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Brihaddeshi
Brihaddeshi is a Classical Sanskrit text, dated ca. 6th to 8th century CE, on Indian classical music, attributed to Mataṅga Muni. It is the first text to speak directly of the raga and to distinguish ''marga'' ("classical") from ''desi'' ("folk") music. It also introduced sargam ''solfège'' (or ''solfa''), the singing of the first syllable of the names of the musical notes, as an aid to learning and performance. (The full names of the notes existed previously, for example as found in Natya Shastra.) The author based his work on Bharata Muni's Natya Shastra. His discussion of musical scales and micro-tonal intervals clarifies Bharata's work, and also clarifies Bharata's terse presentation of many issues related to śruti. The text uses a two-dimensional ''prastāra'' (matrix) to explain how the 7 notes of the octave map into 22 śrutis, with varying distances between notes. It also says that a finer subdivision in microtones has 66 śrutis; and that, in principle, the number of ...
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Shruti (music)
The ''shruti'' or ''śruti'' is the smallest interval of pitch that the human ear can detect and a singer or musical instrument can produce. The concept is found in ancient and medieval Sanskrit texts such as the '' Natya Shastra'', the '' Dattilam'', the '' Brihaddeshi'', and the ''Sangita Ratnakara''. '' Chandogya Upanishad'' speaks of the division of the octave in 22 parts. The ''swara'' differs from the ''shruti'': the ''shruti'' is the smallest gradation of pitch available, while a ''swara'' is the selected pitches from which the musician constructs the scales, melodies and '' ragas''. The ''Natya Shastra'' identifies and discusses twenty two ''shruti'' and seven ''swara'' per octave. It has been used in several contexts throughout the history of Indian music. Recent research has more precisely defined the term ''shruti'', its difference from ''nada'' and ''swara'', and identified positions on a string to play 22 shrutis. The most well-known example of shrutis i ...
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Raga
A ''raga'' or ''raag'' (; also ''raaga'' or ''ragam''; ) is a melodic framework for improvisation in Indian classical music akin to a melodic mode. The ''rāga'' is a unique and central feature of the classical Indian music tradition, and as a result has no direct translation to concepts in classical European music. Each ''rāga'' is an array of melodic structures with musical motifs, considered in the Indian tradition to have the ability to "colour the mind" and affect the emotions of the audience. Each ''rāga'' provides the musician with a musical framework within which to improvise. Improvisation by the musician involves creating sequences of notes allowed by the ''rāga'' in keeping with rules specific to the ''rāga''. ''Rāga''s range from small ''rāga''s like Bahar and Shahana that are not much more than songs to big ''rāga''s like Malkauns, Darbari and Yaman, which have great scope for improvisation and for which performances can last over an hour. ''Rāga''s ma ...
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Indian Classical Music
Indian classical music is the classical music of the Indian subcontinent. It has two major traditions: the North Indian classical music known as '' Hindustani'' and the South Indian expression known as '' Carnatic''. These traditions were not distinct until about the 15th century. During the period of Mughal rule of the Indian subcontinent, the traditions separated and evolved into distinct forms. Hindustani music emphasizes improvisation and exploration of all aspects of a raga, while Carnatic performances tend to be short composition-based. However, the two systems continue to have more common features than differences. The roots of the classical music of India are found in the Vedic literature of Hinduism and the ancient ''Natyashastra'', the classic Sanskrit text on performing arts by Bharata Muni., Quote: "The tradition of Indian classical music and dance known as ''Sangeeta'' is fundamentally rooted in the sonic and musical dimensions of the Vedas (Sama veda), Upanishad ...
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Natya Shastra
The ''Nāṭya Śāstra'' (, ''Nāṭyaśāstra'') is a Sanskrit treatise on the performing arts. The text is attributed to sage Bharata Muni, and its first complete compilation is dated to between 200 BCE and 200 CE, but estimates vary between 500 BCE and 500 CE. The text consists of 36 chapters with a cumulative total of 6000 poetic verses describing performance arts. The subjects covered by the treatise include dramatic composition, structure of a play and the construction of a stage to host it, genres of acting, body movements, make up and costumes, role and goals of an art director, the musical scales, musical instruments and the integration of music with art performance. The ''Nāṭya Śāstra'' is notable as an ancient encyclopedic treatise on the arts, one which has influenced dance, music and literary traditions in India. It is also notable for its aesthetic "Rasa" theory, which asserts that entertainment is a desired effect of performance arts but not t ...
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Swara
Svara or swara (Devanagari: स्वर, generally pronounced as ''swar'') is a Sanskrit word that connotes simultaneously a breath, a vowel, the sound of a musical note corresponding to its name, and the successive steps of the octave or '' saptaka''. More comprehensively, it is the ancient Indian concept about the complete dimension of musical pitch. Most of the time a ''svara'' is identified as both musical note and tone, but a tone is a precise substitute for sur, related to tunefulness. Traditionally, Indians have just seven ''svara''s/notes with short names, e.g. saa, re/ri, ga, ma, pa, dha, ni which Indian musicians collectively designate as ''saptak'' or ''saptaka''. It is one of the reasons why ''svara'' is considered a symbolic expression for the number seven. Origins and history Etymology The word ''swara'' or ''svara'' (Sanskrit: स्वर) is derived from the root ''svr'' which means "to sound". To be precise, the ''svara'' is defined in the Sanskrit ''niruk ...
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Dwaram Bhavanarayana Rao
Dwaram Bhavanarayana Rao () (15 June 1924 – 24 July 2000) was famous Violinist and son of legendary Padmasri Dwaram Venkataswamy Naidu. He is born to Dwaram Venkataswamy Naidu and Venkata Jaggayyamma on 15 June 1924 at Bapatla. He is married to Gummuluri Varadamma. He was educated in Chennai. He was trained by his father, and the late Prof. P. Sambamurthy. He has worked as Principal of Maharajah's Government College of Music and Dance at Vizianagaram from 1962 to 1973. He has also worked as Principal of Government Music College at Vijayawada. He has translated the Brihaddeshi of Matanga Muni, Chaturdandi Prakasika of Pandit Venkatamakhi and Dattilam of Dattila Muni into Telugu language and published it. He was also translated some of the music theory books but they were not in print. He died of Cardiac arrest at his residence in Visakhapatnam on 24 July 2000. He was 76 years of age and is survived by wife, three sons and two daughters. Honours He was the recipient of Andhr ...
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Classical Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late Bronze Age. Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism, the language of classical Hindu philosophy, and of historical texts of Buddhism and Jainism. It was a link language in ancient and medieval South Asia, and upon transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia, East Asia and Central Asia in the early medieval era, it became a language of religion and high culture, and of the political elites in some of these regions. As a result, Sanskrit had a lasting impact on the languages of South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, especially in their formal and learned vocabularies. Sanskrit generally connotes several Old Indo-Aryan language varieties. The most archaic of these is the Vedic Sanskrit found in the Rig ...
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Sargam (music)
Sargam refers to singing the notes, mostly commonly used in Indian music, instead of the words of a composition, with use of various ornamentations such as meend, gamak, kan and khatka, as part of a khyal performance.Sargam
at the This is generally done in medium-tempo as a bridge between the alap and portions. As an example, one could sing PmRSnSRRSRnSPnmPgmnnPmgmRSnS in raga

Solfège
In music, solfège (, ) or solfeggio (; ), also called sol-fa, solfa, solfeo, among many names, is a music education method used to teach aural skills, pitch and sight-reading of Western music. Solfège is a form of solmization, though the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably. Syllables are assigned to the notes of the scale and enable the musician to audiate, or mentally hear, the pitches of a piece of music being seen for the first time and then to sing them aloud. Through the Renaissance (and much later in some shapenote publications) various interlocking 4, 5 and 6-note systems were employed to cover the octave. The tonic sol-fa method popularized the seven syllables commonly used in English-speaking countries: ''do'' (or ''doh'' in tonic sol-fa),''Oxford English Dictionary'' 2nd Ed. (1998) ''re'', ''mi'', ''fa'', ''so(l)'', ''la'', and ''ti'' (or ''si'') (see below). There are two current ways of applying solfège: 1) fixed do, where the syllables are alwa ...
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Bharata Muni
Bharata Muni (Hindi: भरत मुनि) was an ancient sage who the musical treatise '' Natya Shastra'' is traditionally attributed to. The work covers ancient Indian dramaturgy and histrionics, especially Sanskrit theatre. Bharata is considered the father of Indian theatrical art forms. He is dated to between 200 BCE and 200 CE, but estimates vary between 500 BCE and 500 CE.Dace, W. (1963). "The Concept of "Rasa" in Sanskrit Dramatic Theory". Educational Theatre Journal. 15 (3): 249. The ''Nāṭya Śāstra'' is notable as an ancient encyclopedic treatise on the arts, which has influenced dance, music and literary traditions in India. It is also notable for its aesthetic "Rasa" theory, which asserts that entertainment is the desired effect of performance arts but not the primary goal and that the primary goal is to transport the individual in the audience into another parallel reality, full of wonder, where he experiences the essence of his own cons ...
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Scale (music)
In music theory, a scale is any set of musical notes ordered by fundamental frequency or pitch. A scale ordered by increasing pitch is an ascending scale, and a scale ordered by decreasing pitch is a descending scale. Often, especially in the context of the common practice period, most or all of the melody and harmony of a musical work is built using the notes of a single scale, which can be conveniently represented on a staff with a standard key signature. Due to the principle of octave equivalence, scales are generally considered to span a single octave, with higher or lower octaves simply repeating the pattern. A musical scale represents a division of the octave space into a certain number of scale steps, a scale step being the recognizable distance (or interval) between two successive notes of the scale. However, there is no need for scale steps to be equal within any scale and, particularly as demonstrated by microtonal music, there is no limit to how many notes can ...
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Interval (music)
In music theory, an interval is a difference in pitch between two sounds. An interval may be described as horizontal, linear, or melodic if it refers to successively sounding tones, such as two adjacent pitches in a melody, and vertical or harmonic if it pertains to simultaneously sounding tones, such as in a chord. In Western music, intervals are most commonly differences between notes of a diatonic scale. Intervals between successive notes of a scale are also known as scale steps. The smallest of these intervals is a semitone. Intervals smaller than a semitone are called microtones. They can be formed using the notes of various kinds of non-diatonic scales. Some of the very smallest ones are called commas, and describe small discrepancies, observed in some tuning systems, between enharmonically equivalent notes such as C and D. Intervals can be arbitrarily small, and even imperceptible to the human ear. In physical terms, an interval is the ratio between two sonic f ...
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