In a Carnatic concert, an important composition is often preceded by an alapana, an improvised exposition of its raga. There are no lyrics and no tala, and the drums stay silent. An alapana may be a brief sketch or, as the opening of a ragam-tanam-pallavi, last half an hour or more.
No fixed sequence
When the musician and scholar T. Viswanathan analyzed thirty alapanas by five vocalists (published in 1977), he found a shared outline. He also found differences in proportion and order, and no traditional rule for how long any section should last. T. M. Krishna, in A Southern Music (2013), has questioned how standardized the format has since become.
Common tendencies
Many alapanas still follow a recognizable course. They often open with phrases that identify the raga at once, then settle around the middle Sa, the tonic. From there the range widens, usually upward. Groups of phrases dwell on one important note after another until the upper Sa is reached, and some musicians also explore well below the middle octave. Brigas, rapid runs of notes, can break in at any point. The close is typically a shorter descent that comes to rest on Sa or Pa, depending on the raga.
The violinist’s turn
When the singer finishes, the violinist frequently follows with an alapana of the same raga. Listen for which ideas it takes up and where it goes on its own. When the singer’s alapana is short, this turn may be skipped and the composition begins at once.
Not the same as a Hindustani alap
The Hindustani alap is related but is organized differently. In dhrupad and in instrumental music, the unmetered alap moves into a section with a steady pulse but still no tala, called nom-tom in dhrupad and jor on instruments, and instrumentalists may add a fast jhala. Khayal singers usually begin with only a short alap. A Carnatic alapana leads into a composition or, in a ragam-tanam-pallavi, into tanam. For more on how the two traditions begin a performance, see Carnatic and Hindustani: Two Distinct Listening Traditions.
Following along
Follow the register. Notice where the music settles, when it climbs, when the fast passages arrive and when it turns back toward rest.
For more on how a raga is recognized, see A Raga Is More Than a Scale, and for other ways in, see Start Listening.
Featured Image: Sandeep Narayanan, longtime AFA performer.
