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Template:IndicText Carnatic music (known as karṇāṭaka sangīta कर्णाटक सङ्गीत in Sanskrit, ಕರ್ನಾಟಕ ಸಂಗೀತ in Kannada, കര്‍‌ണാടക സംഗീതം in Malayalam, கருநாடக இசை in Tamil, కర్నాటక సంగీతం in Telugu) is the form of Indian classical music that had its origins in South India.

Carnatic music is of a melodic form and is typically a monophonic song with improvised variations.This is one of the world's oldest and richest musical traditions. It is primarily a vocal form of music; most compositions are written to be sung, and even when played on instruments, they are meant to be performed in a singing style. Almost all songs are devotional in nature, being addressed to one of the many Hindu deities.

As with all Indian classical music, the two main components of Carnatic music are rāga, the melodic modes, and tāḷa, the rhythmic pattern. There are 72 basic modes within the octave, known as meḷakarta rāgas, and 108 possible rhythmic patterns known as the aṣṭottara śata tāḷas.

History

Carnatic music developed gradually from the ancient musical traditions of South India, upon which Samavedic learning had an important influence. The Yajur-Veda, which mainly consists of sacrificial formulæ, mentions the vīna as an accompaniment to vocal recitations during the sacrifices. The chants evolved into two main notes with two accents forming the first concept of the tetrachord (four notes). Three more notes were added to the original tetrachord resulting in the first full scale of seven notes. There is also a long tradition of music in ancient Tamil literature which had the system of paṇs, a precursor to the rāga system. From the thirteenth century Carnatic music began to evolve into its current form. Unlike Hindustani music, Carnatic music was not influenced by the Islamic invasions of North India, rather it assimilated the centuries old traditions of Tamil music.

The name 'Carnatic Music' is the anglicized form of Karnataka Sangeeth, the traditional name of the music of South India. The great Kannada composer Purandara Dasa is known as the Sangitapitamaha or 'Father of Carnatic music'. Carnatic music saw renewed growth during Vijayanagar Empire by the Kannada Haridasa movement of Vyasaraja, Purandara Dasa, Kanakadasa and others. Purandara Dasa, laid out the fundamental tenets and framework for teaching carnatic music.. The learning structure is arranged in the increasing order of the complexity. The lessons start with the learning of the Solfege (sarale varasai).

Great composers

One of the earliest and prominent composers in South India was Purandara Dasa (1480 - 1564), who was a wandering singer. Purandara Dasa composed around 475,000 compositions. Most of these songs, written in Kannada, have been lost. Purandara Dasa's compositions were a source of inspiration to the later composers such as Tyagaraja. Purandara Dasa defined the basic lessons of Carnatic music by structuring Swaravalis (graded exercises), Alankaras (exercises based on the seven talas) and coposed several Gitas or simple songs for novice students. He introduced the Raga Mayamalavagowla as the first scale to be learnt by a beginner. However, the original tunes of his compositions are currently unavailable. Owing to his contribution to Carnatic Music he is referred to as the father of Carnatic Music or Karnataka Sangeethada Pitamaha.

Muthu Thandavar (1525-1625), Arunachala Kavi (1712-1779) and Marimuttha Pillai (1717-1787) are referred to as Adi Trinity or Tamil Trinity. and authored some of the earliest composition in Carnatic music. Muthu Thandavar was an early architect of the Carnatic Kriti format, which is in vogue today. Tyagaraja (1759? - 1847), Muthuswami Dikshitar (1776 - 1827) and Syama Sastri (1762 - 1827) are regarded as the Trinity of Carnatic music. Prominent composers prior to the trinity include Vyasatirtha, Purandaradasa, Kanakadasa, Gopaladasa. Other prominent composers are Annamacharya, Oottukkadu Venkata Kavi, Swathi Thirunal, Narayana Teertha, Mysore Sadashiva Rao, Patnam Subramania Iyer, Poochi Srinivasa Iyengar, Mysore Vasudevacharya, Gopalakrishna Bharathi and Papanasam Sivan.

Composers of Carnatic music were often inspired by religious devotion and were usually scholars proficient in one or more of the following languages Kannada,Sanskrit ,Tamil and Telugu. They usually included a signature, called a mudra, in their compositions. For example, all songs by Tyagaraja have the word Tyāgarāja in them, all songs by Muthuswami Dikshitar (who composed in Sanskrit) have the words guru guha in them, songs by Syama Sastri have the words "Syama Krishna" in them and Purandaradasa, who composed in Kannada, used the signature 'purandara vitala'.

Nature of Carnatic music

Śruti

Śruti in Indian music is the approximate equivalent of a tonic (or less precisely key) in Western music; it is the note from which all the others are derived. Traditionally, there were twenty-two śrutis in Carnatic music, but over the years several of them have converged, so that now they are but the chromatic scale.

Solfege

The solfege of Carnatic music is "sa-ri-ga-ma-pa-da-ni" (compare with the Hindustani sargam: sa-re-ga-ma-pa-dha-ni). 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) may have many variants, now upto three values. The exceptions are shadja and panchama (the tonic and the dominant in Western music), which have only one form, and madhyama, which has only two forms (the subdominant). In one scale, or ragam, there is usually only one variant of each note present, except in "light" ragas, such as Behag, in which, for artistic effect, there may be two, one ascending (in the arohanam) and another descending (in the avarohanam). A raga may have five, six or seven notes on the ascent, and five, six or seven notes on the descent.

In Indian languages, most of whose alphabets are abugidas (syllabic), the solfege is written with the characters for Sa, Ri, Ga, Pa, Da and Ni. Because Carnatic music is very rarely performed by people from North India, the alphabets given here are primarily those of Dravidian (South Indian), languages.

Tyagaraja, known for his extensive contributions to Carnatic music
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Raga system

A raga in Carnatic music prescribes a set of rules for building a melody. It specifies rules for movements up (aahroham) and down (avarohanam), the scale, which notes should figure more and which notes should be used more sparingly, which notes may be sung with gamaka, phrases to be used, phrases to be avoided, and so on.

In Carnatic music, the sampurna 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 subdominant is a perfect fourth from the tonic, thirty six of whose subdominant is an augmented fourth from the tonic. The ragas are grouped into sets of six, called chakras ("wheels", though actually segments in the conventional representation) grouped according to the supertonic and mediant scale degrees. There is a system known as the 'Katapayadi sankhya to determine the Melakarta Raga.

Ragas may be divided into two classes: janaka ragas ("parent ragas") and janyaragas ("child ragas"). Janaka raga is synonymous with melakarta (because the melakarta ragas each have seven notes in their scale, and use each note only once). Janya ragas are subclassified into various categories themselves.

Tala system

Tala is an aesthetic partitioning of time, usually in rhythmical patterns which have an artistic relation to the rhythmical structure of a composition. It is considered to be an integral part of a musical composition. Each composition of Carnatic music is set to a specific tala. Bharata Muni in his Natyashastra defines Tala as svarataala-padaatmakam. The ancient Tamil musical treatise Panja Marabu defines Tala as subtle as southern breeze and Siva's dance and the intricacies and meaning of Tala are considered to be mystical in nature and fundamental to music.

Carnatic music singers usually keep the beat by moving their hands in specified patterns to keep time. Tala is formed with three basic parts called laghu, dhrtam, and anudhrtam, where laghu is a pattern with the first aksharam (a basic unit of time) marked with the palm face down, followed by a variable number of aksharams marked with successive fingers starting with the little finger. A dhrutam is a pattern of two aksharams, with the first aksharam marked with the palm face down, and the second with the face up. This is notated 'O'.(ie., Tapping once with your palm facing down and once with it facing up.). An anudhrutam is a single aksharam, marked with the palm face down and notated 'U'.(ie., Tapping once with your palm facing down). Only these units are commonly used.

There are seven kinds of talas which can be formed from the laghu, dhrtam, and anudhrtam:

• Dhruva tala 1 0 1 1
• Matya tala 1 0 1
• Rupaka tala 0 1
• Jhampa tala 1 U 0
• Triputa tala 1 0 0
• Ata tala 1 1 0 0
• Eka tala 1

How many fingers must be lowered in a laghu is determined by the jathi, a number showing how many fingers to lower. It can only be 3, 4, 5, 7, or 9. (For numbers greater than five, the "sixth finger" is the same as the little finger.) Five jathis times seven patterns gives thirty-five basic talas.

Kriti

Carnatic songs are varied in structure and style, but generally consist of three verses:

1. Pallavi. This is the equivalent of a refrain in Western music. Two lines.
2. Anupallavi. The second verse. Also two lines.
3. Charana. The final (and longest) verse that wraps up the song. The Charanam usually borrows patterns from the Anupallavi. Usually three lines.

This kind of song is called a keerthana or a Kriti. There are other possible structure for a Kriti. Some such as Sārasamuki sakala bhāgyadē, have a verse between the anupallavi and the charaṇa, called the chiṭṭaswara. This verse consists only of notes, and has no words. Still others, such as Rāmacandram bhāvayāmi have a verse at the end of the charaṇa, called the madhyamakāla. It is sung immediately after the charaṇa, but at double speed.

Varnam

A Varnamis a special kind of song which tells you everything about a raga; not just the scale, but also which notes to stress, how to approach a certain note, classical and characteristic phrases, etc. A varna has a pallavi, an anupallavi, a muktayi swara, whose function is identical to that of the chitteswara in a kriti, a charana, and chitteswaras, after each of which the charana is repeated:

1. Pallavi
2. Anupallavi
3. Muktayi swara
4. Charana
5. Chitteswara
   1. First
   2. Second
   3. Third

and so on.

There are many more kinds of songs such as geethams and swarajatis.

Improvisation

There are four main types of improvisation in Carnatic music:

• Raga Alapana: This is usually performed before a song. It is, as you may expect, always sung in the ragam of the song. It is a slow improvisation with no rhythm, and is supposed to tune the listener's mind to the appropriate ragam by reminding him/her of the specific nuances, before the singer plunges into the song. Theoretically, this ought to be the easiest type of improvisation, since the rules are so few, but in fact, it takes much skill to sing a pleasing, comprehensive (in the sense of giving a "feel for the ragam") and, most importantly, original ragam.
• Niraval: This is usually performed by the more advanced concert artists and consists of singing one or two lines of a song repeatedly, but with improvised elaborations.
• Kalpanaswaram The most elementary type of improvisation, usually taught before any other form of improvisation. It consists of singing a pattern of notes which finishes on the beat and the note just before the beat and the note on which the song starts. The swara pattern should adhere to the original raga's swara pattern, which is called as "arohana-avarohana"
• Taanam: This form of improvisation was originally developed for the veena and consists of repeating the word anantham ("endless") in an improvised tune. The name thaanam comes from a false splitting of anantham repeated. When the word anantham is repeated, i.e., "anantham-anantham", the laws of sandhi dictate that the consonant at the end of the first word be dropped, hence "ananthaanantham" When the rule is applied to a long string of ananthams, you get "ananthaananthaananthaananthaa..." which got falsely split as "thaananthaananthaanan...", or "thaanamthaanamthaanam...".
• Ragam Thanam Pallavi: This is a composite form of improvisation. It consists of Raga, Thana, then a line sung twice, and Niraval. After Niraval, the line is sung again, twice, then sung once at half the speed, then twice at regular speed, then four times at twice the speed.

Concerts

Carnatic music concerts are usually performed by a small ensemble of musicians. The group usually has a vocalist, a primary instrumentalist, and a percussionist. Primary instruments are usually string instruments, such as the veena and the violin, although wind instruments such the flute may also be used. Although Carnatic music concerts have been traditionally vocal recitals, in recent years, purely instrumental concerts have become popular.

The vocalist is supported by many instruments. The tambura, the most common kind of drone instrument, is traditionally used at concerts to remind the singer of the tonic, so that the singer may stay in tune throughout the performance. Tambura is increasingly being replaced by the more compact śruti box (also known as the "electronic tambura").

The usual interacting and active accompaniments are Violin (first adopted into Carnatic music in the early 19th century by Baluswami Dikshitar, a brother of Muthuswami Dikshitar and Vadivelu of the Thanjavur Quartet). Mridangam, a two-sided percussion instrument, and Ghatam, a hollow ceramic pot or a Kanjira, an instrument resembling a tambourine. One other possible accompaniment is the Morsing (Jew's harp). Besides playing along with the main vocalist, the violinist also gets the opportunity to take part in the improvisation. The violinist is expected to play both the melody and the mathematical aspects of the vocalist. The vocalist and the violinist take turns while elaborating or while exhibiting creativity in sections like Niraval or Kalpana swaram.

Percussion instruments, such as the mridangam, ghatam, kanjira are used to help the singer in keeping the beat, but they may also improvise. The morsing is also seen in some concerts and it accompanies the main percussion instrument and plays almost in a contrapuntal fashion along with the beats.

Concert content

Contemporary Carnatic concerts (called a kutceri) last approximately three hours. In the concert hall, the performers sit on a slightly elevated stage. Accompanists like violin and veena sit to the main performer's left, and percussion instruments sit on the other side of the main performer facing the instrumentalist.

Carnatic concerts comprise of a number of varied compositions. Carnatic songs are composed in a particular raga, which means that they do not deviate from the notes in the raga. Each composition is set with specific notes and beats, but performers improvise extensively. Improvisation occurs in the melody of the composition as well as in using the notes to expound the beauty of the raga. Concerts usually begin with a varnam. This piece is composed with an emphasis on swaras of the raga. It is lively and fast to get the audience's attention. Varnams also have lyrics, the saahityam. Immediately following the Varnam, there is usually a song in praise of the god Ganesha. Popular among these are vināyakā ninnuvinā brōcuḍaku and vatapi ganapathim.

After the varnam and the Ganesha Kriti, the artist sings longer compositions called kritis. Without exception, these compositions are devotional in nature. Each Kriti stick to one specific raga, although some kritis are composed with more than one ragas; these are known as ragamaalika (a garland of ragas).

Performers begin the main compositions with a section called raga aalapana exploring the raga. In this, they use aakaaram (essentially, using the words aa, ri, na, ta, etc. instead of swaras or the solfege) to slowly elaborate the notes and flow of the raga. This begins slowly and builds to a crescendo, and finally establishes a complicated exposition of the raga that shows the performer's skill. All of this is done without any rhythmic accompaniment. Then the melodic accompaniment (violin or veena), expounds the raga. Experienced listeners can identify many ragas after they hear just a few notes. With the raga thus established, the song begins, sung usually with lyrics. In this, the accompaniment (usually violin, sometimes veena) performs along with the main performer and the percussion (such as a mridangam). In the next stage of the song, the performer sings the swaras of the raga separately (as sa ri ga, etc.) to the beat. The performer must improvise a string of swaras in any octave according to the rules of the raga and return to beginning of the cycle of beats smoothly, joining the swaras with a phrase selected from the kriti. The violin performs these alternately with the main performer. In very long strings of swara, the performers must calculate their notes accurately to ensure that they stick to the raga, have no awkward pauses and lapses in the beat of the song, and create a complex pattern of notes that an experienced audience can follow. The main composition of any concert has a section at this time for the percussion to perform solo (called the tani aavartanam). The percussion performers perform complex patterns of rhythm and display their skill. If multiple percussion instruments are employed, they engage in a beautiful rhythmic dialogue until the main performer picks up the melody once again.

Some experienced artists may do a Ragam Thanam Pallavi instead of a Kriti as the main song of the concert. A Ragam Thanam Pallavi sometimes comprises of what is called a koraipu where the vocalist changes a few swarasthanas in the scale of the raga and elucidates other ragas in the vicinity of this raga scale.

Following the main composition, the concert continues with shorter and lighter songs. Some of the types of songs performed towards the end of the concerts are tillanas, bhajans. Every concert that is the last of the day ends with a mangalam, a thankful prayer and conclusion to the musical event.

Audience

The audience of a typical concert have a very decent understanding of Carnatic music. It is also typical to see the audience tapping out the tala in sync with the artist's performance. As and when the artist exhibits creativity, the audience acknowledge it by clapping their hands. With experienced artists, towards the middle of the concert, requests start flowing in. The artist usually plays the request and it helps in exhibiting the artist's broad knowledge of the several thousand kritis that are in existence.

Contemporary performers and audiences are very much linked and musicians are able to get immediate review of their performances on the internet enabled technologies such as blogs and online discussion forums. Wider dissemination of this age-old art form has been possible through MP3 downloads, CDs and DVDs, leading to an increase in the popularity of Carnatic music amongst youngsters.

Learning Carnatic music

Carnatic music is traditionally taught according to the system formulated by Purandara Dasa. This involves Swaravalis (graded exercises), Alankaras (exercises based on the seven talas) and Gitas or simple songs. The student then continues to learn Kritis. It typically takes several years of learning before a student is adept enough to perform at a concert.

Since the late 20th century, there has been some attempts to create Carnatic music grades by music conservatories, which provide standardized tests between different Carnatic teachers. Although such attempts have not met with great popularity in India, standardized exams are often used in countries, like Canada, Great Britain, and France, where there is a high concentration of South Asian expatriates. One of the most widely recognized conservatories of music, is the Toronto-based Thamil Isai Kalaamanram which was formed in 1992. In 2005, it held exams for over 2000 applicants ranging from grades 1 to 7.

Notations

Notation is not a new concept in Indian music. However, Carnatic music continued to be transmitted orally for centuries without being written down. The disadvantage with this system was that if one wanted to learn about a kīrtanam composed, for example, by Purandara Dasa, it involved the difficult task of finding a person from Purandara Dasa's lineage of students.

Written notation of Carnatic music was revived in the late 17th century and early 18th century, which coincided with rule of Shahaji II in Tanjore. Copies of Shahaji's musical manuscripts are still available at the Saraswati Mahal Library in Tanjore and they give us an idea of the music and its form. They contain snippets of solfege to be used when performing the mentioned ragas.

Melody

Unlike Western music, Carnatic music is notated almost exclusively in tonic solfa notation using either a Roman or Indic script to represent the solfa names. Past attempts to use the staff notation have mostly failed. Indian music makes use of hundreds of ragas, many more than the church modes in western music. It becomes difficult to write Carnatic music using the staff notation without the use of too many accidentals. Furthermore, the staff notation requires that the song be played in a certain key. The notions of key and absolute pitch are deeply rooted in western music, whereas the carnatic notation does not specify the key and prefers to use scale degrees (relative pitch) to denote notes. The singer is free to choose actual pitch of the tonic note. In the more precise forms of Carnatic notation, there are symbols placed above the notes indicating how the notes should be played or sung; however, informally this practice is not followed.

To show the length of a note, several devices are used. If the duration of note is to be doubled, the letter is either capitalized (if using Roman script) or lengthened by a diacritic (in Indian languages). For a duration of three, the letter is capitalized (or diacriticized) and followed by a comma. For a length of four, the letter is capitalized (or diacriticized) and then followed by a semicolon. In this way any duration can be indicated using a series of semicolons and commas.

However, a simpler notation has evolved which does not use semicolons and capitalization, but rather indicates all extensions of notes using a corresponding number of commas. Thus, Sā quadrupled in length would be denoted as "S,,,".

Rhythm

The notation is divided into columns, depending on the structure of the tāḷaṃ. The division between a laghu and a dhṛtaṃ is indicated by a ।, called a ḍaṇḍā, and so is the division between two dhṛtaṃs or a dhṛtaṃ and an anudhṛtaṃ. The end of a cycle is marked by a ॥, called a double ḍaṇḍā, and looks like a caesura.

Modern artists

Vocalists

Mangalampalli Balamurali Krishna and DK Pattammal are some of the art's greatest living (albeit aging) performers. M. S. Subbulakshmi, who enthralled audiences across language barriers, is usually credited with popularizing the Carnatic tradition outside South India. Legendary singer belonging to the Dhanammal school of music T. Brinda was known for her gamaka laden interpretations of core carnatic ragams and also her vast repertoire. Doyens like Alathur Venkatesa Iyer, Narayanan Iyengar, Vidwan Gopala Pillai, Mysore Vasudevachar, Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar, Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavathar, Mysore T. Chowdiah, and Maharajapuram Viswanatha Iyer,Madurai Mani Iyer, Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, G N Balasubramaniam created a golden era for Carnatic Music. Another great singer who made his own mark with soulful rendering was M.D.Ramanathan. Dr. K. J. Yesudas is a living legendary singer in the Carnatic Music.

Prof. Mysore V. Ramarathnam is a well known musician in Carnatic Music. Contemporary vocalists include Madurai T. N. Seshagopalan, T.V.Sankaranarayanan, Sarojini Sundaresan, Sowmya, Sudha Ragunathan, Sanjay Subrahmanyan, Kiranavali Vidyasankar, Unni Krishnan, T.M. Krishna, Gayathri Girish, Aruna Sairam, R. Vedavalli, Rose Muralikrishnan, Kalpakam Swaminathan and Bombay Jayashree. Jon B Higgins ("Higgins bhagavatar") was one of the few Westerners to have learnt and excelled in Carnatic music. And Patrick Ngcobo is Carnatic Classical singer belong to South Africa.

Instrumentalists

Mangalampalli Balamurali Krishna is a multifaceted musician and instrumentalist equipped with great talent in playing instruments like violin, viola, mridangam, ghatam, ganjira, harmonium, flute, etc.

Umayalpuram Sivaraman, T.K.Murthy, Kamalakar Rao, Mannargudi Easwaran, Mavelikkara Velukkutty Nair, Guruvayur Dorai and Karaikkudi Mani excel in the art of Mridangam playing .

T.H.Vinayakram, T.H.Subhashchandran and N. Govindarajan are famous ghatam players. Among violinists, T.N.Krishnan, M.S.Gopalakrishnan, Lalgudi Jayaraman and M.Chandrasekharan belong to the classical tradition. Virtuosos like Kunnakkudi Vaidyanathan, L.Shankar, L. Athira Krishna, and V.S.Narasimhan have internationalised the Carnatic violin music while relying on the native south indian classical idiom.

Maestros like N.Ramani, Thyagarajan and Mala Chandhrashekharan are some of the famous flute players.

References

1. MITHAS
2. "Carnatic Music".
3. "History of Carnatic music".
4. Gosvāmi, O. The Story of Indian Music: Its Growth and Synthesis. Asia Publishing House. p. 195. The influence of these twelve divisions in the scale and music of Nayanmars and Alvars have gone a long way to determine the character of the present Carnatic music.
5. Sāmbhamūrti, P. "Music of the Ancient Tamils". South Indian Music, Book VI. Chennai 600 014: The Indian Music Publishing House. pp. 85–112.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
6. http://www.carnatica.net/composer/purandaradasa.htm
7. http://www.hinduonnet.com/2000/12/02/stories/0902070b.htm
8. Theory of Music , Vasanthamadhavi P.183
9. Madhusudhana Rao, Sri Vijaya Dasaru, Suguna Digest, July-Sept 2005,
10. Galaxy of composers
11. Carnatica.net
12. Tamilvānan, Lēnā (Ed.) (1987). Tamil Mummaṇikaḷin Kīrttanaikaḷ (Songs of the Tamil Trinity) (in Tamil). Chennai 600 017: Maṇimēkalai Publishers.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
13. While defining gandharava as "that which is a mixture of strings and other instruments, and which has three basic elements of svara, tala and pada" - Natyasastra - Chapter 28, Ancient Scales of Indian Music Trans. by Bharat Gupt. Delhi: Brahaspati Publication
14. தென்றல் வடிவும் சிவனார் திருவடிவும்
    மன்றல் வடிவும் மதன் வடிவும் - குன்றாத
    வேயினிசை வடிவும் வேதவடி வுங்காணில்
    ஆயதா ளங்காண லாம்- Panja Marabu
16. http://www.worldmusiccentral.org/artists/artist_page.php?id=538
17. http://www.worldmusiccentral.org/artists/artist_page.php?id=513

External links

• www.rasikas.org Carnatic Music Forums
• MusicIndiaOnline. Site containing streamable carnatic intrumental and vocal songs.
• Carnatic. Offers an insight into Carnatic music and renowned Carnatic composers.
• Chembai. A website on the legendary Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavatar
• Carnatic Corner. This was the first comprehensive portal on Carnatic music. It has links to almost all the Carnatic sites in existence as well as a reference library and page of lists for ragas, compositions and lyrics.
• Carnatica. An innovative portal on Carnatic music. It has a great deal of information, and also offers products such as albums, CD-ROMs, VCDs, etc. Its other services include online music courses, camps and so forth.
• Korvai.org. Started by young mridangist M. N. Hariharan (the author of the book "Korvais Made Easy"), contains information about korvais, notation for percussion lessons, etc.
• Mysore V. Ramarathna A site dedicated to Emeritus Professor (retd.) of Vocal Music Prof. Mysore V. Ramarathnam, Author, Teacher and Composer First Principal (Retd), University College of Music & Dance, University of Mysore, India
• Simple Introduction to South Indian Classical Music - Part 1Published by World Music Central
• Simple Introduction to South Indian Classical Music - Part 2Published by World Music Central

Bibliography

• "Carnatic music". (15 ed.). 2005. {{cite encyclopedia}}: External link in |article= (help); Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |ency= ignored (help)
• Panchapakesa Iyer, A. S. (2003). Gānāmrutha Varna Mālikā. Gānāmrutha Prachuram.

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