Carnatic Music Essay

Life of Magical Voice
The seven basic swaras occupy various swara sthanas and produce a total of sixteen swaras that form the basis of the raga scheme. It should be emphasized that the swara sthanas are nominal and in actual usage, depending on the raga, the swara is not fixed at any one sthana but appears at various locations around a nominal swara sthana in different swara phrases. The Shadja and Panchama swaras are like the foundations upon which the rest of the melody is constructed. So, these occupy fixed sthanas. The names of the swaras and the swara sthanas are as follows:

Name Pronunciation

1. Shadjam sa
2. Suddha Rishabam small ri
3. Chatusruti Rishabam big ri
4. Suddha Gandharam ga
5. Shatsruti Rishabam ra
6. Sadharana Gandharam small ga
7. Andhara Gandharam big ga
8. Suddha Madhyamam small ma
9. Prathi Madhyamam big ma
10. Panchamam pa
11. Suddha Dhaivatham small da
12. Chatusruti Dhaivatham big da
13. Shatsruti Dhaivatham da
14. Suddha Nishadam na
15. Kaisika Nishadam small ni
16. Kakali Nishadam big ni

Some more theories in the upcoming posts. Let us see some of the legend musicians .Now a days there are lots of Musicians whose performance are marvellous. But even though we cant forget the legend singers. In those Legend singers we should always remember M.S. amma. She did some wonderful jobs using her magical voice. Her pronunciation of words in carnatic music is wonderful. Her sincerity towards music was highly appreciable. !" Over seven decades, three generations of listeners have known the same exaltation in Madurai Shanmukhavadivu Subbulakshmi's vocal magic. They see M.S. as a saint, even goddess incarnate. M.S. was born in Madurai on September 16, 1916. Her auspicious Bharani star `presaged' the conquest of the world. Mother Shanmukhavadivu was a respected but impoverished veena player, supporting a family of three