Alankāra

''Alankara'' (), also referred to as palta or ''alankaram'', is a concept in Indian classical music and literally means "ornament, decoration". An ''alankara'' is any pattern of musical decoration a musician or vocalist creates within or across tones, based on ancient musical theories or driven by personal creative choices, in a progression of ''svaras''. The term ''alankara'' is standard in Carnatic music, while the same concept is referred to as ''palta'' or ''alankara'' in Hindustani music.

The ancient and medieval music scholars of India state that there are unlimited creative possibilities available to a musician, but each scholar illustrated the concept with a set of ''alankara''. Datilla discussed 13 ''alankaras'', Bharata Muni presented 33, Sarngadeva described 63 ''alankaras'', while mid medieval scholars presented numerous more. The Indian music tradition classifies ''alankara'' as rational or irrational, wherein irrational ''alankara'' being those that cannot be reduced to a fixed scale degree pattern. The Indian theory of ''gamaka'' covers the group of irrational ''alankara''. The concept of ''alankara'' applies to both vocal and musical instrument performance.

Purandara Dasa, the father of modern Carnatic music, developed learning exercises for students based on ''alankara'' and ''svaravali'', where the student systematically repeats a certain set of patterns over three octave registers, across various ''ragas'' and ''talas''. Provided by Wikipedia