Video | The idea of classifying ragas – Akshara & Kiranavali Vidyasankar

Akshara Samskriti is the daughter of Carnatic musician Kiranavali and scientist-philosopher, Vidyasankar Sundaresan. This video was recorded on Nov 1, 2013, when Akshara was 4 years old. It was originally in multiple parts for educational video compilation, and has been put together as a single video here. The 72 Melakartas are regarded as the parent … Read more

There really is no such thing as a ‘learner’ raga

Gouri Dange, The Hindu, 11 May 2019 | Read the full article here >> Every kind of music has a protocol for ‘beginners’ or ‘learners’. Students must practise paltay, alankaras, scales, études, tonalisation exercises, depending on the kind of music they pursue.  […] However, here’s the rub: for many learners, these ‘early’ ragas get translated … Read more

Visualising ragas from many places and even future ones “for the benefit of the people”

In Tanjore as a Seat of Music (pp. 420-426), S. Seetha explains the scope envisaged by Venkatamakhi when presenting his mela arrangement >> Venkatamakhi while justifying the derivation of 72 melakartas by permutation and combination interestingly remarks that countries are many with people having variety of tastes and it is to please them ragas have been … Read more