The Gamakas ornaments are believed to have been introduced by the people of South India in Carnatic style music. This was around several centuries back. In this period, the influence of the Carnatic style had reached its zenith and the Gamakas had started to be used in Indian as well as other music genres. Nowadays, Gamakas are used not only in Carnatic but in other types of Indian and non-Carnatic music as well. Hence, we take a look at a few types of Gamakas.
The first type is the Gamakas raga or rising note. This ornament consists of a series of notes which are ascending in frequency from the lowest to the highest note. The most prominent note in this type is G, where a combination of notes ranging from G# to B can be heard. Carnatic raga is largely used for worship with the leader giving a connotation to the Raga performed in the presence of guests.
The second type is the Gamakas melodious note. In this case, a single note is repeated at the same note. The melodic accompaniment used here is Vadi-Ghrut-Churna. This particular ornament consists of a continuous voice of a singer, which is performed in the absence of another singer. This raga is often used in conjunction with another type of raga called the devadi raga. The Gamakas melodious note often accompanies hymns in South Indian spiritual ceremonies.
The last type of ornamentation is the varnishing which can be found in a number of South Indian musical forms such as Raga Carnatic, Raga Telugu, and Raga Jain. This ornamentation is very common in the Carnatic music. It is played in a rather choppy and repetitive manner. However, it has a very soothing effect, which is used mostly in the films. While the g
Some Carnatic songs have all these different types of Gamakas with them, while some are purely adornments for that particular tune. Raga Jain is an example where the adornment Gamakas are mainly used while the Raga Jain melody is sung by itself. All the above examples indicate that the Gamakas have become a very important part of the Carnatic tradition.
In comparison to the notation of the notes in normal Western music, the raga notation has no beginning note, middle note, and no end note. The notes go from A to G and F to C. This means that the basic formula for making the Gamakas is standing for the accented notes while G stands for the flat notes. So in normal Western music you would have C, E, D, A, and B which are all accented and G stands for an unaccented note.
While the meaning of the above formula is clear in Raga , dance which is primarily performed with a rhythm dance, it might not be that clear to non-Raga Jainis who would be doing the dancing and reading the notes. For such people the simple explanation is that the notes stand for different types of beats and pitches. Therefore the notes in a Carnatic song would not be in their original form, but be in the form of melodious rhythms which are singing in harmony by a trained singer.