Karnataka Music Questions and Answers

Answer: D

The main talas of Karnatak music are seven.

The Karnatak system uses seven basic talas, the suladi sapta talas: Dhruva, Matya, Rupaka, Jhampa, Triputa, Ata and Eka. Each takes five jatis.

The numbers 108 and 96 count tala varieties in other schemes (the 108 talas of the older texts, for instance), and 10 is not the number of main talas.

The seven are Dhruva, Matya, Rupaka, Jhampa, Triputa, Ata and Eka, and with five jatis each the system gives thirty-five talas, which can be extended further by the gatis.

Answer: B

The term 'vasu' stands for the number eight in the system of bhuta sankhya, where a word stands for a number. There are eight Vasus in the Vedic and Puranic texts, and so vasu is used for eight. Seven, nine and ten are the numbers for other words of the same system, for example the rishis (seven) and the planets (nine), not for vasu. The keyed answer is eight. The other familiar words of the system are the rishis (seven), the grahas or planets (nine) and the directions (ten), which are the numbers in the other options.

Answer: C

The twelve chakras of the melakarta scheme are named Indu, Netra, Agni, Veda, Bana, Rutu, Rishi, Vasu, Brahma, Disi, Rudra and Aditya, in that order, and each chakra is a group of six melakartas. The twelfth chakra is therefore Aditya. The other options sit earlier in the list: Rudra is the eleventh, Disi the tenth and Rishi the seventh. Only Aditya completes the twelve, so it is the keyed answer. The earlier chakras in the list, Indu and Netra, hold the first twelve ragas, and each later chakra adds six more up to the seventy-second.

Answer: A

The key gives one sruti as the value of the vivadi interval. A vivadi note is one that lies a very small interval away from another note of the scale and clashes with it when sounded together, so the gap is the smallest unit, the sruti. The values of two, three and four srutis are the intervals of larger steps, such as the major tone and the minor tone of the scale, which are consonant and not vivadi. The keyed answer is one sruti.

Answer: A

The fiftieth melakarta raga is Namanarayani. In the melakarta scheme the ragas are numbered from one to seventy-two, and the fiftieth falls in the ninth chakra, Brahma, which holds numbers 49 to 54. Visvambhari is the 54th, Gamanasrama the 53rd and Dhavalambari the 49th, so they are the neighbours but not the fiftieth. The keyed answer is Namanarayani. The numbering is a check: the ninth chakra, Brahma, runs from the 49th to the 54th melakarta, so the 50th lies in it and is the second raga of that chakra.

Answer: C

The Tamil epic Silappadikaram was written by Ilangovadikal, the Chera prince turned monk, and it is one of the five great Tamil epics. It tells the story of Kovalan, Kannagi and Madhavi and contains a great deal on ancient Tamil music and dance. Andal and Tirujnana Sambandar are poet-saints of the bhakti period, and Bharathiyar is the modern poet, so none of them wrote the epic. The keyed answer is Ilangovadikal.

Answer: D

The sudda mela of the ancient Tamils is the same as the modern mela Harikamboji, according to the key. The ancient Tamil scale called sudda mela (the pure scale) is matched with the Harikamboji scale in the study of Tamil music. Natabhairavi, Sankarabharanam and Hanumatodi are different melas: Natabhairavi is the 20th, Sankarabharanam the 29th and Hanumatodi the 8th, which are close to western minor, major and a mode of their own and are not the one asked for.

Answer: A

The original name of Manikkavasagar, the Saivite saint who wrote the Tiruvasagam, was Vadavurar, because he was a native of Vadavur. Manikkavasagar means the one whose words are like rubies, a title given to him later. Tayumanavar is a later Tamil saint-poet, Adiyarkkunallar is the commentator on the Silappadikaram, and Andal is the woman poet-saint of the Vaishnava tradition. The keyed answer is Vadavurar.

Answer: A

The composer of the Melaragamalika in seventy-two melas is Maha Vaidyanatha Iyer, according to the key. A ragamalika is a composition sung in a series of ragas, and the 72 Melaragamalika passes through all seventy-two melakarta ragas. Patnam Subramanya Iyer, Pallavi Seshayyar and Subbarama Iyer are other composers of the Karnatak tradition, each known for other works, so they are not the composer asked for. The keyed answer is Maha Vaidyanatha Iyer.

Answer: C

The word Sri comes in the bhuta sankhya, the system in which a word stands for a number, so that melakarta names can be decoded. In that system Sri stands for the number one. The sapta tala scheme is a set of seven talas, the chappu talas are a group of four talas of a different kind, and shodasa swaras are the sixteen notes of the old scale, so none of these is a number scheme in the same sense. The keyed answer is Bhutha Sankya.