Karunattu · Carnatic music studio
Karunattu is the practice studio for real Carnatic instruments. Real-time feedback on every note, 22-śruti precision, and gamaka coaching from reference masters. Pick yours — we'll meet you there.
No card needed to start. Cancel any time.
vīṇā · vāyalin · veṇu · mṛdaṅgam · ghaṭam
Built on the actual grammar of the tradition
Shankarābharaṇam · ārōhaṇa
Choose your instrument
Each practice studio is built around the specific physics of one instrument — the bowed string feels different from the struck membrane, the breath embouchure is its own thing. Pick the one you actually want to learn. Not sure? The quiz below takes 30 seconds.
The queen of Carnatic instruments. Plucked, fretted, deeply meditative.
Open practice →
Seated posture, Sa-Pa-Sa-Sa (tīvra) tuning. The principal melodic accompaniment.
Open practice →
Bamboo, breath, and seven holes. The most direct melodic voice.
Open practice →
Primary percussion — the heartbeat of every concert.
Open practice →
Clay pot percussion, played with the whole hand.
Open practice →
Temple wind, double-reed, paired with tavil.
Open practice →
The nagasvaram's loud, two-headed companion.
Open practice →
Never touched an instrument?
You don't need a guru or a ₹60,000 veena to start. The path: pick what fits, make one sound, follow a 5-minute lesson. That's it.
Pick an instrument
Vīṇā, vāyalin, veṇu, mṛdaṅgam, ghaṭam — five seconds of tapping to find what fits you.
Take the 30-second quiz →Make your first sound
No lessons, no setup. Tap one swara on a virtual veena, bow one open string, blow one flute note.
Open the free tuner →Follow a 5-minute lesson
Karunattu listens. It shows you where your pitch is in cents, and compares your gamaka to a reference master.
See how feedback works →For absolute beginners
A 30-second quiz for people who've never picked one up before.
1.How do you picture yourself playing?
2.Which sound pulls you in?
3.Are you drawn to melody or rhythm?
4.What's your starting setup?
Answer all 4 questions to see your recommendation.
The 12-vs-22 argument
A 12-TET keyboard has 12 equally-spaced notes per octave. Carnatic music has seven swarasthanas spread over twenty-two śruti positions. Seven of those swaras — the Prati notes — sit between the piano keys. Toggle the view to see them appear.
22 śrutis give every Prati swara a precise position.
Mōhanam, Hindōlam, Sahānā, Behāg — most ragas need them.
Built differently
Every other music app treats Carnatic as a folder of MIDI presets. We treat it as a system — with grammar, source citations, and tests that catch when a raga's scale gets quietly broken.
Every raga, every signature phrase, every grading note is grounded in Sambamoorthy or Subbarama Dīkṣitar's SSP. The 37 corrections we shipped each carry the inline source comment that justified them.
Server-side YIN with parabolic interp. Same algorithm as studio tuners. Cross-validated against librosa.pyin on 20 harmonic-tone fixtures; the audio QA sidecar hard-gates any regression.
Voice (MSS), Vīṇā (Chitti Babu), Violin (Lalgudi), Flute (Mali), Nāgasvaram (Chinna Moulana), Mṛdaṅgam (Umayalpuram Sivaraman). Spectrum-regression tests lock the match within ±2 dB per octave.
The pitch detector, the raga grammar, the synth engines, the mastering chain — all behind `import 'server-only'`. Your browser receives audio bytes and JSON, never algorithms.
Five first-questions, one instrument quiz, a 5-minute first lesson. The Carnatic tradition is dense; Karunattu is the on-ramp that respects your time.
Free anonymous, Plus Sādhaka, Pro Kalākar. Your teacher on your phone, your studio in your browser, your progress in your account. Sa follows you.
What's in it
Practice
Real-time pitch detection on a server-grade YIN. 29 gāyaka-doṣa categories. Your kampita vs. Lalgudi, side by side.
Compose
Generate phrases in any of 85 ragas — guaranteed in-scale, in-grammar. Drag, branch, save.
Produce
Concert Set Generator, Pallavi RTP Builder, Lyric Singing, Broadcast Master at −14 LUFS, and a tāla engine that parses (base, jati, gati).
26 gamakas
Catalogued from the Saṅgīta Ratnākara and Saṅgīta Pārijāta. Each gamaka is a named pitch gesture with a measured cents curve — not a Western vibrato. The Gamaka Lab has all 26; here are four to start with.
kampita
A rapid shake between two pitches. The signature ornament of Lalgudi's violin style.
āndōlan
A slow, wide oscillation — gentle, sustained, the vocal gamaka par excellence.
sphurita
A very fast, small-amplitude shake on a single pitch. Subtle ornamentation.
jhārā
A quick, slightly meandering glide up to the target note. Common in prayōga.
Instrument synth calibrated to
Spectrum-regression tests lock every synth within ±2 dB per octave of the reference.
Featured
Every raga ships with ārōhaṇa, avarōhaṇa, signature phrase, mood and a primary-source citation. The catalogue has 79 more.
How it's built
Every raga's scale degrees and signature phrase reads from a single source-of-truth grounded in Sambamoorthy's South Indian Music and (where the data needs it) Subbarama Dīkṣitar's Saṅgīta Sampradāya Pradarśinī. A regression test locks the signature-phrase ↔ degree-array consistency so the kind of bug that lets you accidentally teach a wrong Mōhanam can't ship.
Pricing
7-day free trial on Plus. Cancel any time. Annual billing on Pro if monthly isn't your style.
Karunattu Plus
For learnersMost popular for daily riyāz
$4.99
/ month
or $39 / year · save 35%
7-day free trial · no card needed to start
Karunattu Pro
For performers + producersEverything in Plus, plus the studio
$19.99
/ month
or $199 / year · save 17%
Both editions include
FAQ
Can I cancel any time?
Yes. Cancel from your account page in one click. You keep access through the end of the current billing period.
What's on the free tier?
The tuner, the raga catalogue, the dungeons (composers + instruments), and a phrase preview. Everything practice- and production-grade lives behind Plus / Pro.
Annual vs monthly on Pro?
Annual is $199 / year (save 17%) — best value if you're committed. Monthly is $19.99 if you prefer flexibility. Both unlock the same Pro features; cancel anytime.
Does my subscription work on the iOS app too?
Yes. Web and iOS share one codebase split by SKU flag. Sign in with the same Apple ID and your progress, snapshots, and saved Sa carry over.
Where does the pitch math actually run?
Server-side. Always. Your browser ships audio frames to the API and receives back hz / cents / chroma. The YIN code, the raga grammar, the synth engines, the LUFS mastering — none of it ever lives in your tab.
What about teacher mode?
On the Pro roadmap. Local-batch student-drift aggregation — a teacher can see where each student is consistently flat or sharp without their audio ever leaving the device.
Do you store my recordings?
No. Audio frames are processed per-request and discarded. We keep the pitch trajectories you explicitly save (snapshots), nothing else.
Refund policy?
Plus is free for 7 days — if it doesn't click, cancel before the trial ends and you pay nothing. For paid charges, email us within 14 days and we'll sort it.
See what your morning riyāz looks like with cents-grade feedback and a real tāmpūra playing under it. Free trial, no card needed.