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A Tillana is actually a rap indeed (centuries old rap)

The philosophy behind varying tempo lies in the theme of the song. This song represents a vicious fight between Lord Krishna and an aggressive large snake (named Kalinga) to subdue the snake as it was troubling common folk along the river front. So this song tries to represent auditorily the progression of the fight - sometimes waxing, other time waning, sometimes showing the aggression in the fight and other times subduing. The sounds represent the progression of this fight. There were a few percussion instruments involved - mridangam, thavil, Kanjira and manjira ( small  handheld cymbals). The title of the song “Kalinga Nartana” means dancing with Kalinga

Before western people found out about music... My country India had already became a pro in it 😂 even basic stuff of India will blow these foreign countries people's mind out...

Indian Classicals are refined by several thousands of years.....very unique, ancient and beautiful like other worldly.

It's not "tabla" .  it is "mirudangam"  the whole song is devotional one and it requires plenty of practice with deep bhakthi (means devotion) It is Lord krishna kalinga nardanam.

Have zero knowledge of music but listening to them bring tears to eyes. And they are singing this as a devotion to God Krishna. It is another level of penance. Connection with God through music.

This makes me really proud of Indian culture.

Indian music is bigger than indian ocean..  its a drop....from our kids which  you are hearing now...its 5000 years older..... 🙏🙏🙏

You folks should try to request an interview with Kuldeep Pai. He will try to explain in a manner that musically challenged people would understand the Indian classical music both Carnatic or Hindustani. Good luck.

Some basics in western parlance: they are doing three things vocally
1) singing actual lyrics to melody
2) vocalising rhythm with onomatopeic words likes "dhin dhinaka taka tum" (the guru/teacher does a lot of this in this video; this is also used a lot by Indian percussion players and dance teachers to codify rhythmic patterns (like "scales") - Ustaad/maestro Zakhir Hussain also used it in the Horse gallop)
3) "spoken word/rap" kind of rhythmic sentences (of limited melodic nature)

These three styles of speech are found in all Indian classical music.

You almost never hear the raga (analogous to the western scale sung acapella) itself in the song.
But sometimes singers do sing the raga in acapella using the Indian notes (not Do Re Mi... But instead Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni) when they want to do the "cadenza" part of the song that is a brilliant flourish of notes to show musical prowess of the artist and adorn the composition at will, sometimes improvising on the spot.

Eurhythmics (physical gesticulation of rhythm) is relatively new to western music, although it is universal and instinctual. But in Indian music, students are told to first keep beat with their hand in early years... It is part of training and encouraged.

You guys reeaaallly need to do one which is just for the percussionists... "Indian drum vs African drum with Pape Samory Seck"

Many may not know that this duo of the girl and the boy are most celebrated youngsters of the recent times in South Indian classical music.  They both started their career in a humble way and reach such heights. The reason why the Latinos are surprised is because the world hasn't seen music of different corners of the world yet. Incidentally, this kind of rendition of Swaram (nearest explanation in English is the combination of Do Re Mi......) in a racy and melodious manner is centuries old in South Indian Music.

Someone: “what’s ur favourite hobby?”
Me: “watching foreigners being mind blown by the music of my culture”

Lol. As someone who studied  Bharatanatyam as a kid, I find their reaction so enlightening because I took so much for granted. Tillanna is a crucial part of thr training.

It is actually an 8-beat broken up into two halves of four beats. Each of the four beats is further split in half - giving a total of sixteen beats to work with. So a pada (a musical sentence) that is, say 7 beats long can start on half beat 10 and end on full beat 16. The beauty of the thillana form is that the sentences correspond to the exact percussion which matches the dancer's feet. How cool is that?

Little Krishna dancing playfully on the head of the cosmic serpent Kaliya.... Pure musical bliss

Music and dance forms originated in India/Bharat clearly!

Every time I listen to these children....I cry of happy tears😃🙏

You cannot put a finger on why our classical music and dance is so sublime because they have an ethereal quality as in each one of the pieces praises  our gods or goddesses ! The musical notes we believe was a  divine gift to humanity .  In our culture especially classical music and dance is dedicated in praise  to our gods and goddesses 🙏🏼🌸🙏🏼🌸