arohana) and descent (avarohana); (c) gamaka, the highly conventionalized patterns of ornamentation attending each svara; and (d) prayogas, formulaic phrases that help differentiate the raga from others that might share significant overlap in svaras and even gamaka. With the interaction of each of these dimensions, each raga represents a highly detailed aesthetic framework with very rigidly demarcated possibilities. Any given composition will be rendered in one single raga and one single tala for its entire duration; as such, it is a fixed-tonic system.⁽⁴⁾

[c] Most Karnatak music concerts feature a vocalist as leader, accompanied by a single-voiced melodic instrument (usually a violin, but also perhaps a vina, a plucked lute) and one or more percussion instruments (almost always a mridangam, a two-sided drum, but also often including the ghatam, a clay pot, the kanjira, a tambourine, and others). Outstanding melodic instrumentalists may also lead concerts if no vocalist is present, but percussionists almost exclusively perform an accompanimental role. The human voice is the central organizing force of Karnatak music, and even instrumental music remains highly subservient to the lyrical context of the original compositions; for example, vina players often closely match their right-hand plucking exactly to the syllabic structure of the song’s lyrics (Subramanian, pers. comm.). Most instrumentalists necessarily become quite proficient at singing as part of their standard musical training.

[d] In addition, Karnatak music features the accompaniment of a static drone, which generally consists of the tonic (sa), the perfect fifth above (pa), and the octave above (sa). While the concept of raga dates back to the earliest treatises on Indian music, the history of the static drone is unclear; as Lewis Rowell explains, “There is no evidence whatsoever that the continuous drone of modern Indian music was a part of ancient and medieval practice. Not until the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries do we find evidence for the drone in music treatises, and it is most unlikely that early authors would have ignored such an important musical component” (1999, 29). In modern performance practice, the drone is ubiquitous. The drone is typically produced by a tall stringed instrument called the tambura, which players (often the apprentices of the headlining artists) deftly pluck to create an uninterrupted wash of overtone-rich sound. In the early twentieth century, mechanical “sruti-boxes” (hand-pumped harmonium-like contraptions) gradually started to complement or even supplant acoustic tamburas, followed by electronic tamburas in recent decades; iPad apps are particularly in vogue at present.

Works Cited

Dikshitar, Subbarama. [1904] 2010. Sangita Sampradaya-Pradasini. Ettayapuram.

Rowell, Lewis. 1999. “Theoretical Treatises.” In Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Volume 5: South Asia: The Indian Subcontinent, ed. Alison Arnold, 17–41. Routledge.

Simms, Robert. 1999. “Scholarship since 1300.” In Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Volume 5: South Asia: The Indian Subcontinent, ed. Alison Arnold, 42–60. Routledge.

Subramanian, Lakshmi. 2006. From the Tanjore Court to the Madras Music Academy: A Social History of Music in South India. Oxford University Press.

Footnotes

1. This article concerns itself exclusively with Karnatak music, the classical music of the South. While Karnatak and Hindustani traditions share important characteristics, such as the basic principles of raga and tala, they also diverge in significant ways: instrumentation, aesthetics of ornamentation, raga behaviors, compositional and improvisational techniques.
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2. Madras was officially renamed “Chennai” in 1996, a time in which many Indian cities changed their names in order to cast off vestiges of the British occupation. The city was originally founded as a trading town around Fort St. George, established by the British in 1640, and while it is highly likely that the name “Madras” preceded the British occupation, it was so bound up with the context of colonialism that a more natively Tamil name was sought. Today Chennai is the capital of the state of Tamil Nadu.
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3. In this article, Indian terminology is represented in italics and transliterated without diacritical marks. Plurals are formed using English conventions (adding “-s”). I have standardized the spelling of all terms for which multiple accepted transliterations appear. In quotations from published literature, I preserved the author’s original spelling but added italics for clarity.
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4. The lone exception to this rule is the special compositional form raga-malika, translating to “garland of ragas,” in which a single work will progress through several ragas (still organized around the same tonic note). It is usually saved for the very end of a concert as an exotic treat for the audience. However, unlike in Hindustani music, which often accelerates in tempo over the course of an improvisation or composition, the pulse in Karnatak music is always kept constant. The effect of escalating speed is always accomplished by compressing the rhythmic activity into successively shorter subdivisions of the beat.
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