Hindustani (North Indian) vs. Carnatic (South Indian) Classical Music

David Beardsley wrote:
>Since you know a bit about South Asian classical
>music, care to comment on what makes North differ from
>South. A bit of topic for the tuning list, but I'm curious.

Dear David, et al,

I have written to a south Indian friend who is an excellent Carnatic
vina (veena) player (who also knows a lot about Hindustani classical
music) asking for help answering this question. If/when he replies I
will forward his response, but in the meanwhile let me give my poor
answer as interim reading material:

Carnatic music has been less influenced by external musical influences
than Hindustani music has, since it was the northern part of India to
which both invaders and traders from outside India first came. This is
the reason for at least some of the differences in the two systems.

Carnatic (South Indian) classical music differs from Hindustani (North
Indian) classical music in many ways including the ways of constructing
(and conceptualizing) scales (hence this is not completely off-topic for
this list). The two traditions have different ragas (roughly: modal
structures), different talas (rhythmic cycles), and different song
forms. On the other hand, there are some similarities: for instance,
some of the ragas are common to both systems (though often they go by
different names), much of the Sanskrit-based terminology is common (or
at least similar), etc.

Warning: from here on out I assume some knowledge of Hindustani music
terminology... :-)

While Hindustani ragas are often classified in a haphazard (IMHO) system
of 10 thaats based on the set of notes used in the raga, Carnatic ragas
are classified into a more precise system of 72 melakartas based on the
combinations of upper and lower tetrachords used in the ragas.

In Hindustani music there are conceptually 7 base notes, with Re, Ga,
Ma, Dha, and Ni having two forms, giving a total of 12 note names:
Sa
Komal Re
Re
Komal Ga
Ga
Ma
Tivra Ma
Pa
Komal Dha
Dha
Komal Ni
Ni
---
Sa

In Carnatic music, there are again conceptually 7 base notes, but while
Ma can still have only two forms, Re, Ga, Dha, and Ni can have *three*
forms, for a total of 16 forms, which actually map down to only 12
distinct pitches:

Sa
Ra
Ri Ga
Ru Gi
Gu
Ma
Mi
Pa
Dha
Dhi Na
Dhu Ni
Nu
---
Sa

For an example of why this is conceptually useful, this multiple-mapping
nomenclature allows one to have two notes that in Hindustani terms would
be "komal re" and "re" ("shuddh re") in the same scale by calling them
"ra" and "ga" and thus getting around the guideline of only one form of
a given base note in a given scale. :-)

With this system of notation (and the constraint of one form of each
base note per scale), the lower tetrachord of a scale can have 12
possible forms and the upper tetrachord of a scale can have six possible
resulting in 72 possible melakarta.

I hope this was of interest. If my friend writes more I'll be sure
to forward it to the list.

Cheers,
Christopher