Varnam is a form of song in the Carnatic music repertoire. A varnam is a relatively long piece and can range from 30 minutes to up to an hour. It is usually set to Aadi or Ata tala. It is the center piece in a recital of a Bharathanatyam dance. It is a tradition to start a recital in Carnatic music with a varnam. The lyrics are simple and consist mostly of long syllables and swara phrases of various lengths which bring out the essential features of the raga. It has two types: Taana varnam and Pada varnam.

Varnams are considered vocal exercises in a particular raga. The patterns in a varnam are considered to be characteristic patterns of a particular raga or scale. Varnams are considered the most complex of the vocal exercises in Carnatic Music. They are designed to help develop voice culture and proper control of rhythm. Indeed, varnams are often practiced in double and triple speeds and proper rhythmic control (tala) must be kept.

Named for its thanam-like rhythmic qualities, tana varnams only have lyrics for the pallavi, anupallavi and charanam.

Shanmukhapriya and Haripriya (Telugu: షణ్ముఖప్రియ, హరిప్రియ), popularly known as the Priya Sisters, are eminent Carnatic music singers.

They hail originally from Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh.They started learning Carnatic music from their father Sri V.V.Subba Ram at an early age.In order to nurture their musical talent, their father shifted base to Chennai. Later they became the disciples of the renowned duo Radha and Jayalakshmi who were disciples of the legendary G. N. Balasubramaniam. They learnt many nuances and subtleties of music during the five-year tenure under them including the advice that the singing should be so clear that the listener should be able to notate the entire kriti.

Improving their repertoire was a major project and learning, a continuous process. Hence they joined Professor T.R.Subramaniam. They learnt many pallavis and kritis from him.Currently, Shanmukhapriya and Haripriya are under the guidance of T. R. Subramaniam.

They are part of the trend of duo singing in Carnatic music, which started in the 1950s, with performers like Radha Jayalakshmi, Soolamangalam Sisters and later continued by Bombay Sisters

Kattassery Joseph Yesudas (born 10 January 1940) is an Indian classical musician and playback singer.

Yesudas sings Indian classical, devotional, and popular music. He has recorded more than 50,000 songs in many languages including Malayalam, Tamil, Hindi, Kannada, Telugu, Bengali, Gujarati, Oriya, Marathi, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tulu, Malay, Russian, Arabic, Latin and English during a career spanning five decades. He has performed in most Indian languages except Assamese, Konkani and Kashmiri. He also composed a number of Malayalam film songs in the 1970s and 1980s. Yesudas is fondly called Gana Gandharvan (English: The Celestial Singer)

He has won the National Award for the Best Male Playback Singer seven times (the most by any Indian singer) and the State Award for the Best Playback Singer 43 times, which consists of awards by the state governments of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and West Bengal. He was awarded Padma Shri in 1975 and Padma Bhushan in 2002 by the Government of India for his contributions towards the arts.