Many of us have grown up in India, where we were exposed to Indian classical music in one form or another. However, if you are not from a musically inclined family, the odds are that you perceived classical music to be something esoteric that only a selected few could understand and appreciate. An occasional devotional song or a 'classically tuned' film song would have made you stop and take note. Your curiosity could have been aroused. But, you may have quickly ignored the instinct and made a beeline for the usual pursuits in life. Even if you were interested enough to find out about classical music, you did not know what books to read or who to talk to. Even if you managed to talk to someone, it is likely that the person made you feel inadequate about your lack of musical abilities or proceeded to give you a long lecture about music with a million buzzwords that confused you and weaned you off your curiosity. It is unfortunate that there is an almost total lack of simple, readable, introductory texts on Indian classical music, especially when compared to volumes and volumes of elementary books available on Western Classical music. No wonder an average college-educated person in the USA is at least mildly knowledgeable about Western classical music whereas an average Indian is by and large ignorant about the technicalities of Indian classical music. This primer is a feeble attempt to introduce Karnatic music in a gentle way; in a language presumably we all can understand. I want to be able to rekindle your interest and help you discover some of the 'method' and grammar of Karnatic music. Even though these notes are aimed at introducing Karnatic music, a lot of what I have to say also apply to Hindustani Classical music.
This primer is obviously not meant for experts. I have intentionally kept this text simple. The idea is to introduce the richness of Karnatic music and not to write an encyclopedia. Some of what I will be saying may not be entirely accurate, but the simplicity is more important than dictionary definition of terms. This primer is only intended to get you started and once you are on your own, there are many, many texts you can refer to for all kinds of information. These notes are also not meant to be complete, because I will be using only a minimum of technical terms. I won't even attempt to discuss the 'vaadhi-vivaadhi -samvaadhi' kind of technicalities and lose my reader.
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