Suswaagatham

This blog is an attempt at recording my learnings in my music and dance classes such that it becomes useful for others. I will try and post details about my lessons as well as any pertinent links to it on the day of the class. If you are not into Carnatic music or Bharatanatyam, there's little on this blog that will be useful/interesting to you. Your time may be better spent elsewhere.
The primary purpose of this blog is twofold.
1. Record the classes (notes, steps, related info etc.) so that it maybe useful later on as a reference.
2. Give me something worthwhile to blog about and make this useful for my classmates.
I will try and update this page twice weekly (on Wednesdays and weekends). The primary focus will be on Carnatic music and Bharatanatyam (Tanjore style). I may briefly visit other forms as the need arises. If you have suggestions about what else I could put up please send them my way.

Raagamudra is the name of this blog. It is a combination of two terms

Raaga - This represents the tune of the music. There are hundreds of raagas in the world of music and different raagas have been shown to evoke different emotions. Raaga is the lifeline of Carnatic music and an integral part of bharathanatyam. In fact the ra in bha-ra-tha natyam refers to raaga. bha refers to bhava and tha refers to thala. More in detailed about the carnatic raga system in a later post.

Mudra - Literally means symbol. It is used extensively in bharatanatyam to indicate various objects, emotions, situations etc. Mudras are used in yoga as well and are known to create specific effects when used properly. More in detailed about bharatanatya mudras in a later post.

Together raagamudra means "the symbol of raaga". Dikshitar, one of the sangeetha mummurthis (The music trinity of Carnatic music) uses raaga mudras in a lot of his krithis. This is a technique by which he places the name of the raaga as part of the saahitya without messing up the meaning and some of these require clever manipulations of the language. More about Dikshithar krithis in a later post.

There are a lot of terms in this post that may seem very alien to you but do not worry they will start making sense as soon as I explain more.