Pallavi
This is the start of the song mostly, the first two lines of the songs. They occur after every other stanza in the song.
Anupallavi
The pallavi is followed by two or three more lines and is called the anupallavi, litrellay means „next to pallavi‟. Generally, there is only one anupallavi in any song. This may go to a higher frequency than pallavi and adds beauty to the music. We can see anupallavi in Kritis.
Charanam
This is the stanzas of the song which have the same tune. There can be more than one charanam for a song. Pallavi is sung after every charanam.
Alapana
Alapana is a part of “manodharma sangeetam‟, which means that it is not taught by gurus as a song but the pupil should try to make out a full coverage of a ragam according to his knowledge of that. To have more knowledge on a particular raga, one should practice more compositions in it, especially the “varnams‟, which give the whole sancharam of raga, also the krithis, which give additional things like special phrases, gamakas etc. This all will help only if one has a good knowledge about the ragam and raga lakshanam