This volume is the culmination of a detailed and Analytical Study based on the individual and stylistic Musical depth of several Vainikas of international repute, who have established an identical scholastic thought and Bani of their own. A seprate Schools of Vainikas is clearly seen as an off shoot of this study. The researcher completed this study during her Master's programme having met and studied in person the innate and singular Music of the living masters and through collecting authentic source materials of other earlier sadhakas. These include Vainikas of the famous schools of Tanjore, Mysore, Karaikkudi, Travancore, Andhra, Dhanam and other lesser known Schools. The individual styles ofVeena Virtuso S. Balachander and his disciples, Veena Maestro Chitti Babu, Emani Sankara Sastri, Mysore Doreswami lyengar etc. There are eight but important chapters devoted to the early, Medieval and modem concert Tradition on Veena, Techniques of different Vainikas including their playing methodology. Tradition and styles of individualistic matrix, notes on lesser known luminaries and well known Vainikas of the four Southern States of India and a detailed study on the major four schools of thought. An individualistic study has also been taken up with the Help of Audio Visual and concert styles of living and earlier contemporaries of Vainikas. This will be the first study in the form of a monograph specifically designed to the study of Veena and its tradition vis-a-vis styles of Vainikas.
About the Author
Dr. L. Annapooma took to Interest in Classical Music at an Young age. She hails from a Family of personalities of literary eminence. Her Father late S. Lakhminarasimhan popularly known as SL was the Head of the department of English at Madura College at Madurai.She completed her Master's degree in Performing Arts from the Madurai University (1979) and earned another Master's degree in Education from Annamalai University. She was awarded the Ph.D. degree in Music by the Kerala University for her Doctoral thesis on "Temple Compositions in South Indian Music" in 1995. During her Master's degree programme she also prepared a Dissertation on the "Tradition and styles of Vainikas" of south India which included a detailed and Analytical Study on the music of early, Medieval and contemporary Vainikas.
