Specific Discipline

Violin

वायलिन

"The European violin, retuned and played seated for South Indian classical music"

Melodic Accompanist Melodic accompanist

The Carnatic violin is the Western violin as played in South Indian classical music: tuned differently, played seated on the floor, and heard as accompanist and soloist.

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Quick Facts

Classification
Bowed Chordophone
Playing Posture
Seated cross-legged, scroll resting on the right foot
Primary Role
Melodic accompaniment and solo
Early Pioneers
Baluswami Dikshitar; Vadivelu of the Tanjore Quartet

Overview

The Carnatic violin is the European violin as played in the classical music of South India. It is the same instrument Western musicians know, tuned differently and played with a different technique. The player sits cross-legged on the floor with the right foot turned outward and rests the scroll on that ankle, which holds the violin steady and leaves the left hand free for fast ornaments. North Indian practice has its own page, the Hindustani violin.

The violin has two roles: melodic accompaniment to the principal performer, usually a singer, and solo instrument. It is the most common second melody instrument in South India. In Carnatic vocal music it plays in unison with the singer in composed passages and imitates the voice in improvised ones, alongside a mridangam for rhythm and a tambura sounding the drone. Violinists shape their lines with gamaka, ornaments on and between notes that depend on each note's place in the raga, the melodic framework.

By tradition, Baluswami Dikshitar (1786 to 1858) was the first Carnatic musician to learn the violin and adapt it. In the 20th century Lalgudi G. Jayaraman, T. N. Krishnan and M. S. Gopalakrishnan, known as the violin trinity, became its leading soloists. By the late 20th century the violin was integral to the Carnatic concert.

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Part of Carnatic Classical

Carnatic instrumental music is South Indian classical music played on veena, violin, flute and mridangam. Instrumentalists play the same songs as singers, in a singing style.

Historical Timeline

The violin entered Carnatic music in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and accounts credit more than one musician. By tradition the first was Baluswami Dikshitar (1786 to 1858), younger brother of the composer Muthuswami Dikshitar. A patron with business at Fort St George in Madras took the brothers there, where Baluswami heard Western music and learnt the violin from a European player. Muthuswami set Sanskrit texts to Western tunes, among them jigs, reels and marches, in a major scale and without gamaka. Tradition holds that he wrote these nottuswara songs for his brother's violin practice.

Other accounts name Vadivelu of the Tanjore Quartet, who studied the violin with a European in Thanjavur. C. R. Day's 1891 list of southern musicians records him as one believed to have brought the violin to South India. R. Sathyanarayana of Mysore argued for an earlier entry in the Mysore region, but the editors of Sruti magazine found no named early players to support it.

The violin later replaced the veena as the usual accompanying instrument. Sruti records Tirukkodikaval Krishna Iyer (1857 to 1913) as the first violinist to give solo concerts.

Fort St George, Madras

Manali years, near Madras

Muthuswami Dikshitar's family hears European band music at Fort St George in Madras, through a patron with access to the Fort. Muthuswami's younger brother Baluswami takes lessons from a European violinist, about three years of them by one account.

Baluswami Dikshitar

1786 to 1858

Baluswami Dikshitar adapts the violin to Carnatic music, changing its tuning and playing posture. In 1905 Subbarama Dikshitar's Sangita Sampradaya Pradarsini prints 33 of Muthuswami's nottuswara songs with notation.

Vadivelu at the Travancore court

1829 to 1846

Vadivelu (born 1810), youngest of the Tanjore Quartet, moves from the Thanjavur court of Serfoji II to Travancore, where Swati Tirunal makes him a court musician. He is also a composer, singer and Bharatanatyam exponent.

Soloists take the stage

Before amplification

Mysore T. Chowdiah develops a seven-stringed violin so that his accompaniment carries in large halls. Also before amplification, Marungapuri Gopalakrishna Iyer popularises the phono-violin, a violin fitted with a megaphone-type horn.

The violin trinity

From the 1940s

Lalgudi G. Jayaraman, T. N. Krishnan and M. S. Gopalakrishnan become the leading soloists known as the violin trinity. Krishnan accompanies T. R. Mahalingam in Chennai in 1943, and Lalgudi develops a vocal, lyric-led style, the Lalgudi bani.

Playing Techniques

Tuning to the drone

The Carnatic violin keeps the Western instrument and changes how it is tuned. A Western violinist tunes G-D-A-E, rising in perfect fifths. In Carnatic music a drone sounds the tonic, Sa, and usually its fifth, Pa, and every instrument on stage, percussion included, tunes to it. The tambura supplies that drone in most Carnatic music.

Gamaka and the left hand

On the violin, gamaka, the ornaments on and between notes, comes from the left hand. The seated posture holds the instrument still, with the scroll on the foot and the back against the left collarbone or shoulder, so the hand can travel for fast ornaments. R. Sathyanarayana of Mysore linked the violin's adoption to its sustained tone and to the ease with which it produces gamaka.

Ludwig Pesch writes of the proverbial 22 shrutis, fine shades of pitch, alongside twelve semitone positions, or svarasthanas.

Accompanying the singer

In a kutcheri, or Carnatic concert, the violin plays in unison with the singer in composed passages and imitates the voice in improvised ones. Sruti remembers Tirukkodikaval Krishna Iyer as a loyal accompanist who drew out the lead performer's ideas. Lalgudi G. Jayaraman brought a vocal, lyric-led approach to the violin, the Lalgudi bani.

Journey to Mastery

Follow this structured journey to master this discipline

1

Sarali varisai and alankaras

The graded method credited to Purandara Dasa sets the general Carnatic teaching order. It starts from the scale Mayamalavagowla. Lessons begin with sarali varisai, simple ascending and descending note patterns, then janta varisai, with notes repeated in pairs, then alankaras, exercises set to the talas, or rhythmic cycles. Simple songs called gitams follow.
25%
2

Gamaka ornaments

This stage covers gamaka, the ornaments played on and between notes. Which gamaka a note takes depends on its melodic context in the raga, and gamakas are integral to Carnatic music. On the violin they come from the left hand. The seated posture, with the scroll on the foot, holds the instrument steady and leaves that hand free for fast ornaments.
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3

The varnam stage

Varnams come next. The tana varnam presents its raga's phrases and ornaments and teaches the student to sing or play and improvise in that raga. Students practise varnams at double speed as well as at the base tempo. Most are set in Adi tala, a cycle of eight beats, or Ata tala, of fourteen.
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4

Kritis and improvisation

Concert pieces follow the varnams, among them kritis, the main composed song form. Improvisation comes last. Its forms include raga alapana, an unmetred exposition of the raga; tanam, a pulsing but unmetred exposition; niraval, variations on one line of text; and kalpanaswaram (svara kalpana), improvised note patterns in sol-fa names.
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