Category: Music

The Journey Inside a Note

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A sitar string is plucked, and we hear its bright beginning. Then the pitch moves. The sound seems to lean, reach and gather feeling before settling. What appeared to be a single note becomes a small journey.

A voice can draw us into a similar experience. We hear a tone approach another, linger around it, or turn through a delicate curve. Our attention follows the movement. Sometimes the most absorbing part of a phrase is the way it travels.

This is one of the pleasures of Indian classical music: a note has a manner of being. Its approach, movement and release can matter deeply to what we hear.

In Hindustani music, meend is a continuous glide between pitches. On the sitar, expressive string bends allow a plucked sound to move through that glide. Its pace and shape can make a phrase feel searching, tender or poised; the feeling belongs to the particular musical moment. Barbican

Carnatic music offers its own rich language of gamakas: characteristic inflections and movements of notes. These are integral to a raga’s expression. In a lecture at the Music Academy, vocalist R. Vedavalli emphasized how closely the note and its gamaka belong together. Learning a raga therefore involves hearing how its notes live within phrases, beyond knowing their names. musicacademymadras.in

The two traditions have distinct musical vocabularies and approaches. Listening across them can sharpen our appreciation of each. A Carnatic vocal phrase may invite us to follow an intricate oscillation; a Hindustani sitar phrase may hold us within a spacious bend. Neither experience needs to be translated completely into words to be enjoyed.

At SRSKA, where we teach Carnatic vocal and Hindustani sitar, we celebrate this attention to the particular. There is much to admire in a dazzling passage, and much to discover in a few sounds shaped with care. Students, families and longtime music lovers can all enter through that discovery.

We might think of how an ordinary word changes when spoken with affection, hesitation or wonder. Music, too, gives us meaning through the manner of its utterance.

What do we hear when we stop waiting for the next note? Perhaps the sound before us is still unfolding—carrying a whole phrase’s worth of feeling within its movement.

On the calendar

-Mani

Music, Thoughts

The Quiet Joy of Coming Back to the Beat

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There is a particular pleasure in hearing a musical phrase find its way home. A voice lingers over a note; a sitar phrase gathers momentum. For a moment, we wonder where the melody is taking us. Then melody and rhythm meet, and the arrival feels both surprising and inevitable.

What makes that moment so satisfying? Perhaps it is the feeling of recognizing something we have been quietly waiting for.

In Indian classical music, tala gives time a recurring shape. It is a cycle of beats, with an internal organization that musicians can explore in wonderfully varied ways. In Hindustani music, for example, teentaal has sixteen beats, and sam, the first beat of the cycle, is an important meeting point. Returning to it can feel like completing a thought while opening the next one. Carnatic music has its own rich systems of tala and rhythmic expression; both traditions invite us to experience time through recurrence, anticipation and arrival.

Yet knowing the terminology is only one doorway into the experience. We might first notice the contrasting sounds: the rounded resonance and crisp articulation of a drum, the sustained curve of a sung phrase, the bright attack of a plucked string. Imagine a Carnatic vocalist leaving a little space around a phrase, or a sitarist stretching a melodic idea across the pulse. That space can become as absorbing as a rush of notes.

At SRSKA, where we teach Carnatic vocal and Hindustani sitar, we cherish the way these musical conversations invite attention to every participant. Listening to the mridangam or tabla can change how we hear the melody. Listening to the melody can change how we hear a rhythmic response. Our attention moves between musicians, discovering relationships that might otherwise pass unnoticed.

There is room here for every listener. Some hear the architecture of a complex passage; others feel its suspense before they can explain it. Both are meaningful ways of entering the music.

Perhaps that is what we can carry into our next listening experience: curiosity about the journey, and a little patience for the arrival. A familiar beat returns. The music has made it feel new.

On the calendar

Events, Music, Thoughts

Music Beyond Distance: Celebrating Our SRSKA Family

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Today, Swara Raga Sudha Kala Academy celebrated its 2026 Annual Day for our remote students—a meaningful reminder that a musical community can flourish across distances. Wherever our students live, their connection to music brings them into a shared world of melody, rhythm, expression, and belonging.

At SRSKA, Carnatic vocal music and Hindustani sitar offer two beautiful pathways into India’s classical traditions. Each has its own musical language, character, and ways of unfolding a rāga. Together, they give our school community so much to cherish: the expressive power of the voice, the resonance of a string, and the joy of discovering how deeply music can move us.

We celebrate our students and thank the families and teachers who support their musical journeys. An Annual Day gives us a moment to recognize what it means to carry these traditions forward, one generation and one musical relationship at a time.

The recording link is available on our Live Stream page. We invite you to watch, share it with loved ones, and celebrate our remote students with us.

That sense of community extends far beyond our school. There are wonderful opportunities ahead to experience Indian classical music:

  • New York — October 17–18: Ragas Live Festival brings 24 hours of music to Pioneer Works in Brooklyn. Its lineup includes Carnatic and Hindustani artists, with Lalgudi G.J.R. Krishnan, Aditya Prakash, Sanhita Nandi, and sitarist Indrajit Banerjee among the performers. Live broadcasts also welcome listeners from afar.
  • Texas — October 9: Austin’s Indian Classical Music Circle presents Niladri Kumaar’s The Space Between the Notes, featuring sitar and zitar.
  • California — October 23: South India Fine Arts has announced its rescheduled Mysore Brothers concert for 6 p.m.—an occasion for Bay Area listeners to celebrate Carnatic violin.
  • Seattle area — October 24: Ragamala Lights Festival at Brightwater Center in Woodinville brings together vocal music, santoor, tabla, dance, and local musicians, with a featured khayal concert by Bharathi Prathap.

Looking toward India, the Music Academy, Madras has announced its 100th Annual Concerts, December 15, 2026–January 1, 2027—a major milestone to look forward to during Chennai’s December music season. Explore the concert program.

From our students’ Annual Day to concert halls around the world, this music lives through the people who sing, play, listen, and care. Today, we celebrate being part of that continuing story.

With love and blessings,
Gurus Usha & Mani Akella

Events, Music

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