Spotlight
Pocket guide to Carnatic music The kutcheri

At the core of Carnatic music is a
vast repertoire of songs, mostly in praise of the gods and goddesses of the
Hindu pantheon, vocally rendered, though supported on the concert platform by
the western violin—now completely assimilated as an Indian instrument—and
percussion.
The major components of a Carnatic music concert or kutcheri are songs known as
kritis or kirtanas, but also featured are other types of compositions known as
varnams, swarajatis, tillanas, viruttams and so on.
Solo instrumental concerts too consist of the rendering of these songs without
the lyrics being sung. The violin, veena and chitraveena are the commonest
string instruments, while the flute and the nagaswaram—the south Indian
pipe—are the usual wind instruments. The violin is now more or less accepted as
an Indian instrument, but other western instruments in vogue in Carnatic music
include the clarionet, saxophone, guitar and mandolin.
The typical concert ensemble comprises a vocalist or instrumentalist in a
leading role, usually supported by a violin and rhythmic or percussion
accompaniment in the form of the mridangam, alone or in tandem with the ghatam
and/ or khanjira.
Originating as temple music and nurtured by royal patronage, today Carnatic
music is performed on the secular stage. The typical Carnatic music concert is
of approximately two and a half hours’ duration.
A vocal concert—the most common performance—has a singer, male or female, or
sometimes a duo of singers, accompanied by a violinist seated to his or her
left and one or more percussionists to his or her right.
The most common percussion instrument is a cylindrical drum called the
mridangam placed horizontally in front of the drummer.
The ghatam--a mud pot—and a kanjira—a circular hand held tambourine-like
instrument—complete the ensemble.
There can be more or fewer instruments on stage, but the mridangam is
mandatory, so that the standard minimum team is voice-violin-mridangam.
While the western violin has been successfully adapted by Carnatic music, other
instruments in vogue, like the nagaswaram, a long wooden pipe, the veena, a
fretted string instrument, and the bamboo flute, are Indian.
They are played as lead, not accompanying, instruments, though instrumental
music has been steadily slipping in popularity.
Western instruments like the guitar, mandolin, clarionet and saxophone are also
featured in concerts, though not with the same level of acceptance as the
violin.
All the musicians sit cross-legged on a mat on the floor of the stage.
A concert comprises both composed and improvised music, with every musician on
stage getting to showcase his or her creativity at appropriate times.
A typical present-day concert begins with a varnam, a short composition with
both lyrics and matching solfa notes sung at varying speeds.
Follow a few compositions known as kritis or kirtanas, mostly songs of
devotional or spiritual content in the ancient pan-Indian language Sanskrit or
one of the south Indian languages, predominantly Telugu.
Every one of these songs is likely to contain improvisational elements,
including wordless elaboration of the raga, variations on a single line of
lyric or repeated combinations of the solfa syllables.
All these creative components are rendered in greater measure in the main
composition of the concert, which may last approximately an hour, and offers an
opportunity to the percussionists to display their creativity unaccompanied by
voice or violin.
The main song is often followed by what purists regard as the
piece-de-resistance of Carnatic music—the ragam-tanam-pallavi—, which is
entirely made up of improvised music.
Lighter pieces follow the main item of the performance or the
ragam-tanam-pallavi and the concert ends with a mangalam, a standard auspicious
signing off.
By V Ramnarayan
Posted by Sruti Magazine June 20, 2012