Tanjavur Bani

The Tanjavur style is like a huge banyan tree with the following branches:

GAYAKI STYLE

Alipayude Khanna
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mKPoDNrqfU

Gayaki style is akin to singing on the veena – just play on the veena whatever a voice can sing. No extra instrumental like meettus are used. If a normal voice has a range of 1.5 to 2 octaves, the veena player would stick to playing in that range only.

Representative list of artists:
•Veena Dhanammal
•K.P. Sivanandam & Sharada Sivanandam
•Pichumani Iyer
•Vidya Shankar
•Kalpakam Swaminathan
•Padmavathy Ananthagopalan

Characteristics of Gayaki style:
•Gracefulness of the nadam (pitch of veenas in Tanjavur style is slightly lower than that of the Mysore style)
•Less prominence to rhythm based exposition (rhythm based exposition comes from elaborate right hand technique – use of meettus)
•Replicating vocal music and the dynamics of a voice – the pronunciation and accent on each syllable of the sahitya
•Elaborate raga alapana replete with gamakas (grace)
•Leisurely pace

KARAIKUDI STYLE
Rajeshwari Padmanabhan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUe2ae5Xu2M

This style has a little bit of right hand elaborate technique.

Representative list of artists:
•Subbarama Iyer and Sambasiva Iyer (originators)
•Ranganayaki Rajagopalan
•Rajeshwari Padmanabhan
•Prof Subramaniam

Characteristics of Karaikudi style:
•Balance between right and left hand – have an elaborate right hand technique too
•Balance between sliding (horizontal) and pulling the string
•Use of staccato meettu
•Use of talam strings to denote the beat – to keep talam during the rendition of a composition and to provide instrumental effect (to keep the note active to provide some kind of a sustenance to a note and to fill up spaces between two notes) – Strumming of the main bass strings for effect and pulse
•Use of right hand to curb sustain
•Use of janTa notes in tanam
•Rare use of playing three notes together (tribhinnam)
•Split fingering technique


VIDWAN BALACHANDER STYLE

Jagadodharana...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=us4Qgiv2_Xc

Characteristics of this style:
•Use of left hand fingers for lateral pull of the strings over the fret (He believed that veena should always sound different from the guitar. He could pull up to one full octave on one fret)
•Use of the length of sound produced from even a single stroke by packing as many notes as possible before that note dies (He could pull a minimum of 4 notes in a single fret by the deflection of strings)
•Lot of importance to raga alapana (He believed that raga alapana was the pinnacle of a musician’s creativity)
•No meettu in the right hand wasted – Every meettu would have a purpose
•Talam strings would not be used without a meaning. No occasional clang clang of talam strings

•Veena structure redesigned: Open tuning box, use of machine heads/guitar keys to give more precision to tuning and to take less time for tuning, strings pass on a rod and then come to the keys so that the pulling pressure is not on the key but on the rods, metal sheet inside dhandi, bridge made of acrylic material, top place of bridge made of stainless steel (so that it does not crack under pressure when he pulled the string) and grandeur added by usage of decorations