The Components of Carnatic Music

The most important elements of Carnatic Music are notably the following:

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Sruti or musical pitch

Swara or single note

Raga or an algorithm for building a melody

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Sruti

Sruti is easily identified as the pitch of a note. It is the equivalent of a tonic in Western music and it is the note from which all others are derived from. It is essentially the smallest interval of pitch that the human ear can detect and a singer or instrument can replicate. The concept is found in numerous ancient and medieval Sanskrit texts.

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Swara

Swara refers to a single note, that defines the relative position of a note rather than a predefined frequency. Swara also refers to the solfege (syllables for pitch) of Carnatic music and consists of "Sa-Ri-Ga-Ma-Pa-Da-Ni" (pronounced Saa, Ree, Gaa, Maa, Paa, Daa, Nee), abbreviations of the longer names for the Swaras Shadjam, Rishabham, Gandharam, Madhyamam, Panchamam, Dhaivatham and Nishadham.

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Raga

A raga prescribes a set of rules for building a melody, similar in concept to the Western "mode" or a set of melodic behaviours. It specifies rules for ascending and descending notes known as Aarohanam and Avarohanam respectively. The raga also dictates which notes should be present or emphasised, which notes should be avoided and which notes might be sung with gamaka or ornamentation of the note.

Published on: 2 Jan 2017