How to give chords for Carnatic or Hindustani Music – Basic overview

I love Carnatic or Hindustani music – one of the best music genres in the world (for me!), and very difficult to master!

One of the best concepts I like from western music is Chords – they are so divine! Music directors like M.S Vishwanathan & Ilayaraja introduced Chords to the Carnatic ragams through cinema songs and A R Rahman modernized it and took it to a different level.

One of the things that I notice when parents put their children in keyboard music class in India is that they put them in the Carnatic style of keyboarding, which unfortunately does not focus on chords. I believe that keyboard (ideally piano) should be learnt the western way and not the Carnatic or Hindustani style. If someone can play the keyboard in the western style, it is easy to play Hindustani or Carnatic.

So how to give Chords to Carnatic music? It is actually very simple concept and one does not need to learn the western Chord structure to learn to give chords for Carnatic music, while knowing it definitely helps. Some people will say that Carnatic and Chords are oxymoron, but that’s not the point of discussion today.

What is a chord? For beginners, Chord is a combination of three notes (at least) played together. Chords are usually played on the left, while the melody is played in the right. When you combine chords to the melody the music will sound fuller.

Indian traditional music is very focused on the singing and hence most people only learn how to play the song on a keyboard, like how a singer would sing – hence they learn to play only one note at a time. Chords is played with three notes and more.

In Carnatic music, we learn Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni Sa – and make many ragas out of these notes. In chords, we play three notes together eg: Sa Ga Pa together. Lets take Bilahari Ragam (Raara Venu Gopa Bala song) – Bilahari Ragam has all the seven notes - Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni. Giving chords is easier for this Ragam, as it uses all the notes. What are the three notes combinations we can think of in this Ragam? Two conditions: there should not be two continuous notes in a chord and we should only skip notes for giving a chord (like Sa and Re cannot come together) – this is to simplify how Chords work (when we learn the advanced chords, we can have continuous notes / not necessarily only skip notes).

Notes: Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni

Chord combinations possible as per above rule:

1. Sa Ga Pa
2. Re Ma Dha
3. Ga Pa Ni
4. Ma Dha Sa
5. Pa Ni Re
6. Dha Sa Ga
7. Ni Ri Ma

Now that we know the chords that are possible, how to apply them? Simple – if you know the notes for the song, it is easy to give chords. As a simple rule, all you need is to identify what notes are played maximum in a line and fit those notes to the chords above. Example:

A. Sa Re Ga Pa – Maximum shared notes with Chord 1 above.
(Raa Ra Ve Nu)

B. Dha Sa Ni Dha – Maximum shared notes with Chord 4 and 6 above.
(Go Pa Ba La)

C. Paa Da Pa Ma Ga Re Sa – Maximum shared notes with Chord 1 above.
(Raa Ji Tha Sad Gu Na)

D. Re Sa Ni Dha Sa – Maximum shared notes with Chord 5 and 6 above.
(Ja Ya Shee La)

In the above, lines A and C are simple to identify which chords to use. How to you give chords for B and C above – go by what your ear feels right. Different chords give different mood to the song – as long as the chord fits the mood of the song, go for it! In the above example, I would go with Chord 4 for Line B and Chord 5 for Line D.

With this, you can try to give chords for the rest of the song and let me know how it goes! You can apply this principle on any other song that you know. Try it out!

This lesson is just the beginning and I will write more on how to easily identify chords with more write ups!

If you need any help, please write in the comments section and I will get back to you.

Happy Chording!
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