Carnatic Music Basics
Basic Elements in Carnatic Music
Shruti
Swara
Raga's
Tala's
After Basics you can try these Elements
Notations
Melody
Rhythm
Varnam
Kriti
Raga Alapana
Kalpanaswaram
Tanam
Ragam Tanam Pallavi
Tani Avartanam
Instrumentation
Origin
Indian classical music is believed to be a divine art form which originated from the Hindu Gods and Goddesses. Ancient treatises also describe the connection of the origin of the swaras, 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 Sama Veda, which is believed to have laid the foundation for Indian classical music, consists of hymns from the Rigveda, set to musical tunes which would be sung using three to seven musical notes during Vedic yajnas. The Yajur-Veda, which mainly consists of sacrificial formulae, mentions the veena as an accompaniment to vocal recitations.
Hindhusthani Music
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 Vijayanagar Empire reached its greatest extent.
History
Purandara Dasa, who is known as the "father (Pitamaha) 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 (1660 AD).
Govindacharya is known for expanding the melakarta system into the sampoorna raga scheme the system that is in common use today.
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, violin, ghatam, flute, mridangam, nagaswaram etc..
Shruthi
Shruti commonly refers to musical pitch. It is the approximate equivalent of a tonic frequencies 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 or raga in Carnatic music, the number that can be distinguished by auditory perception is 22. In this sense, while sruti is determined by auditory perception, it is also an expression in the listener's mind
Swaras
Swara refers to a type of musical sound that is a single note, which defines a relative higher or lower position of a note, rather than a defined frequency.Swaras also refer to the so of Carnatic music, which consist of seven notes, "sa-ri-ga-ma-pa-da-ni" (compare with the Hindustani sargam: sa-re-ga-ma-pa-dha-ni or Western C-D-E-F-G-A-B. 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 (called a swara) has three variants. The exceptions are the drone notes, shadja and panchama (also known as the tonic and the dominant), which have only one form; and madhyama (the subdominant), 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 (in the arohanam) and another descending (in the avarohanam).
Raga
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 (aarohanam) and down (avarohanam), the scale of which notes should figure more and which notes should be used more sparingly, which notes may be sung with gamakas ornamentation, which phrases should be used or avoided, and so on. In effect, it is a series of obligatory musical events which must be observed, either absolutely or with a particular frequency. In Carnatic music, the sampoorna ragas (those with all seven notes in their scales) 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 (subdominant) is shuddha (perfect fourth from the tonic), the remaining thirty-six of whose madhyama (subdominant) is prati (an augmented fourth from the tonic). 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 (descendant ragas of a particular janaka raga). Janya ragas are themselves subclassified into various categories.
Tala
Tala refers to a fixed time cycle or metre, set for a particular composition, which is built from groupings of beats.Talas have cycles of a defined number of beats and rarely change within a song. They have specific components, which in combinations can give rise to the variety to exist 108, allowing different compositions to have different rhythms.Carnatic music singers usually keep the beat by moving their hands up and down in specified patterns, and using their fingers simultaneously to keep time. Tala is formed with three basic parts (called angas) which are laghu, dhrtam, and anudhrtam, though complex talas may have other parts like plutam, guru, and kaakapaadam. There are seven basic tala groups which can be formed from the laghu, dhrtam, and anudhrtam..
7 Talas
Ata tala
Dhruva tala
Eka tala
Jhampa tala
Matya tala
Rupaka tala
Triputa tala
Depending on number of laghus tala jathi changes
5 Jathis
Tisra jati (3)
Chatusra jati (4)
Kanda jathi (5)
Misra jati (7)
Sangeerna Jati (9)