Musical variety in the nottusvara sahitya genre of Dikshitar

Although all songs in the nottusvara sahitya genre of Dikshitar are in the major scale, sans gamaka and other Indian melodic ornamentation, there is quite a bit of variety in the collection. 

There are some jigs and reels in the repertoire of 39 songs. The best illustration of  a reel is Jagadisa guruguha, whose original is known as Lord Mcdonald’s reel.

Mucukunda varada and guruguhapada amongst others easily fit the contour of a jig.

There are marches such as the one that is the basis of santatam pahimam, i.e. God Save the King – the national Anthem of the British, which morphed into ‘My country tis of thee’ in the United States.

Of particular interest is dasarate, which is based on a planxty written in honor of Fanny Poers. I shall write more about it later.

There are a whole range of  waltzes from somaskandam to santatam govindarajam with its scale changes and the like

We can thus conclude that there is a lot of variety in the nottusvara sahityas although they are all based on the major scale.

There is plurality in the deities addressed. There is plurality in the number of temple towns addressed. There is variation in rhythmic construct. There is quite a bit of lyrical sophistication in svarasahityas such as cintaye and santatam govindarajam.

Given all this, the entire repertoire of svarasahityas is an interesting collection of songs to listen to.

Tags: Jigs, Muthusvami Dikshitar, Muthuswamy Dikshitar, Nottusvara sahityas, Reels, variety, waltzes