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gottuvadyam

The Gottuvadhyam also known as the chitravina, is an instrument played in Southern India.  It is us­ually used as a solo instrument in Carnatic sangeet.

Gottuvadhyam has an inter­est­ing construction.  It resembles the saraswati vina in its ge­ne­ral form.  It has six main play­ing strings which pass over the very top of the instrument.  It has three thallam (drone) strings at the side, and a series of sympathetic strings which pass under the main strings.  The approach to tuning is in some ways si­mi­lar to the sitar, in other ways it is si­mi­lar to the saraswati vina, but in many ways it is unique.  It is played with a slide in a man­ner somewhat like a Hawaiian guitar.

The gottuvadyam does not appear to be very old, prob­ably around 100 years old.  It was pop­ularised in the south by Sakharam Rao of Tiruvidaimarudur.  It was later taken up and fur­ther pop­ularised by Narayan Iyengar who was a palace musician of the old state of Mysore.


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