kriti and keerthana

Ideas and innovations in Indian classical music
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CHELLAM
Posts: 236
Joined: 19 Jun 2006, 23:12

kriti and keerthana

Post by CHELLAM »

can someone explain the difference between a krithi and keerthana

thanks in advance


arasi
Posts: 16774
Joined: 22 Jun 2006, 09:30

Re: kriti and keerthana

Post by arasi »

VKR,
Thanks for bringing back Lakshman's post and of others. A helpful classification of the genres it is. At times, they overlap, of course.
For instance, ODODi vandEn kaNNA! by Ambujam Krishna--though classified as a padam there, wasn't meant to be one in the first place. It was just a kruti. So also her enna solli azhaithAl nI varuvAyO? When dancers popularize songs, do the differences get smudged? I don't really know.

When we were growing up, you remember how folks asked: enne kIrthanai (uruppaDi) katRuk koLgiRAi? (what song are you learning now?). Both meant a song, kruti or whatever!

Lakshman
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Joined: 10 Feb 2010, 18:52

Re: kriti and keerthana

Post by Lakshman »

Thanks VKR for digging up my post from carnatica forum. I had forgotten that I had written and posted it.

Ponbhairavi
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Joined: 13 Feb 2007, 08:05

Re: kriti and keerthana

Post by Ponbhairavi »

when I cliked the reference given by VK Raman. I get the message that it is forbidden. Would Lakshman pl give me a fresh link to his . Thanks
rajagopalan.

rshankar
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Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 22:26

Re: kriti and keerthana

Post by rshankar »

Arasi, when the current crop of dancers (say in the last 20-50 years or so) spearheaded by the KalAkshEtra group, began to move away from performing the more explicit padams, they 'created' or came up with a new class of compostions they called bhakti padams - taking up musically rich compositions, that served the purpose of padams, i.e., provided scope for extensive abhinaya, sans overt and flamboyant SRngAra. Most of Smt. Ambujam Krishna's compositions, SrI Sivan's, SrI Gopalakrishna Bharati's etc. fall under this category.

Rsachi
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Joined: 31 Aug 2009, 13:54

Re: kriti and keerthana

Post by Rsachi »

Kriti is from the Sanskrit word kRti or composition.

kIrtanaM is also a Sanskrit word meaning a form of devotional song singing the glories of God. It is an integral part of nava-vidha bhakti.

Over time, the vast repertoire of CM has come to consist of devotional compositions. Hence the two words are these days, in the context of CM, used with the same meaning = devotional composition.

Ponbhairavi
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Joined: 13 Feb 2007, 08:05

Re: kriti and keerthana

Post by Ponbhairavi »

Rsachi,
Thanks for the clarification

pattamaa
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Joined: 22 Nov 2009, 10:24

Re: kriti and keerthana

Post by pattamaa »

can't open the link - http://rasika.carnatica.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1711

from what i have heard, keerthana is the one which doesn't have original tune, or where tune is not composed with lyrics - like purandara dasa, annamacharya and kriti is what we have triniti, papanasam sivan etc....

harimau
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Joined: 06 Feb 2007, 21:43

Re: kriti and keerthana

Post by harimau »

pattamaa wrote:can't open the link - http://rasika.carnatica.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1711

from what i have heard, keerthana is the one which doesn't have original tune, or where tune is not composed with lyrics - like purandara dasa, annamacharya and kriti is what we have triniti, papanasam sivan etc....
From what I have heard, a keerthana has a Pallavi and several charanams. All charanams follow the same varna mettu or tune.

But then, the three charanams of Sarojadalanetri follow the same varna mettu as do the krithis of Thyagaraja which have multiple charanams.

kvchellappa
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Joined: 04 Aug 2011, 13:54

Re: kriti and keerthana

Post by kvchellappa »

I read this in "A Book of Indian Music" by foreign authors:
"The difference between Kirtana and Kriti is that the parts of the latter are not so distinct from one another as are the parts of the former. Not only so, but in Kritis any number of variations or Sarigatis are allowed. Sometimes there will be as many as twelve different varieties of the same Pallavi. Thyagaraja greatly improved the Kriti. He was very fond of this style and most of his songs are Kritis. In some of them he is said to have exhausted every possible manner of combining the different notes of the raga."

arasi
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Joined: 22 Jun 2006, 09:30

Re: kriti and keerthana

Post by arasi »

You all have my head spinning :oops:
What are all the meanings of kruti and kirtanA in sanskrit? Do they say they are two different things?

Do musicologists differentiate them, do musicians? Or, have they been used interchangeably, and if so, for how long? Finally, what should I call my songs? :roll:

Ravi,
You've given the dance-related usage. Of my songs, what Suryaprakash has sung are different from what Gayathri Girish, Sumitra Nitin and Neela Ramgopal have sung on the CD-s (human context and divine context).
So, folks, repondez sil vous plait?? No, not in a party context but in pATTu context!

Rsachi
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Joined: 31 Aug 2009, 13:54

Re: kriti and keerthana

Post by Rsachi »

Arasi,
whatever you compose is a kriti. For it to become a kIrtana, or keerthane. Or keerthanai. Etc., it should have a direct devotional address to, or a song in praise of, God (Him or Her).
Annapurne Vishalakshi is a good example of a kIrtana.

Giving the nomenclature based on sangatIs or song structure is a merely arbitrary exercise.

Here is the listing of a book of Vasudevacharya's keerthanas:

http://www.amazon.in/Vasudeva-Kirtana-M ... B00JBJT2PA
Last edited by Rsachi on 10 May 2015, 13:23, edited 1 time in total.

vasanthakokilam
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Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01

Re: kriti and keerthana

Post by vasanthakokilam »

Going by the online sanskrit dictionary

kriti: http://spokensanskrit.de/index.php?scri ... =Translate
kIrtana: http://spokensanskrit.de/index.php?scri ... =Translate

As always there are quite a few meanings for these two words, but for our current context, they align with what Sachi wrote above.
There is definitely a pragmatical interpretation that 'kIrtana''s meanings 'singing the glory' or 'praising' etc is by default in the devotional direction when we use this word in the CM context.

But it seems that, strictly speaking, a Kriti in praise of a king is a kIrtana as well.

Pratyaksham Bala
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Joined: 21 May 2010, 16:57

Re: kriti and keerthana

Post by Pratyaksham Bala »

kRti - literary work, poetry
kIrtanA - song in praise

Not all kRti's are kIrtanA.
But, all kIrtanA's are kRti's.

Ranganayaki
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Joined: 02 Jan 2011, 06:23

Re: kriti and keerthana

Post by Ranganayaki »

Pratyaksham Bala wrote:
Not all kRti's are kIrtanA.
But, all kIrtanA's are kRti's.
So are varnams, geethams and tillanas. I think kriti is related to the word "kruta". Thyagarajakruta Jagadanandakaraka for example would be a " Thyagaraja kriti". (Jagadanandakaraka, created or composed by Thyagaraja, is Thyagaraja's creation).

I feel it does not make sense to refer to a song as a kriti without referencing the composer.. I think it makes sense only to say Dikshitar kriti, Thyagaraja kriti. You don't say Ithellam seyal.. you have to say ithellam avan seyal.

This reminds me of a day when I sat in Lalgudi Mama's house where I had accompanied my cousin to his violin class. He was busy with Krishnan and told us both to sit down while Krishnan practised the Vaasanthi Tillana. I listened to the whole session, and it was jaw-droppingly beautiful to me, at 15. I had never heard this piece or anything comparable in beauty and at the end of it, I asked Lalgudi Mama, "Ithu yaaru kriti?" (Aside: To his great credit, Lalgudi Mama did not claim it, he said nothing, what an amazingly sensitive man, blessed with humility). Krishnan told me whose kriti it was and that it was a tillana. But the point of this is that Lalgudi Mama, consummate teacher that he was, did not correct me and say, ithu kriti illai, ithu tillana (as other people have told me at times, confusing me a bit, needing me to give the word kriti a good thought). I know that if I had used a term wrong, he would have corrected me, even though I was not his student.

For our purpose, any artistic creation is a kriti.

kvchellappa
Posts: 3596
Joined: 04 Aug 2011, 13:54

Re: kriti and keerthana

Post by kvchellappa »

Kriti is etymologically related to kritam, but is not a synonym.

jalaruja
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Joined: 09 Oct 2015, 00:54

Re: kriti and keerthana

Post by jalaruja »

As a new comer been spending the last few days reading the various threads. Perhaps I am writing on a topic that has gone cold...

RE: this topic, am unable to access Sri Lakshman's post at http://rasika.carnatica.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1711. So, folks, do forgive me if I am stating the obvious.

Apart from etymological distinctions, I believe that Kriti is primarily a vehicle for musical content, using the sAhityam to carry the limn the rAgam in addition, of course, conveying the poet's thoughts & emotions. It makes no difference whether there are many sangatis or 1 or 3/4/5... caraNams. Keertanams, on the other hand, seem to fall in the bhajana category, where the focus in on using the sAhithyam to glorify the divine (even in nindAstuti / Esal). The melody is simple so everybody may sing with ease, even if they have no / little musical training or aptitude. Of course, one may make it as complicated as one wishes to, in which case others typically join in at the refrain / pallavi. Typically, they will be in madhyama kAlam (as opposed to a viLAmaba kAla kriti)

I realise that the sAhityams need not be limited to praising the divine. Often, the patrons were the subject of a composition.

Colloquially we often use the terms interchangeably saying, "what krithi / keerthana are you learning?"

That said, one can cast tradition to the winds and make a kriti out of a keertanam; attempting the reverse rather boggles my mind...

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