Society and culture went through a process of conflict and eclectic assimilation of the traditional and elite values on the one hand and the emerging folk and foreign influences on the other.
These cultural trends and objectives were later sustained and fostered in the several feudatory states that continued to thrive beyond the fall of the Vijayanagar empire.
[citation needed] Seminal work and innovations also took place in the Vina keyboards with regard to the accordatura, tonal range and instrumental parameters.
The innovation of the concept of mela and organization of the entirety of contemporary melodic material under its umbrella culminated in Venkatamakhin's Melakarta scheme, one which continues to influence greatly the theory and practice of Carnatic music to this day.
New classificatory models emerged for ragas; svayambhusvara (upper partials), paryaya-svara (alternative svara denomination) and pratinidhi-svara (representative note) scales and intervals were tuned to be brought into alignment with contemporary musical practice.
Musical forms, the Kriti, the Suladi, the Ugabhoga, the Dandaka, the Urttanama, the Namavali, the Mundige, the Gita, the Thaya and the Prabandha developed and found wide currency during this period.
Great musicologists like Salva Gopa Tippendra, Kallinatha, Kumbhakarna, Ramamatya, Laksmanarayana, Pandarika Vittala, Somanatha, Locana Jha and Hrdayanarayanadeva contributed to musical theory of both North and South India during this period.
Each work of these scholars records a revolutionary and seminal concept or development which cumulatively resulted in modern Carnatic music.
Authored in the mid-fifteenth century by Salva Gopa-Tippendra, brother-in-law of king Praudha Devaraya II and a viceroy of Mulbagal, the work deals at great length with the tala.
[citation needed] To the same period belongs the third work of the Nonet, Kallinatha's Sangitakalanidhi, a versatile commentary on Sharngadeva's Sangita Ratnakara, the encyclopedic magnum opus on Indian music.
In the work, Kallinatha meticulously annotated, explicated, criticised and emphasised all the central issues of the Ratnakara; he also illumined it through comparison with contemporary practices, theories and norms of music and dance.
[citation needed] Svaramelakalanidhi importance lies in the fact that it is more relevant and related to modern practice than the books written prior to it.
[2] The Svaramelakalanidhi brings the theory up to date, rationalizes intervals and scales, introduces the concepts of svayambhu-svara (self-generating note, upper partial), dharashruti paryayatattva and pratinidhitattva of svaras.
A new scheme for classifying ragas into uttama (superior), madhyama (middling) and adhama (inferior) on the basis of their expressive potential is also expounded in the work.