Carnatic Music Trivia

Did you Know?

• The finest compliment anyone can pay for a musician came from Jawaharlal Nehru. After a concert by M.S. Subbulakshmi, he exclaimed, “Who am I, a mere prime minister, before this queen of song?”

• The notation of Shankarabharanam ragam conforms to the C Major scale in Western music.

• Jon Borthwick Higgins, from Andover, Massachusetts, was so captivated by Carnatic music that he learnt it fully and became a concert singer. Chennai called him Higgins Bhagavatar. He died at age 45 in a hit-and-run accident in the US.

Instruments of Change
Today, the use of violin in Carnatic music is taken for granted, but two centuries ago it had almost lost out to the piano as the newfangled accompaniment in South Indian classical music. In fact, the musicians of that era had a wide choice of native bowed instruments and they had no reason to look at the violin. So, it is a wonder how this instrument sidled its way into the core of Carnatic music.

Put it down to the British Raj. Varahappa Iyer, who was a minister in the Maratha court of Tanjore, was also a friend of the British governor in Madras. The Governor had a band which he showed off to Iyer. When Iyer saw the piano, he fell in love with it immediately, given its range of seven octaves that could support singing in the very low pitches prevalent in South India and its versatility in composing.

There was one problem though. The piano could not produce the nuanced microtonal variations called gamakam, the soul of a Carnatic ragam. Iyer experimented with other instruments in the band and found the violin to be the most suited for gamakams. He modified its tuning to suit the human voice and tried it out in a concert. The rest is history.

But Iyer was not the first to discover the violin. Sometime, also in the late 18th Century, Balaswami Dikshitar, brother of composer Muthuswamy Dikshitar, attended a Western music concert by the European Orchestra, run by the East India Company. He took particular note of the violin and marvelled at its suitability for Carnatic music. He learned it for three years and championed its use in concerts.

Stooping to Conquer
Legendary Carnatic vocalist G.N. Balasubramaniam — GNB to his admirers — was also a fan of Hindustani music. He was especially a great admirer of Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan. In 1953, GNB invited Bade Ghulam Ali Khan to present the first ever concert tour of a Hindustani musician in South India. A mini controversy erupted when GNB fell at the feet of the Ustad after listening to the master’s soulful rendering at his first concert at the Music Academy. Other Carnatic singers protested on the grounds that this amounted to South Indian music prostrating before North Indian music. But once they listened to Bade Ghulam Ali Khan in subsequent concerts, the same critics changed their minds and became his admirers.

It is another matter that at the end of the tour, when GNB treated Bade Ghulam Ali Khan to a riveting performance of Hindola ragam, the virtuoso from Patiala Gharana tried to prostrate before the younger South Indian musician. GNB, however, stopped him midway.


On the Beat
Carnatic music has one of the most complex systems of rhythm in world music. There are 108 classical talams, or cycles of rhythm, that help keep time while rendering a song. Over time, many more talams have been displayed, taking their total number beyond 175.

The most common sight in a kutcheri is the tapping of the laps by both the musicians and the listeners. They are just performing the talam of the song, making it easy for each other to follow the timing.

The most often used talam is the eight-beat Adi talam, but there are many other intricate talams. The Simhanandana talam is said to be the world’s longest rhythmic cycle, with 108 beats. There are intricate talams like Sarabhanandana, which has 79 beats.

Some of the best exposition of rhythm comes in talamalikas, songs that are “garlands of rhythm”. These songs change the talam midway more than once, requiring the singers and percussionists to change the cycle of beats, time interval and pace without any awkward pause.

If this is not complex enough, there is also the practice of dvi-tala avadhanam, or singing a song with two rhythms simultaneously. A singer would tap one talam on the right lap and another on the left tap, maintaining two different time intervals for the same lyrics. The last beat on both talams should coincide precisely at the moment the song ends.

Screen Presence
Carnatic music is now a film star too. In April 2008, India’s first concert movie Margazhi Raagam was released to packed houses in Chennai and Bangalore. The movie is nothing but a two-hour concert by vocalists T.M. Krishna and Bombay Jayashri, filmed with sophisticated cameras and sound systems. People queued up in cinema theatres just like they would do for a Rajinikanth movie and bought tickets to watch the big screen kutcheri.

Bright Thought
The world of Carnatic music allows for some pride and ego on the part of acclaimed musicians (vidwans). In fact, they are expected to be proud people. Hence the joke: “How many vidwans does it take to change a light bulb?” Answer: “Just one. He stands holding the bulb and the world revolves around him.”

Did you Know?
The legendary Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavatar once gave a concert in Bombay, as the city was then known. He dedicated each song to a temple town about which ancient composers have sung. A local fan stood up and asked him to sing about the city, knowing full well there could be no song on Bombay. Chembai didn’t think for a second. He sang: “Aadu Bombay, vilayadu Bombay,” slightly changing the Tamil word “pambe” in a song that refers to the serpent around Lord Shiva’s neck. He converted that to a song dedicated to Goddes Mahalakshmi.

Iconic singers G.N. Balasubramaniam and M.S. Subbulakshmi came together to act in a few films. They fell in love and were about to be married, when Congress leader T. Sadasivam came in to her life. Decades later, 20 letters written by MS to GNB were unearthed.


Concert Etiquette
• Men: dress in veshti (a la P. Chidambaram) and shirt. Women: Wear silk sarees and accessorise with bangles and jasmine flowers
• Switch off your mobile phone
• Don’t get up or walk out during the concert. It is insulting and distracting to the artists
• Pay attention to the rhythmic part of the concert called Thani Avarthanam
• Don’t stand and hold up the concert if the singer has disregarded your request for a particular song
• Don’t tap the beat on your lap unless you are experienced. If you miss half a beat, you will not only look ridiculous, you will distract your neighbours.
• Don’t sing loudly. A gentle hum below the radar is okay.

Filmi ragams
Use film songs to understand ragams, but beware. Composers take liberties and bend the rules. Only classical concerts can give you an authentic feel of the ragams.

• Karaharapriya
Kali Ghodi Dwaar Khadi
Chashm-e-Bud-Dur
• Sindhu Bhairavi
Mile Sur Mera Tumhara
Doordarshan song
• Mohanam
Dil Hoom Hoom Kare
Rudali
• Shivaranjani
Mere Naina Saawan Bhadon
Mehbooba
• Hameer Kalyani
Bekas Pe Karam Kijiye
Mughal-e-Azam
• Kalyani
Amma Endru Azhaikkada
Mannan – Tamil
• Shankarabharanam
Omkara Nadanu
Shankarabharanam – Telugu
• Senjurutti
En Veettu Thottathil
Gentleman - Tamil

Online Resources
• sahityam.net — A wiki of Carnatic lyrics
• carnaticindia.com — Audio and video clips to learn Carnatic basics

• raaga.com/channels/carnatic — Listen and learn
• karnatik.com/ragas.shtml — Information about structure of ragams and related film songs
• madrasstringquartet.com — Madras String Quartet; Carnatic in Western chamber music style

A TASTE OF CARNATIC - Five Videos you should watch

• A rare video of a middle-aged M.S. Subbulakshmi singing at the United Nations
• Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan playing a song in Shanmukhapriya ragam on violin
• Sudha Raghunathan singing a 1945 film song originally sung by MS Subbulakshmi
• Maharajapuram Santhanam – Bho Shambho - Revathy
• ML Vasantha Kumari – Vandanamu Raghu Nandana – Sahana