0While the motivation to sing is usually by listening to songs/popular krithis, it is like watching a successful cricketer, a body builder. You watched the result and were motivated to be like them, but the grind behind the result is the hard training.
You would have seen many people who can sing a few songs in our family events, however cannot sing a full concert with instruments. The reason is the gap in skills and confidence. Those who have not learnt varnams have missed the training opportunity to sing, long, fast, improve their akaram and their laya skills which forms a vital percentage of skills for upgrading to a concert musician.
Varnams come in adi talam, ata talam, there are tAna varnam and pada varnams, chouka (slow) varnams that strengthen one's ability to sing tAnam at an advanced level, faster phrases, akarams and stabilises their laya/talam for slower pieces which require more skill than a madhyama kala song.
One would barely see any performing musician who has not learnt varnams, that is deterministic of the fact that performing carnatic musicians do not exist without varnam training! Missing the hard part of the training and falling to temptation to spend time on easy listening/easy to learn songs is the precise mistake that stops one on their tracks to becoming a good carnatic musician!
If you can sing 10 varnams at a stretch, then you can understand how it clearly exposes the deficiencies and provides an opportunity to improve breathing technique, energy for sustained singing, vocal ability with akaram and speed, and build raga grammar or a store of murchanas that set you to be able to sing richer and longer alapanas!
Such is the contribution of varnams in carnatic music training and the earlier one embarks on that journey and conquers it, the better the chances of a successful music journey!
