Chitraveena

The chitraveena, also written chitravina and known as the gottuvadyam, is a fretless veena of Carnatic music. The left hand glides a cylindrical slide over the melody strings, and the right hand plucks with plectra on the index and middle fingers. Most modern instruments carry 20 or 21 strings: six melody, three drone-rhythm and 11 or 12 sympathetic strings.

Begin the chitraveena with KalaSudha online or in a workshop, at Foundation level. Foundation teaches the gottu, the cylindrical slide held in the left hand, and plucking with plectra on the right index and middle fingers. Children learn with us as well as adults, so ask us about a starting age and about a size for a younger learner.

Players back after a long break pick up where they left off, because our courses run in levels. Your teacher reviews where you stand first.

You can buy a chitraveena from KalaSudha outside India, by quote or made to order, and we deliver worldwide. Every instrument leaves us packed for international shipping; ask us about cases and insurance.

We service and repair any chitraveena, in any country, whoever sold it to you. Strings and spare parts come from us too. For help with your instrument after the sale, use the chat on any page or email [email protected]. Gift vouchers, class sets for schools and flight cases for travel are also available; ask us.

The chitraveena slide, the gottu, is a cylindrical block held in the left hand and glided over the melody strings. Reported materials include ebony or other hardwood, bison or buffalo horn, glass and steel. In the late 1980s N. Ravikiran adopted Teflon slides, on the advice of the scientist Hemmige D. Varadarajan, to cut slide noise.

A typical modern chitraveena carries 21 strings: six melody strings, three drone-rhythm strings and 11 or 12 sympathetic strings, though some sources give 20 in all. N. Ravikiran's smaller navachitravina is usually tuned to B or C. Budalur Krishnamurthy Shastri kept the Saraswati veena's tuning and string layout and did not favour sympathetic strings, and many of his disciples follow him.

The sympathetic strings of a chitraveena run below and parallel to the melody strings, over a smaller second bridge. Players usually tune them to the raga Shankarabharanam or to a raga they will develop at length, or set extra Sa and Pa notes for a tanpura effect. Some players leave this layer out altogether, as Budalur Krishnamurthy Shastri's disciples do.

Gottuvadyam Narayana Iyengar, a pupil of Sakha Rama Rao, shaped the modern chitraveena by adding melody and sympathetic strings. His son Chitravina N. Narasimhan spread the instrument across India, and his grandson N. Ravikiran introduced the smaller navachitravina. Other names include Budalur Krishnamurthy Shastri, M. V. Varahaswami, Allam Koteeswara Rao and Gayathri Kassebaum.

The chief difficulty of the chitraveena is placing the slide accurately for each note and microtone, with no fingering alternatives. Linear sliding is the basic technique, and the instrument is much longer than a violin or sarod. Because it is fretless, the slide produces continuous glides and microtonal inflection, the gamaka central to Carnatic music.

The modern revival of the chitraveena began with Srinivasa Rao, who experimented with a slide on a tanpura in Thanjavur district. His son Sakha Rama Rao of Tiruvidaimarudur, who died in 1928, redesigned it as a fretless veena with seven strings. Sakha Rama Rao's pupil Gottuvadyam Narayana Iyengar raised the count to 22 strings, and one main string was later dropped, giving 21.

Bharata's Natya Shastra describes a seven-stringed chitra vina played with the fingers and a cylindrical device called kona, and the 13th-century Sangita Ratnakara describes it in similar terms; the chitraveena takes that name. B. Chaitanya Deva, writing in 1978, calls the early instrument a harp. The modern slide instrument took shape with Sakha Rama Rao in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Yes: chitravina, chitraveena and gottuvadyam name the same instrument, also spelt gotuvadyam and gottuvadhyam. Sakha Rama Rao coined gottuvadyam from his habit of calling the slide gotu; vadyam means instrument. Chitravina is the older textual name, which N. Ravikiran and other scholars restored to modern use, and mahanataka vina is a further recorded name.

The chitraveena follows the outer form of the fretted Saraswati veena: a hemispherical wooden chamber, usually jackfruit, joined to a hollow stem about 81 cm long. Its three drone-rhythm strings are tuned Sa-Pa-Sa, as on the Saraswati veena. Unlike that veena, it is fretless and played with a slide, and it adds 11 or 12 sympathetic strings below its six melody strings.

Through KalaSudha, you can book a chitraveena player for a concert, event or recording. Make your request on our page to book Indian classical musicians. Hear our artists before you book, in KalaSudha's recordings and concert videos.