| > You add it in your addendum, but I must emphasize that you are extremely biased towards Carnatic. Mea culpa. As a trained Carnatic vocalist and violinist, I let my biases through. However... > Harmony is great, it doesn’t mimic to do the vocal variations - just support the singer doing it as well as possible. But the harmonium in Hindustani doesn't have harmony. I know enough Hindustani music to understand that only melodies are played, and almost never harmonies. Especially when the artiste is performing alap. > use of Harmonium as an accompanying instrument is much more common across the spectrum (both north and south) Like I said, it's far, far more common in Hindustani than in Carnatic. If some South Indian concert uses it, it's usually for bhajans, or, like you said, 'semi-classical' or 'light music'. The violin is de jure and de facto the default accompanying instrument for Carnatic music. > I’ve never seen violin being used in Hindustani. Kala Ramnath, V G Jog, N Rajam, M S Gopalakrishnan (although he was much more famous in Carnatic circles). The violin is not as common as the sitar in Hindustani music, but it definitely exists, and is increasing in popularity... Also owing to the reasons I mentioned. |