Sopanam literally means the place surrounding the sanctum-sanctorum of a Temple in Sanskrit. This strain of music is regarded as the sole Classical Music strain native to Kerala Some unique features of this strain of music. It is a Music that proceeds slowly in ascending and descending order of its raga swaras. During ragalapana (recital of raga), the artist treats every note of a raga as its nila (base) and proceeds to the immediate successor note and returns to the starting note to proceed to the next note thus continuing always returning to the starting note. The alapana is slow and tala (beat) bound.
It is marked by a tremor in music, even when straight notes are used (This is true of most of the ancient systems of music.) The singer usually selects a note as Sthaeebhavam or the overriding emotion of the raga, and uses supporting swaras to create a Bhavam or emotion, and the succeeding notes that do not support it are skipped over. This usually results in either the first half or the second half becoming prominent.