The ‘swara kalpana’ or vice-versa is as exciting to the lay listener as to the musician. While the latter envisages his extempore virtuosity at its best, the former is simply enamoured by the steady rise to a rapid action force by which the musical scale is tossed in various ways and sounds good.
Kalpanaswaram is another aspect of manodharma sangeetam or raga improvisation within a specific tala (beat/count) in which the musician performer improvises in the Carnatic music solfege (sa-ri-ga-ma-pa-dha-ni-Sa), the sapta swara after completing rendition of the kriti/composition (song). The swarakalpana improvisations have been around for at least 200 years, according to musicologists. It is undertaken in a concert, as an exercise in virtuosity; also the swarakalpana serves to enhance the raga-bhava (aesthetic emotion) of a composition.
At the learning stage of vocal/instrumental music itself, the pattern of weaving the swara (solfa syllables) in keeping with the kriti, raga and tala are taught to the pupils of music. Getting it extempore is a matter of experience and constant practice. Usually in the very inexperienced, young musicians, swarakalpana becomes an exercise by rote which is churned out in three cycles of speed (tri-kalai) in order to win appreciation. Over a period of time, the artiste matures in spinning his/her own swara patterns keeping the guidelines in mind. He/she then may not repeat the same set of swaras for a particular raga and kriti which he/she chooses to present at two different concerts; that is where the creativity comes into play along with years of experience with music.
Kalpanaswaram, earlier was performed to the main kriti of the concert; but not any longer. Today, almost all kritis chosen to present at a kacheri are laced with swarakalpana, so much so, swara improvisation has become the sine-quo-non of authentic, in-depth Carnatic singing. A kriti/song sung simply in framed raga sans swarakalpana is like a dance without the nritta (footwork pattern set to jatis). All said and done, the choice of solfege notation (swaras) must adhere to the grammar of the raga. For instance, if the artiste takes a kriti in the raga Hamsadhwani, he/she, while improvising (swarakalpana) has to necessarily omit the Madhyama (ma) and Daivatha (dha) since these two solfa syllables do not occur in the raga. Some ragas have complicated grammatical structure which is challenging while rendering the kalpanaswaram; it poses a test to the virtuosity of the musician taking up such ragas. There are mathematical permutations and combinations in swarakalpana since everything in Carnatic music goes according to the talam (beat). A very beauteous part of the kriti is picked up as a starting point for swarakalpana and the artiste keeps coming back to this line of the lyric chosen after finishing one cycle of swara rendition which first starts in the first cycle of speed; then goes on to the second and finally to the speedy third cycle. And it just cannot drop like a house of bricks on to the audience. The swarakalpana flow has to be brought to a neat close or end and this is done in a cascading manner so that the winding up gives an astounding effect. This winding up is called ‘muktayi’. The muktayi is usually set to a pattern of swaras (korvai) generally appears to be like a solfa syllabic game and very exciting to tune into. A lot more technical jargon goes into the guidelines of swarakalpana like rendering them in ‘sarva laghu’, getting into gati bheda a makutam (crown)-like conclusion, and so on which are more relevant to a musician than to an appreciating audience.
