Kiranavali, the granddaughter of the late legendary Gotuvadyam Narayana Iyengar, was born on 2nd Jan. 1973. Her father, N Narasimhan, is a musician of great merit, and has nurtured the musical talents of Kiranavali and her illustrious brothers, Chitravina N Ravikiran and K N Shashikiran. When hardly three years old, Kiranavali was able to identify more than 200 Ràgas and the 175 Tàlas, besides answering numerous technical questions pertaining to Carnatic music. If Indian Express called her "astounding in her precocity" (14 June 1975), the music critic of The Hindu wrote, "More fantastic is the manner in which Kiranavali, the three-year old sister of Ravikiran and Shashikiran is able to tell the Ràga even at the commencement of its outline."
Kiranavali's performing career began at the age of eleven. Both her solo recitals and the duets with her brother, Shashikiran, won the hearts of the knowledgeable and laymen alike. In her quest for excellence, Kiranavali pursued advanced vocal music training under the late Sangita Kalanidhi T Brinda, the highest authority on the works of many a great composer. Under her guidance, Kiranavali has matured into a sensitive musician with a deep commitment to highly refined musical values. At the young age of twenty-eight, she brings a degree of maturity and involvement to Carnatic music that is commensurate with her professional experience of over two decades.
Kiranavali also plays the Chitravina, true to her family tradition. She has performed solo, and has also accompanied Ravikiran. Her concerts have been featured by many leading organisations like the Madras Music Academy, Krishna Gana Sabha, Narada Gana Sabha and Shanmukhananda Fine Arts (Mumbai). The first artiste to be graded high for both Vocal and the Chitravina by AIR and Doordarshan, her music is regularly featured in broadcasts.

What is a scale? A scale is an outline that is arrived at with the permutation and combination of notes. In Carnatic music, we have 72 basic scales called the Melakarta. They are full scales in the sense that they use all the seven basic notes - Sa, Ri, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha and Ni - both in the ascent and descent, which is the fundamental requirement to make the octave complete or sampoorna. In other words, there is no skipping of notes, although the variety of the variable notes (Ri, Ga, Ma, Dha and Ni) may differ.

Let us go into the details. This 72 Melakarta is not a very ancient concept. Although the need to classify similar sounding ragas or scales under a common group was felt a few centuries ago, this concept has finally taken shape in the hands of a great music scholar called Muddu Venkatamakhi. Today the 72 Melakarta scheme is considered one of the most scientific, comprehensive and beautiful schemes in the music systems of the world.

Now how do we get the figure 72? It is very simple and logical. The basic premise is that we need just one variety of each of the seven basic notes. We'll worry about other complex patterns later.

We start by first simplifying the octave into two parts - the Poorvanga and the Uttaranga. The Poorvanga comprises the first four notes, Sa to Ma and the Uttaranga the next 4, Pa to the higher Sa.

Since Sa and Pa are the fixed notes in an octave, we only have to consider the variable notes. The variable notes in the Poorvanga are Ri, Ga and Ma. Since there are only two varieties of Ma, the application of Ma is not difficult. But there are three varieties each of Ri and Ga.

The 16 notes of Carnatic music

• Ri 1 can combine with Ga 1, Ga 2 and Ga 3.

• Ri 2 can combine with only Ga 2 and Ga 3, as Ri 2 shares the same place value as Ga 1.

• Ri 3 can combine only with Ga 3. This is because Ga 2 is the same as Ri 3; and Ga 1 which is actually equal to Ri 2, is lower than Ri 3.

The same principle applies to the Uttaranga where the variable notes are only Dha and Ni. Thus, we get six varieties of the Ri - Ga combination and six of Dha - Ni. The following table shows the six varieties of each:

More about Melakartas in my next article. Meantime, if you have any doubts, please feel free to ask me.