It is heard that folk music was born before traditional music or classical music in Tamil Nadu. The earliest forms of music go way back to the days of men in caves, where they communicated with distinct sounds that progressed into a language spoken sometimes in rhythmic tunes. Village travelers narrated stories whilst on their way to places and within them included songs to enthrall the listeners.

Coming to the era of entertainment.. It all started with the ‘silent movie’ era – credit for this goes to Dr.M.Karunanidhi – when musicians sat in front of the screen and render songs, music and dialogues according to cue. One of the most prominent persons at that time was Sri Shankaradas Swamigal who was known for his excellent delivery of song, music and dialogue.

Tamil Cinema, like Hindi cinema, began with the requirement for actors to be good-looking and great singers at the same time, for they were required to sing their own songs. Artistes such as Kittappa, Bhagavathar, P.U.Chinnappa, fit the bill well. The trend at that time was that the actor act and sing, and following him is an orchestra that would render music. All this used to be recorded first in a single track and then worked on in the studios. Saraswati Stores of A.V.Meyappa Chettiar was a famous company that released records of film songs.

While a formal form of Tamil cinema can be traced as far back as 1897, the first sound studio came only in 1934. A. Narayanan is considered to be the brainchild behind this. However, it was A.V. Meiyappan who introduced playback singing in his film titled ‘Nandakumar’ in 1938.

Tamil film music was based majorly on carnatic music. The reason for this is that the rich preferred that style of music, and folk songs weren’t given too much importance. One of the earliest Greats of the Tamil music world was G. Ramanathan who along with Papanasam Sivan provided Tamil cinema with a great variety of songs. Other artistes of this genre of music were the likes of P.U.Chinnappa, Chidambaram Jayaraman, Tiruchi Loganathan, Gantasala, P.B.Srinivas, S.P.B ,Mano, K.J.Yesudoss, Sivaji Ganesan, T.M.S, Gantasala, P.B. Srinivas were introduced in Tamil. Other singers from Telugu field are S.Janaki, P.Susheela, Viswanathan Ramamurthy,G.Ramanathan,S.V.Venkatraman, Illayaraja. It must be noted that the Tamil and Telugu music industry share several artists.

Coming to the style of music, it must be noted that M.S.Viswanathan is responsible for the advent of ‘ligter and more melodious’ songs in this industry. Sudarsanam & Devarajan Masters were also great music directors of the day. Slowly the trend started bending towards the Hindi music style, and the artists who took to this trend were music directors M.S.Viswanathan and Ramamurthy, who having sourced inspiration from other styles of music were able to render their ‘originals’. Another director worth a mention is Chandrababu, who brought in the influence of western beats in his music. The most recent trendsetter and master of the tunes is none other than A.R. Rehman who is a great deal responsible for the progress of regional music all over India.