Nadaswaram
நாதஸ்வரம்
Also Nagaswaram, Mangala vadyam.
Instrument Tamil Nadu
What it is
The nadaswaram is the double reed wind instrument of the Tamil temple and the Tamil wedding, and it is the loudest acoustic instrument in Indian music, built to be heard across a temple compound and down a procession street without amplification. It is classed as mangala vadyam, an auspicious instrument, and is played at weddings, temple processions and the opening of anything. It is always played in a pair with the thavil, a barrel drum, and the two together are the periya melam, the big ensemble.
How it is built
About two and a half feet of blackwood with a conical bore, seven finger holes and five more below for tuning, with a metal bell at the end and a small reed on a staple at the top. Circular breathing is mandatory: the player breathes in through the nose while pushing air out of the cheeks, so the sound never stops for the length of a piece. The same ragas and compositions as Carnatic vocal music are played, and a good nadaswaram vidwan is judged on raga alapana exactly as a singer is. Mallari, a piece in the raga Gambhiranata, is the processional form.
How it is learnt
The question a family actually has
Begun at eight or ten, often in a hereditary family of the Isai Vellalar community. Circular breathing is learnt first, practised by blowing bubbles through a straw into water until the stream is unbroken for minutes. The embouchure takes years and the reeds are made by the player. Training is by ear, with the teacher playing a phrase and the student returning it. A decade or more brings a player into the melam, and the lead position comes much later. The physical demand is such that careers can be shortened by it.
Whose lineage is whose
Where a claim is contested, by whom
The great twentieth century name is T. N. Rajarathinam Pillai, who brought the instrument from the procession to the concert platform and lengthened it for a fuller tone, and the Thiruvavaduthurai and Thiruvizhimizhalai lines are the ones usually named after him. The players came overwhelmingly from the Isai Vellalar community, the same community as the nattuvanars and the devadasis, and the social changes of the twentieth century that ended the devadasi system affected these families too. Fewer young players enter now, and the profession’s decline is a live concern in the Tamil music world.
Worth knowing
Breathing without stopping
A nadaswaram phrase can run for minutes without a break, which is impossible with ordinary breathing. The player fills the cheeks, pushes that air through the reed with the facial muscles, and breathes in through the nose at the same time, so the stream is continuous. Students practise it with a straw and a glass of water until no bubble pauses. It is the first thing learnt and the thing that most often defeats a beginner, and it is why the instrument can carry a two hour temple procession.
The mallari at the door
When the deity is brought out of the sanctum the melam plays mallari, in Gambhiranata, and the piece is matched to the stage of the procession: a different mallari for the deity emerging, for the circuit of the street and for the return. A Tamil temple audience knows where the procession has got to from the music without seeing it. The pieces are not announced and are not written down in any score the players use; they are known.
Where the regions differ
- Tamil
- Kerala
- Telugu
- Kannada
- North
- Maharashtra
- Bengal
- Punjab
- Assam
- Sri Lanka
- Nepal
- Gujarat
- Odisha
- Mithila
- Kashmir
- Tulu Nadu
- manipur
- rajasthan
- konkani
- sindhi
- jharkhand
- himalayan
- kodava
- Tamil Nadu
- The temple and the wedding across the state, with the Thanjavur delta lines and the periya melam of nadaswaram and thavil.
- Andhra and Telangana
- Played as the nagaswaram in the Andhra temples with the same repertoire and a slightly different instrument.
- Kerala
- The Kerala temples use the kurumkuzhal and the nagaswaram in the kshetram ensembles, alongside the panchavadyam.
- Sri Lanka
- Carried to the Tamil north and east and to the diaspora, where the melam still plays at weddings.
Connected to
Deities
Festivals
Temples
Related arts