The Oxford Illustrated Companion to South Indian Classical Music

Description :

Celebrated as the most authoritative reference on South Indian classical music, the Companion provides an overview of the historical and cultural contexts of the music, its forms, instruments, composers, leading practitioners, and schools. Fully cross-referenced, the Companion describes and assesses the musical conventions, instrumental music, intonation, embellishment, and tala and rhythm among a host of other topics, and includes detailed biographical notes on composers and musicians. The highly accessible and insightful Preface provides a broad outline of the subject and sensitizes readers to the intricacies of Carnatic music. The rich artwork-comprising more than 100 photographs, colour plates and drawings by S. Rajam, illustrations by V.C. Arun, and staves-add to the appeal of the volume. In addition to staff notation for all the 72 scales (melakarta ragas ) and hundreds of ragas (janya ragas ), this volume carries a special guide to pronunciation and transliteration. Additionally, the Companion comes equipped with a comprehensive bibliography and further reading section, detailed indices of 'ragas and scales' and 'names', and a glossary-cum-index.