The violin came to South India from Europe and entered Carnatic music about two hundred years ago. Today it is the usual melodic accompanist in a vocal concert, and a solo instrument in its own right. Carnatic musicians changed how it is held, tuned and played.
How it arrived
Tradition credits two musicians, both students of the composer Muthuswami Dikshitar. His younger brother, Baluswami Dikshitar (born 1786), is said to have learned from a European violinist in Madras, through a patron with access to Fort St George. Vadivelu (born 1810), the youngest of the Tanjore Quartet of brothers, learned from a European in Thanjavur and later served at the Travancore court of Swathi Thirunal, who presented him with an ivory violin. Writers still disagree about which of the two came first. Both stories place the violin’s arrival in the early nineteenth century. It became the usual accompanying instrument only later.
How it is played
A Carnatic violinist usually sits cross-legged on the floor. The scroll rests on the inside of the right ankle, and the body of the instrument lies against the chest or shoulder. With the instrument braced between foot and chest, the left hand is free to slide along the fingerboard. Carnatic melody depends on gamaka, the movement around and between notes, and on a fretless instrument those slides come naturally.
The tuning also differs from Western practice. One common arrangement sets the four strings, from the lowest up, to lower Sa, lower Pa, Sa and Pa, all pitched to the main performer’s tonic. Other adjustments occur.
Two roles
In a vocal concert the violinist follows the singer closely. The violinist plays along with the composition and answers the singer’s improvised passages with passages of their own. In a 2013 interview with Sruti, the senior violinist T. Rukmini said these replies should stay in proportion to what the vocalist has offered.
In the improvised passages, a phrase from the singer is often picked up and returned a moment later in the violin’s own voice.
To place the violin among the other instruments of a Carnatic concert, see Meet the Art Forms.
