Musicians and composers

Hindustani musicians

• Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande (1860–1936): musicologist who classified Hindustani ragas into ten thaats and created the Bhatkhande notation system. He wrote Hindustani Sangeet Paddhati and the Kramik Pustak Malika (a large collection of compositions), and used the pen name "Chatur Pandit". He organised all-India music conferences and inspired the founding of the Marris College of Music in Lucknow (now Bhatkhande Sanskriti Vishwavidyalaya).
• Omkarnath Thakur (1897–1967): vocalist and scholar from Gujarat, disciple of Vishnu Digambar Paluskar. He headed the music faculty at Banaras Hindu University and wrote Sangeetanjali and Pranav Bharati. He was famous for his powerful voice and his rendering of Vande Mataram.
• Allauddin Khan (died 1972): master of the sarod and many other instruments, guru of the Maihar gharana. He founded the Maihar Band and trained Ravi Shankar, his son Ali Akbar Khan, his daughter Annapurna Devi, Nikhil Banerjee and Pannalal Ghosh.
• Mushtaq Ali Khan: sitar maestro of the Senia tradition, known for his strictly traditional, dhrupad-based style of sitar playing.

Karnatak composers

• Purandara Dasa (1484–1564): called the Karnataka Sangeeta Pitamaha (father of Karnatak music). He composed devotional songs in Kannada with the mudra "Purandara Vittala" and framed the graded lessons (sarali varisai, janta varisai, alankaras, geetams) in raga Mayamalavagowla.
• Tyagaraja (1767–1847): one of the Karnatak Trinity, lived at Thiruvaiyaru. He composed hundreds of Telugu kritis in praise of Rama, including the Pancharatna kritis (five gems), and the musical plays Prahlada Bhakti Vijayam and Nauka Charitam.

Poet-composers of Bengal

• Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941): created Rabindra Sangeet, more than two thousand songs. He wrote the national anthems of India (Jana Gana Mana) and Bangladesh (Amar Shonar Bangla), won the Nobel Prize for Literature (1913) and founded Visva-Bharati at Santiniketan.
• Kazi Nazrul Islam (1899–1976): the "Bidrohi Kobi" (rebel poet), national poet of Bangladesh; his songs, known as Nazrul Geeti, use many ragas and include Bengali ghazals.

Key points

• Bhatkhande: ten thaats, notation, Kramik Pustak Malika.
• Omkarnath Thakur: Paluskar's disciple, BHU, Sangeetanjali.
• Allauddin Khan: sarod, Maihar gharana.
• Purandara Dasa: father of Karnatak music; Tyagaraja: Pancharatna kritis.

Common mistakes

• Calling Omkarnath Thakur a disciple of Bhatkhande; his guru was Paluskar.
• Mixing up Purandara Dasa (Kannada) and Tyagaraja (Telugu).