Kannada Music

Kannada or Carnatic music is linked deeply into Hinduism with strong ties going back to the Vedic times. During the time when the Vijayanagar Empire grew into prominence, music composed in the south came to be known as ‘Karnataka Sangeetham’. Purandara Dasa or as he is better known as ‘Karnataka Sangitha Pithamaha’ has been credited with being the creative genius behind pioneering Carnatic music. He was instrumental in introducing the Raga Mayamalavagowla for novices and composed simple Gitas as well for them. He contributed to the Hindustani Classical music art form as well during the Haridasa movement.
Kannada music draws inspiration from Tamil music as well. It originally began as being an oral tradition which was passed down from one generation to the other. The music is complete with melody and other variations. Vocals are emphasized even if there is an instrumental accompaniment, as the singing performance of the artist is important who is known as the gāyaki.
Some of the books that need to be thoroughly studied for a better interpretation of Kannada music in India include Sangeetha Swaraprastara Sagaramu - Nadamuni Pandithar, Sangeetha Sampradaya Pradarshini - Subbarama Dikshitar, Raga Vibodha – Somanatha, Sangeetha Sudha - Govinda Dikshitar, Sangeetha Chandrikai - Manikka Mudaliar, Natya Shastra - Bharata Muni to name a few.
Kannada music’s compositions stem from the fact that being an oral tradition, there is no single interpretation as it involves the musician’s composition and expression making Carnatic music a blend of talent and traditional history. The two main styles stem from the Raga and the Tala. Other well known genres are Kannada Bhavageete and Gamaka. Swara a singular note defines the position of the note. Also unlike Western music, Kannada uses many ragas which makes staff notation difficult. In case of notation, unlike western notes, here a symbol is positioned above the notes although theoretically it is not usually followed. They also make use of commas, colons and semicolons.
Kritis have 4 styles linked to it namely pallavi, anupallavi, charana and chittaswaras. They talk about the length of the song as well as its style and structure. Varnam tells us all that is inclusive in a raga such as a pallavi, an anupallavi, muktayi swaras, a charana, and chittaswaras. The Varnam also teaches you how to distinguish between classical notes, on which note there is a pause and where you have to stress on the musical notation.
Kannada music is usually performed by a small group of people and the musical accompaniment is usually the tambura. The electronic tambura is now coming into the limelight to produce a better sound effect. However other instruments used as an accompaniment are the violin which is used for improvisation, veena, flute, mridangam, ghatam and kanjira.
Today some of the well known classical artists are T.N. Krishnan, M.S.Gopalakrishnan, Lalgudi Jayaraman, M.Chandrasekharan, M S N Murthy, M.S.Anantharaman, Dr.Mysore Manjunath, Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan and Mysore Nagaraj.  Today’s leading vocalists are T.N. Seshagopalan, T.V. Sankaranarayanan, K.J. Yesudas, Nithyashree Mahadevan, Vijay Siva, Sudha Raghunathan, Aruna Sairam, Unni Krishnan, S.Sowmya, Sirkazhi Sivachidambaram, Sanjay Subrahmanyan, Bombay Jayashree and T.M.Krishna. Kannada music has also diversified into mainstream Kannada films. 'Mungaru Male' has become immensely popular in Kannada music market.