How to apply Nadais to different songs by Sri Gopi Lakshminarayanan

Carnatic Chamber Concerts thanks Vidwan Shri Gopi Lakshminarayanan for his interactive presentation on How to use Nadais and how to apply them for different songs. In our monthly episode of the Feature A Guru series, Vidwan Shri Gopi Lakshminarayanan explained what is a Nadai in mridangam accompaniment and his demo was supported by a detailed powerpoint presentation with pictorial depictions of nadais. He took Adi talam, which has 8 beats, and his disciples Kishore, Umesh, Vaibhav, Akshay and Rahul demonstrated different nadais within Adi talam by reciting percussive notations in tisra, chatusra,misra, and khanda nadais. Shri Gopi also explained how the nadais can be applied to different songs that start on different eduppus, the beginning of the melodic line of a tala, and had Vaibhav demonstrate songs with different eduppus. It was interesting to note how all nadais applied to songs that start in Samam, the first beat of the tala, whereas for songs with different eduppu, specific nadais may only apply. This was beautifully explained by having Vaibhav sing a 1/2 eduppu and a 3/4th eduppu songs. Shri Gopi explained how a workaround can be applied so any nadai can be applied to a eduppu and insisted the students to be careful when learning about nadais and take advice from their gurus while handling kritis with different eduppus to ensure the nadai really applies to the eduppu.