A documentary essay on rhythm, melody, tradition, creativity and the freedom within form

Taalam—rhythm—has always fascinated me.
I have often felt that rhythm gives Music a certain definition. Melody can be expansive, fluid and free. But when rhythm enters, something changes. Melody acquires movement, proportion and direction. The two have always lived together.
But somewhere along my musical journey, a different question began to occupy me:
Can rhythm itself become melody?
Not merely: can a melody be composed in a particular Tala? That has always been fundamental to our tradition.

My question was different. Could the inherent architecture of a Tala become the source of the melodic idea itself? Could melody be constructed in such a way that the Tala is not merely kept alongside it, but actually becomes perceptible through the movement of the melody? Could one, in a sense, hear the Tala through the melody?
That question became the beginning of Taala Pravaham.

Seven Talas. Five Jatis. Thirty-Five Possibilities.

My exploration led me into the architecture of the Suladi Sapta Talas: seven fundamental Tala structures—Dhruva, Matya, Rupaka, Jhampa, Triputa, Ata and Eka—each taking five Jatis: Tisra, Chaturasra, Khanda, Misra and Sankirna.

Seven multiplied by five. Thirty-five distinct rhythmic structures.
Each of these thirty-five combinations carries an individual name. The nomenclature below is the working traditional list used for this documentation.

Tala Jati Named Form
Dhruva Tisra – Mani
Dhruva Chaturasra – Srikara
Dhruva Khanda – Pramana
Dhruva Misra – Purna
Dhruva Sankirna – Bhuvana

Matya Tisra – Sara
Matya Chaturasra – Sama
Matya Khanda – Udaya
Matya Misra – Udirna
Matya Sankirna – Rava

Rupaka Tisra – Cakra
Rupaka Chaturasra – Patti
Rupaka Khanda – Raja
Rupaka Misra Kula
Rupaka Sankirna Bindu

Jhampa Tisra – Kadamba
Jhampa Chaturasra – Madhura
Jhampa Khanda – Cana
Jhampa Misra – Sura
Jhampa Sankirna – Kara

Triputa Tisra – Sankha
Triputa Chaturasra – Adi
Triputa Khanda – Duskara
Triputa Misra – Lila
Triputa Sankirna – Bhoga

Ata Tisra – Gupta
Ata Chaturasra – Lekha
Ata Khanda – Vidala
Ata Misra – Loya
Ata Sankirna – Dhira

Eka Tisra Sudha
Eka Chaturasra Mana
Eka Khanda Rata
Eka Misra Raga
Eka Sankirna Vasu

Of these, one name is familiar to practically every Carnatic musician and Rasika: Adi Tala—Chaturasra Jati Triputa Tala. But around that familiar space existed thirty-four other possibilities. I found that irresistible.

Entering Without a Map
Naturally, I began searching for reference points. What compositions existed in these structures? What could I listen to? Was there something that would indicate how some of these less frequently encountered Tala structures behaved when they became Music? For several of them, I could find very little that could serve as a compositional reference. Initially, that appeared to be a limitation. Then I realised that it was freedom. There was no map. There is a lovely Tamil word—’Pudaiyal’. Hidden treasure. The journey began to feel a little like that. You sense that something may be buried somewhere, but nobody has given you the map. There is certainly no convenient ‘X’ marking the spot. So you begin digging. A phrase appears. You follow it. Something does not work. You discard it. Another possibility appears. And gradually, somewhere between knowledge, instinct, rhythm, melody and curiosity, something begins to take shape. I wasn’t trying to reach a musical destination I already knew. The search itself had become the journey.

The First Principle
When I began composing Tisra Jati Dhruva Tala in Naattai, there was one principle on which I would not compromise: The Tala had to reveal itself through the melody. I did not want to compose an attractive melody and subsequently fit it into an unusual rhythmic cycle. That would defeat the enquiry. The rhythmic architecture itself had to participate in the birth of the melodic idea. This changed the compositional process considerably. A large part of our Carnatic repertoire has a profound relationship between melody and Sahityam. The word naturally influences the articulation, emphasis, length and direction of a phrase. Sahityam also possesses a certain elasticity within rhythm. A word or syllable can sometimes be extended, contracted or distributed across rhythmic space, allowing the lyrical phrase to find its relationship with the Tala cycle. But here, there was no Sahityam to provide that elasticity. The challenge—and eventually, the excitement—was entirely different. The melody itself had to possess the rhythm. I did not want a melodic phrase that could subsequently be adjusted to fit the Tala. I wanted the phrase to emerge in such a way that its melodic movement and the movement of the Tala were inseparable. This brought me to the deeper meaning of Laya. For me, Laya in this context was not merely keeping time, counting beats or arriving correctly at the beginning of the next cycle. It was a state of fusion—a melodic thought becoming so completely integrated with the movement of the Tala that neither felt imposed upon the other. The melody was not sitting inside the Tala. It was moving as the Tala. That was a significant moment in the Taala Pravaham journey. Once this became possible, the rhythmic structure stopped behaving like a container into which Music had to be fitted. The Tala became an active part of the compositional imagination itself.

And suddenly, the instrument had another kind of freedom. The violin could think as a violin.

A phrase could be intensely melodic and intensely rhythmic at the same time. It could travel across octaves. It could move through different speeds. A Korvai could become part of the composition rather than merely an addition to it. A composition could contain multiple Chittaswarams if its musical architecture demanded them. Mathematical expressions could arise within melody without announcing themselves as mathematics. The composition did not have to conform to a predetermined mould. The Music could discover its own structure.

Discovering the Raga Again
Something even more exciting began to happen. The absence of Sahityam did not diminish the Raga. In this instrumental exploration, it sometimes gave the Raga another kind of space. A phrase could be allowed to travel according to its own musical logic rather than being compelled to arrive at a particular syllable or word. This gave me enormous freedom in exploring Raga phraseology. Suruti could remain Suruti for as long as the phrase required. Saveri could retain its austerity. Anandabhairavi could curve, linger and breathe. Punnagavarali could inhabit its extraordinary inwardness. Ahiri could reveal its delicacy and depth. These are Ragas with strong personalities and enormous musical memory. And yet they could enter unfamiliar rhythmic architectures without surrendering their identity.
Rhythmic complexity need not produce complicated-sounding Music. Mathematics need not announce itself as mathematics. The Tala need not sit heavily upon the Raga. And the Raga need not compromise its phraseology to accommodate the Tala. At their finest moments, each could illuminate the other. After more than five decades of living with this Music, to encounter familiar Ragas from an unfamiliar direction was an extraordinary experience.

Freedom and Discipline
This brought me to something I have believed for much of my life. Music and life seem to share two governing principles: Freedom and Discipline.
Melody offers freedom. Rhythm provides discipline. We often imagine the two as opposing forces. But genuine discipline need not reduce freedom. It can give freedom direction. Taala Pravaham became a very physical experience of that philosophy. I had enormous compositional freedom. But the Tala was uncompromising. Its architecture had to remain intact. Strangely, that discipline did not imprison the melody. It made the freedom more beautiful. And slowly, the original question began finding an answer. The listener did not always have to count the Tala. The melodic phrase itself could carry its rhythmic architecture. The Tala could be heard through the melody.

Thirty-Five Compositions — Not Thirty-Five Exercises
Taala Pravaham could never become a catalogue of thirty-five exercises demonstrating rhythmic competence. Every composition had to stand independently as Music.
It had to possess identity. It needed movement and repose. It needed proportion, anticipation and release. It needed possibilities for performance and improvisation. It needed recall. Most importantly, the Raga could never become secondary to the intellectual attraction of the Tala. The choice of Ragas therefore became central to the journey: Naattai, Kambodhi, Poorvikalyani, Shankarabharanam and Bhairavi; Gowla, Hamsanadham, Suruti, Saveri and Kalyani; Bilahari, Varali, Nattaikurinji, Punnagavarali; Anandabhairavi, Begada, Ahiri; and many others across the thirty-five compositions. These Ragas do not permit superficial treatment. The challenge was not to make a Raga accommodate an unusual Tala. The challenge was to allow the Tala to reveal another possibility within the Raga without disturbing the essential identity of the Raga. That required restraint as much as imagination.

The Freedom Within the Form
And this, perhaps, became one of the most important revelations of Taala Pravaham. Creativity does not necessarily require us to step outside the science of an art form. There is sometimes an assumption that for tradition to become contemporary, we must move away from its grammar, borrow another musical language or search outside it for freshness. I have never felt that to be necessary. The world within Shastriya Sangeet itself is immense. Its Ragas, Talas, phraseology, aesthetics, mathematics, improvisational possibilities and instrumental expressions form a landscape far larger than what any one lifetime can completely explore. What appears to be a boundary may simply be the edge of what we have explored so far. Taala Pravaham did not require me to leave the musical science of the art form in search of another idiom. The attempt was precisely the opposite: to travel deeper within. Can an unfamiliar Tala produce a memorable melody? Can mathematical structures become aesthetically beautiful? Can Korvais become compositional architecture? Can instrumental Music discover structures that are not governed by Sahityam? Can ancient Ragas reveal another dimension when they encounter rhythmic architectures rarely explored in concert repertoire? Again and again, the answer came through the Music. Tradition was not the boundary. Tradition was the landscape. Innovation does not always mean breaking away. Sometimes innovation is the consequence of looking deeply at something that has existed for centuries and recognising a possibility within it that has remained unexplored. The grammar can remain intact. The aesthetics can remain uncompromised. The identity of the Raga can remain profound. And yet, the Music can be completely new. Perhaps the real boundary of an art form is not its tradition. It is the limit of our imagination.

When Music Arrives
Of course, composition is not entirely an intellectual process. One experience during Poorvikalyani remains particularly vivid. While composing the Khanda Jati Dhruva piece, I had completed the earlier sections but had not found the Chittaswaram. It was late, so I stopped and went to sleep. Around five or five-thirty the following morning, I woke with the entire Chittaswaram playing within me. Not an idea for it. The passage itself. I immediately recorded it. Experiences such as these have made me increasingly careful about the word creation. We work. We study. We bring knowledge, experience, instinct and discipline. We must give ourselves completely to that process. But sometimes, after all the work has been done, something else happens. Music arrives. I happened to be available.

One Tala. One Concert.
At some point, the scale of the project changed. Why stop with individual compositions? Why not allow each Tala to become an entire concert? Five Jatis. Five compositions. One Tala. One complete concert. Dhruva became one concert. Then Matya. Rupaka. Jhampa. Triputa. Ata. And finally, Eka. The thirty-five compositions were becoming seven complete concert productions. But that introduced another test. A composition may be interesting in the room in which it was created. Can it survive the stage? Can it sustain attention? Can it expand? Can it allow improvisation? Where does it breathe? Where does it gather momentum? Where does rhythm take prominence? Where does silence become necessary? Can a Kambodhi, Poorvikalyani or Bhairavi created within an unfamiliar rhythmic architecture still carry the majesty expected of those magnificent Ragas? These questions could no longer be answered at home. The stage had to answer them.

Complexity Without the Burden of Complexity
How do you present a complex musical idea without making the listener feel the weight of its complexity? The audience should experience Music. Not a mathematics lesson with instruments. A listener should not have to know what a Laghu is. One need not identify the Jati. One need not count every beat. Those who wish to examine the architecture should find considerable depth beneath the surface. But knowledge cannot become the price of admission to experience.

My mantra for a concert has always been simple:
Entertainment. Education. Elevation. In equal measure.
The grammar may belong to the musician. The experience belongs to everyone.

When the Stage Answered
The Dhruva Tala concert at JSS Auditorium, Bengaluru, became the first major test. The auditorium was packed. There is a moment in some concerts that cannot be planned or rehearsed. Artist and audience begin as two entities. Then something changes. The distance disappears. Somewhere during that concert, we felt it. The audience had crossed over. They were with us. The standing ovation at the end was deeply gratifying. But more than the applause, what mattered was what that moment represented. An enquiry had become a composition. The composition had become a production. And the production had reached the listener. Taala Pravaham had become concert Music.

Success Is Also a Question
Dhruva gave us an extraordinary high. It also raised the bar immediately. Next came Matya. Having begun Dhruva with Naattai, my mind instinctively moved towards Gowla. Perhaps decades of performing the Pancharatna Kritis had quietly placed that progression somewhere within my musical memory. Then came Hamsanadham, Suruti, Saveri and Kalyani. The journey continued. But it could not merely repeat itself. Every Tala had to reveal another possibility. Every Raga had to bring another colour. Every concert had to become another experience. Tradition, when understood deeply, does not stand in the way of exploration. It becomes the strength from which exploration can begin.

When the Concert Itself Began to Change
Eventually, the enquiry moved beyond composition. If the Music could find another path, why should the concert remain exactly where convention had placed it?
I wanted everything a Carnatic concert offers—Raga, melody, rhythm, improvisation, virtuosity, spontaneity and dialogue—but woven into a continuous journey.
Even the percussion solos could be reconsidered. Why should rhythm have to wait for a separate Tani Avartanam before taking centre stage? Why couldn’t its individual moments emerge organically within the compositions themselves? Rhythm did not need to step outside the composition to have its say. By Rupaka Tala—with Bilahari, Varali, Nattaikurinji, Keeravani and Punnagavarali—the production itself was evolving. Nattaikurinji and Punnagavarali were particularly fascinating. Their phrase-oriented personalities settled into unusual rhythmic spaces almost as though they had been waiting for them. The Sankirna Jati Punnagavarali even acquired the character of a Swarajati. Taala Pravaham was no longer merely exploring compositions. It had begun exploring the architecture of the concert itself.

When the Listener Began Waiting
Then something happened that meant a great deal to me. People began asking: ‘When is the next Taala Pravaham?’ The exploration had found an audience. More importantly, the audience had begun anticipating the exploration. That led us to another question. Why should every concert simply announce: All are welcome?
Why not ticket the concert? A ticket is not merely the price of a seat. It acknowledges value—the Art, the artist, the co-artists, the rehearsal, auditorium, sound, lighting, production and the enormous invisible effort required to create an artistic experience. So we ticketed the Jhampa Taala Pravaham concert. It sold out within days.
Our Rasikas welcome new ideas. It does not ultimately matter whether the underlying idea is simple or complex. What matters is how it is presented—its attractiveness, integrity, connection and the journey created between artist and listener. But there is no formula for that connection. As artists, our responsibility is to give ourselves completely to the Music. The effort must be more than one hundred percent. And then, strangely, we must surrender. Because that final moment when Music, artist and listener become one experience cannot be manufactured. Perhaps, in that space between effort and surrender, the Divine steps in. An Idea May Begin Alone. A Journey Cannot. No project of this scale belongs to one person. An idea may begin in one mind. But for that idea to travel from imagination to composition, from rehearsal to stage, and finally to an audience, it requires many minds, many hands and many hearts. I have been extraordinarily fortunate. First and foremost, my best half, Veena maestro Jayanthi Kumaresh—my companion, critic and musical sounding board. Through this entire journey, she has helped me see the larger picture: the musical insights, the presentation, the flow of a concert, and sometimes simply the direction in which an idea needed to move. Her ability to be deeply inside the Music and yet step outside it and look at the production objectively has been invaluable.

Then there is the wonderful family that grew around Taala Pravaham—Deepa, Tejas, Ajay, Rohit, Manisha and so many others—people who gradually stopped merely helping with a project and began owning it. Vaibhav occupied a particularly important space in the musical journey. He played through the concerts with me, sat through the compositional process, notated ideas and became, in many ways, my musical recorder and memory. With thirty-five compositions evolving over time, there were occasions when I would arrive at a phrase believing I had discovered something new, only for Vaibhav to quietly remind me, ‘Sir, you have already done this.’ That kind of meticulous documentation, attention and musical involvement became invaluable. Rutha was another constant presence—coming to rehearsals, putting Taalam, absorbing the structures and becoming part of the rhythmic life of the production. Her involvement extended to the stage as well, including the presentation of Taanam. It is this kind of quiet, sustained participation behind a production that audiences may not always see, but without which the final experience cannot take shape.
Giridhar Udupa was there from the beginning, helping us think through each production—not only as an extraordinary percussionist, but as someone constantly engaged with how the larger idea could be shaped and presented. His suggestion that all the percussionists who had travelled through the series should return for the Eka finale eventually gave that concert its defining character. Jayachandra Rao brought his musicianship as well as his generous support with the many practical and logistical requirements that inevitably accompany a project of this scale. Somu was a constant source of support with microphones, sound, equipment and the technical needs that allow the Music on stage to reach the listener as it should.

JSS and Kayla Samaja extended their support through auditoriums, rehearsal spaces and the many practical accommodations required to build these concerts. Mr. Ramani’s support through the journey was equally valuable. And surrounding all of us was a much larger family—our students, their parents, friends, colleagues, well-wishers and, finally, the Rasikas who came concert after concert and gave the entire exploration its reason to exist. My co-artists were never simply performers executing an idea placed before them. They entered the thought behind Taala Pravaham. They questioned, suggested, experimented and brought their own formidable musicianship and imagination into it. That is when collaboration becomes something deeper. The idea stops belonging to one person. Looking back, I may have initiated Taala Pravaham. I may have composed the Music and imagined its possibilities. But I could never have carried a journey of this scale alone. I may have imagined the journey. But we travelled it together.

The Final Challenge: Eka
And eventually, after six Talas and thirty compositions, we arrived at the finale: Eka. Curiously, the Tala that looked structurally simplest became one of the greatest compositional challenges. One Laghu. Nothing else. After travelling through all those rhythmic architectures, I found myself confronting simplicity. What was I going to compose here? What kind of Music could emerge from this apparently one-dimensional structure? And for Sankirna Jati Eka, I wanted something more. It was the final composition of the final concert. It had to carry the journey. During our discussions, Giridhar Udupa offered a beautiful idea: why not bring together the percussion artists who had participated through the Taala Pravaham series? Immediately, the finale found its character: multiple Mridangams, Ghatams, Kanjiras, and a larger group of violinists, including some of my students. But simply putting everyone on stage would not make it Music. The architecture had to remain clear. So the composition travelled through different combinations of percussion and melody. Different groups entered, conversed and withdrew. Each combination revealed another colour. And finally, everyone came together. What remains with me from that experience, however, is not the number of musicians on stage. It is the camaraderie. These were formidable musicians in their own right—artists with individual identities, experience and stature. Yet everyone sat together exchanging ideas: ‘You try this.’ ‘Let us answer it this way.’ ‘What if we divide this section differently?’ There was no insecurity about ownership. Only Music.
And suddenly I realised that Eka Tala had produced something I had not consciously planned.

Eka had become Ekam.
Many artists. Many instruments. Many musical minds. One Music.
There could have been no more appropriate way for Taala Pravaham to arrive at its finale.

What Taala Pravaham Ultimately Revealed.

Taala Pravaham began with one question: Can rhythm become melody?
That question eventually became thirty-five compositions across the Suladi Sapta Talas and their five Jatis: thirty-five individual rhythmic architectures, thirty-five attempts to discover a melodic life within them, and seven complete concert productions. But numbers tell only one part of the story. For me, the deeper journey was about possibility. It was about discovering how far one can travel within an art form without having to step outside its science. It was about discovering that complexity can become beauty. That mathematics can disappear into melody. That an ancient Raga can reveal something fresh without surrendering its identity. That an instrument can discover its own compositional language. That a concert format itself can evolve while retaining everything that gives the tradition its depth. That freedom becomes meaningful when it meets discipline. And perhaps most importantly: tradition contains far more future than we sometimes give it credit for. I did not begin Taala Pravaham with the intention of proving anything. I began with curiosity. After more than five decades on the concert stage, I still wanted to ask a question for which I did not already know the answer. Experience should not merely give us answers. It should give us the courage to ask better questions. The thirty-five Talas provided the architecture. The Ragas gave them colour, depth and personality. The musicians gave them movement. The team gave the idea form. The Rasikas gave the journey meaning. And somewhere through all of this, a question became a body of Music.

I began by asking: Can rhythm become melody?
How much more is still waiting to be discovered within the Music we think we already know?
That question excites me even more.

Perhaps Taala Pravaham is not really the conclusion of an exploration. Perhaps it is an invitation to the next one.

Kumaresh Rajagopalan  |