Saptaswara's Classical Gems (With Notation)

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Carnatic music is great among all systems of music for the reason that it is raga oriented and also demands imaginative skill. Raga is the backbone of Indian music in general and of carnatic music, in particular. By ways of permutation and combination, innumerable raga scales can be deduced. But all of them will remain only as skeletons, until the svarupa of any particular raga is manifested. This would be possible only by meditation for each svara in the gamut which is called Nadopasana. Vaggeyakaras have simplified this process by creation of compositions. Compositions are the concrete shape of each abstract raga form.

The uniqueness of our music system lies in these compositions which simply pave way to understand the real raga rupa and the melodic possibilities. The method of preserving compositions came in to use atleast from the times of Veenai Ramanuja Ayya but the notation method was not in a systematic way in those days. The works of the period have no commas or semicolon or any such notational marks. Later a proper method of notating compositions gradually gained currency. Then it became easier to learn any composition in a proper manner.

Many have worked on this and have brought out books containing compositions with easy notations. Shri T.H. Thiyagarajan is one who has involved himself on this and has published the present book containing a chosen list of compositions. It is needless to say that the notation is simple and clear. I wish all success for his endeavour and I hope he will bring more such works in future.

The fine art of music which is popular in Indian subcontinent for centuries has been gaining from strength to strength and becoming very popular especially in the southern part of India and also overseas.

However for those who evince keen interest in learning this art and also those who have considerable skill in music, there is a desire to have a reference book with notation (including of-course the name of the raga and tala), which remains unfulfilled to a larger extent even till date. Hence this book has been brought out for the benefit of carnatic music lovers.

I wish to express my thanks to the proprietor, "Saptaswara Musicals" for his keen interest shown in the preservation and propagation of the art by encouraging me to prepare this book, containing popular songs.