Tamil Music

Art of Music

The ancient Tamils possessed a highly developed system of music and musical instruments. Their musical culture was at a high level. Works dealing exclusively with the science of music were written during the Sangam period, but were lost long ago. The Silappthikaram of the second century A. D. throws flood of light on the music of the Tamils. Music in Tamil nomenclature is isai. They had five kinds of Pans (specific melody type), namely Mullai, Kurinji, Marudham, Neythal and Palai. Apart from this, they had seven musical notes, viz., Kural, Thuttam, Kaykkilai, Uzhai, Ili, Vilari and Tharam. These seven notes might be roughly equated with the seven modern musical notes sa, ri, ga, ma, pa, dha,and ni (saptha svaras ‘seven notes’). Tamil books associate the following animals and birds with the saptha svaras:sawith beetle, riwith parrot, gawith horse, mawith elephant, pawith cuckoo, dhawith cow, and niwith goat.Whereas the Sanskrit tradition of Bharata compare saptha svaras with the cries of animals and birds, viz., sawith peacock, riwith cow, gawith goat, mawith heron, pawith Indian nightingle, dhawith horse, and niwith elephant. Through the Sangam works one can learn that the Tamils had many musical instruments. They had their famous yazhs (kind of harps). Sagotta yazh, Peri yazh, Siri yazh, Mahara yazh, Sengattu yazh, and are the names denoting different kinds of yazhs. Sagotta yazh was a stage instrument. Peri yazh was a large harp consisting of twenty-one strings while Siri yazh with seven strings. Among all yazhs, Peri yazh and Siri yazh seems to be very ancient. Music was always associated with dancing in a ncient times.

 The treatment of music as an independent of its relation to dancing is found only in later works after Silappathikaram. It appears that in the period of Nayanmars and Alwars, the native system of music was retained with some deviations. Some of the pans are still used in the recitals of the Devaram hymns. In the year 1943 the patron of Tamil language, literature and arts, Dr. Raja Sir Annamalai Chettiar started the Tamil Music Academy at Chennai and thereby he attempted to restore and enrich the Tamil music.