Nadaswaram
नादस्वरम
South India's double-reed instrument of temple ritual, weddings and Carnatic concerts
Nadaswaram (nagaswaram): a double-reed wind instrument of South India, played with the tavil drum at temple rituals and weddings and in Carnatic concerts.
History & Evolution
The nadaswaram's deeper origin is unsettled. B. Chaitanya Deva left open whether India's double-reed family is native, foreign or both. He noted that the snake-charmer's pipe in the south shares the instrument's name, read as naga (snake) and svara (sound), and S. Krishnaswami offered that pipe as one possible ancestor. The earliest dated evidence Deva gives for the nadaswaram itself is 13th-century temple sculpture, and he finds a related pipe, the mukhaveena, in a Telugu text of the 12th or 13th century.
Hereditary musician families carried the playing. C. R. Day found that most mela musicians came from a Telugu-speaking community, the Mangala-vandlu, who played at temple ceremonies and weddings. A modern Sangeet Natak Akademi citation records the same family training: A. Vijay Karthikeyan learnt first from his grandfather. Temples also appoint players as asthana vidwan, a resident musician, and the Akademi names Domada Chittiabbayi in that post at Simhachalam Devasthanam.
Deva, writing on the whole double-reed family, dated its arrival on the concert platform to the two decades before his book of 1978.
- 13th to 15th century
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Earliest Records
Sculpture on the Veerabhadra temple at Asandi, Karnataka, shows nagasvarams in the early 13th century. Deva finds the name in Srinatha's Telugu Kridabhiramam (14th century) and Singiraja's Kannada Singiraja puranam (15th century). - 15th to 17th century
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Inscriptions and Texts
Krishnaswami found the instrument well known in inscriptions and literature of this period. Deva notes that Singiraja's 15th-century Kannada Singiraja puranam already uses the name nagasara for it. - Before 1977
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T. N. Rajarathnam Pillai
Krishnaswami's 1977 survey for India's Publications Division counts T. N. Rajarathnam Pillai among the greatest exponents of the nadaswaram in recent years. - 1990s to 2010s
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Awards and Honours
Sangeet Natak Akademi awards mark the instrument's standing. Domada Chittiabbayi, resident musician at Simhachalam, receives the Akademi Award in 1995, and A. Vijay Karthikeyan the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar for 2013-14.
Technical Aspects
Body, Bell and Reed
The nadaswaram has a wooden body with a conical bore that widens towards a metal bell at the lower end. C. R. Day described a dark, close-grained wood he called chandanna. Some instruments are covered in silver or gold, and some are made of soapstone or wholly of metal. Lengths vary: Krishnaswami gives 60 to 75 cm, and Deva puts the larger bari type at close to 90 cm. Most expert players prefer the bari to the smaller timiri.
Twelve holes run down the body. Players finger the upper seven. The lower five, which Krishnaswami calls brahma swaram, are stopped with wax as the player chooses, to set the basic pitch.
The double reed, the seevali, is shaped from a dried grass and sits on a metal staple at the top. On the shehnai the reed goes straight into the blowing end, and Krishnaswami treats this mounting as the main difference between the two instruments.
Breath and Pitch
The nadaswaram has no keys. B. Chaitanya Deva explains why: fine shading of pitch (sruti) and ornament (gamaka, the oscillation and inflection of a note that colours Carnatic melody) need the fingers in direct contact with the holes.
Accounts differ on which control bends a note. S. Krishnaswami describes pitch shaped by lip and tongue work on the reed, combined with partial opening and closing of the finger holes. Day's account only mentions partial covering of the holes.
Tavil, Talam and Ottu
The nadaswaram plays in the periya melam, the "big ensemble" of temple and ceremonial music. Beside it sit the tavil, a barrel drum carved from jackwood, and the talam, cymbals of bell metal, while a drone sustains a fixed pitch beneath the melody. Day's account of 1891 counts one or two nagasaras in such a band and sets it apart from the chinnamela, the dancing women and male musicians who formed the dancers' company.
The drone comes from the ottu, a pipe like the nadaswaram but a little larger. The player closes five or six holes near its lower end, in full or in part, to set its pitch. Day describes two drones tuned to the tonic and the fifth, or one on the tonic alone. A shruti box sometimes replaces the ottu today.
Journey to Mastery
Follow this structured journey to master this discipline
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Reed and basic technique
Students learn to care for the reed and to sound their first notes on the finger holes. The seevali, the grass reed, comes from specialist makers, such as a reed-making family near Kumbakonam. Players carry spare reeds and keep an ivory or horn needle to clean and adjust them.
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Tone and pitch control
This stage builds a steady tone on the double reed and control of pitch on a pipe with no keys. The player shapes each note with lip and tongue on the reed and with the finger holes, opened and closed in full or in part. Every change of pitch comes from the player's own mouth and hands.
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Gamakas and Ornamentation
Many players also train as singers. Sangeet Natak Akademi citations record that Domada Chittiabbayi studied vocal music under Nedunuri Krishnamurti and that A. Vijay Karthikeyan learnt it from his mother. Krishnaswami holds that the nadaswaram can bring out all the styles and subtle graces of Karnatak music.
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Ceremonial Repertoire
Much of a nadaswaram player's work is ceremonial. Krishnaswami describes pieces for particular occasions: processions of temple deities, marriages, festivities, welcomes, departures and even funerals. The instrument also plays at village-deity festivals and in folk music. Students learn which music belongs to each occasion and how to play it with the tavil.
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Concert Performance
In concert the nadaswaram plays the Carnatic forms: raga alapana (the unmetred exposition of a raga), tanam and kritis (composed songs). Krishnaswami notes that the tavil and talam stay subdued during alapana and that bright tavil passages break up the tanams. Formal institutions now teach the instrument too, among them Annamalai University in Chidambaram.