Comparing Hindustani and Carnatic Music

I’ve been a student of the Carnatic tradition for ~13 years now. Elaborating on what makes the Hindustani and Carnatic traditions different from (and similar to) each other is something I thought might be of interest to the Uhooroo community. Disclaimer: Before writing this blog, my knowledge (or should I say impressions?) of Hindustani came almost exclusively from listening to music. I’ve been doing some reading on Hindustani of late and if I’ve missed something, do leave a comment :)

I have attempted to talk about differences in the aspects of the 2 systems that I thought might be of interest to a general audience. Origins, themes, the roles of the raaga system and the role of improv:

Origins: Almost any source on the origins of Hindustani music ends up attributing origins to two prolific musicians. Amir Khusro was a 13th century Sufi mystic who has been credited with the invention of the sitar and the tabla as well as the development of the Qawwali, Khayal and Taranaa schools of singing. The other was Mian Tansen, the musical genius who was one of nine “Navratnas” in the court of the Mogul Emperor Akbar. Additionally, almost any serious Hindustani musician would claim affiliation to a Gharana – which usually refers to a school of singing (characterized by a syllabus and style of teaching).

Carnatic owes its origins to the three men referred to as the “Trimurthis” or the Trinity (Thyagarajar, Shyama Shastry and Muthuswamy Dikshitar). Additionally there is a pantheon of other composers whose influence on the tradition has been non-trivial. The important difference here is the composers came up with “krithis” which included lyrics (most usually in the classical forms of Telugu, Kannada, Tamil and Sanskrit) as well. Faithful adherence to these lyrics is an important characteristic of the Carnatic tradition. On the face of it, it does not seem like compositions by Khusro or Tansen are still being sung (correct me if I am wrong).

Themes: Carnatic lyrics are often an artifact of the composer’s devotion to God. Different composers are known for their Krithis honoring specific Hindu Gods. For instance, Thyagarajar is known for his krithis on Rama and Dikshitar for his Krithis on Devi. Hindustani on the other hand, is characterized by secular themes that transcend the devotional. The Persian influence on Hindustani may be one reason for this. The Persian poets Rumi and Khayyam often wrote poetry on love and romance. Hindustani lyrics often focus on the beauty of the seasons, the love between Radha and Krishna, colour and other secular themes.

The role of Raagas in the two systems: For the general reader, I would like to explain what a raaga is. Both forms of music have the basic seven notes (or swaras) – sa, re, ga, ma, pa, da,ni. For those whocare, these are in fact abbreviations. Sa = Shadja, Re = Rishaba, Ga = Gandhara, Ma = Madhyama, Pa = Panchama, Da = Daivata, Ni = Nishada. Sa and Pa are fixed. The remaining swaras have flat and transpose notes. The system of raaga dictates that only a subset of these seven notes may be used (along with frequency of use) for any specific composition. Now, onto where the two raaga systems digress.. Carnatic does not have the notion of samay. In other words, the notion of morning/evening ragas which are common in Hindustani music, do not feature in Carnatic. The Hindustani raaga system is based on thaats. Each thaat corresponds to a full scale that comprises all seven swaras. There are 10 thaats in all (Bilawal, Bhairav, Bhairavi, Asawari, Kalyan, Khammaj, Kafi, Marwa, Purvi, Todi). Since five of the seven swaras have two forms each, 32 (2 to the power of 5) swara combinations are possible. But only the 10 thaats find widespread use in Hindustani compositions.

The raaga system in Carnatic is quite different – we adhere to the Melakarta system. Unlike in Hindustani, certain swaras in Carnatic (Ri, Ga and Da) come in three forms and not two. As with Hindustani, Sa and Pa are fixed. Ma and Ni come in two flavors each. The combinations give us a total of 72 raagas which are termed as Melakarta ragas all of which contain all seven swaras. The alert reader might observe that we should have ended up with 108 raagas (1 X 3 X 3 X 2 X 1 X 3 X 2). But the following constraints limit the number of ragas to 72 (Ri2 = Ga1, Ri3= Ga2, Da2=Ni1, Da3=Ni2). Unlike in Hindustani, all 72 raagas are available for composition. It is hard to gain an appreciation of the Carnatic Raaga system without delving into the concept of Chakras which is a large enough topic to merit another blog post in itself (to come in the next month or so).

A handful of ragas have a one-to-one correspondence on both systems. These ragas form the basis for Carnatic-Hindustani fusion/jugalbandhi. They are Hindolam (Malkauns), Mohanam (Bhoop), Shankarabharanam (Bilawal), Kalyani (Yaman).

The role of improvisation in both systems: For someone whose knowledge of Hindustani derives mainly from listening and reading a bit about it, it seems that the whole point of this tradition is to allow a musician to pick a raaga and to explore it to the fullest. Carnatic, on the other hand is about remaining faithful to the intent of the composer. Improvisation is limited to an alaapanai (alap) that precedes the singing of the main krithi. The length of an alaap in a typical Carnatic concert can range from a few seconds to 15 minutes or so depending upon audience receptiveness. There is also significant artist improv in the singing of Kalpana Swaras the follow the krithi. The topic of Kalpana Swaras is complex enough to merit another blog post in itself.

Well, that’s about it for now. Do drop a comment or two to let me know if any of this made sense – especially if you are a casual reader. The idea is definitely to make this seemingly arcane topic accessible.