Carnatic Music

It is the classical music of Southern India. The basic form is a monophonic song with improvised variations. There are 72 basic scales on the octave, and a rich variety of melodic motion. Both melodic and rhythmic structures are varied and compelling. This is one of the world's oldest & richest musical traditions.

History of Carnatic Music

Carnatic Music has its roots in the distance past. The earliest extend theoritical work is the Natya Sastra by Bharatha, a treatise on theater, dance and music dating between the second century B.C to the fifth century A.D. Through centuries many more important scholarly books on music have been written, perhaps the most noteworthy of which was the medieval Sangeetha Ratnakara by Sarangadeva.

Purandaradasa (1484-1564), sometimes called the Father of Carnatic Music, composed not only many songs but the standard lessons and exercices that are still memorized by every music student today. A golden age occurred between about 1750 and 1850 when the forms and performaces style that have continued to the present day were set. Thousands of new krithis (compositions) were composed, new ragas were invented, and the conceptual form of older ragas expanded.The Sangitha trimurthis (big three) , Sama Sastry (1762-1827), Tyagaraja (1767-1847) and Muthuswamy Dikshitar (1777-1847) dominated this period.