Of the Trichy Sisters, singing on the third day of the Summer Music Festival organised by the Karnatak Sangeeth Sabha, the inimitable foreword to the Souvenir had assured that they were intelligent and had expected that they would no doubt enthrall the listeners with “the sparklings of Semmangudi.” The sisters kept their intelligence a secret. … Continue reading Swaras and Social Links →

Among the musical instruments, the wood-winds are about the most temperamental lot. They can be as witty and about as trying as the most coquettish of the heroines of Restoration comedy. The musician who has been wedded to a clarionet or to a flute has to solicit the mistress of his choice as arduously and … Continue reading Wood-winds →

The basic scale in the West is the C Major from which by the simple expedient of tonic shift to the fifth higher or lower note successively all the other diatonic scales are derived. With each such shift the C Major is transformed by the introduction of an accidental note which has to be sharpened … Continue reading In the Beginning →

The flute recital of Srinivasan, broadcast by the AIR Vijayawada on 7 October, reminded the listeners of Mali. There were turns of musical phrasing, abrupt focussing on individual notes, and the deliberate suggestion of nascent notes which one usually finds in Mali's music. These features were neither so recurrent to seem deliberate imitation nor so … Continue reading Imitability in Art →

Though ‘raga’ and ‘laya’ in music seem to have derived their present form from the patterns and conventions of bharata natya, they outgrew the formal restrictions of their progenitor in course of time. The ‘ragas’ which were earlier associated with particular emotions portrayed in the dance gradually freed themselves of their viscerotonic deadweight and became … Continue reading Figures on a Palimpsest →

The place which is accorded to the ‘kriti’ (the song) in Karnatak music is the clue to the understanding of the essential difference between the music the North and the South. It is no exaggeration to say that the ‘kriti’ has created the rest of Karnatak music in its own image. There is no department … Continue reading The function of the song →

The difference in the conception of ‘laya’ between the northern and southern systems of music is nowhere so evident as in the sub-divisions of a ‘matra’ which serve as points of take-off and arrival. The percussionist in the Hindusthani system usually avoids these sub-divisions as points of correspondence and confines his attention mainly to the … Continue reading Amplitude and Precision →

The men who invented the talas of Indian music must have had a sound knowledge of the theory of numbers. Indian music, or at least Karnatak music recognises seven basic talas and five basic variants of each tala. A tala in Indian music, it must be remembered, has a rigorous structure. The parts out of … Continue reading Magical Fingers →

A reader from Madras has sent a note on ‘Raga Bhava,’ from which we quote:  “To render a raga in its true form one must be well versed with its ‘bhava’; that is, its individuality which makes it to be recognised as such and such raga. Of course, the raga form has been fixed by … Continue reading Expostulation and Reply →

The belief that idea has the power to represent reality and that the mind the power to comprehend that reality in a monistic awareness was the cardinal tenet of the ‘nagaraka’ culture. The ‘nagaraka’ belief, therefore, came to be embodied in every field of art and speculative theory, in every craft and social institution.  For … Continue reading In Search of a Symbol →