The Music of the Melakkar

 Part 3 Melakkar and the breach of the Isai Vellalar borders. As I mentioned in the previous article, there were two distinct aspects to the Carnatic music tradition, the vocal and the non-vocal performers, i.e. the backing instrumentalists. While both were dependent on each other, the development...

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Caste conflicts – Carnatic Music

 Part 2 - Brahmins and Carnatic music Things always look vastly different when viewed in a narrow context, with glaucomic eyes. Add to it a bit of political manipulation and the matter is blown out of proportion, people get riled up and hell breaks loose, like a perfectly serene blue sky...

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Caste ingress into the Musical Realm

 Case 1 – The story of Vedanayagam Sastri There is much talk involving religion and caste in the field of Carnatic music these days, we read about musicians boycotting festivals, of musicians getting castigated for collaborating with other religions, and of the sole book which airs some of these...

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