Veena Kuppayyar was the son of a great Vainika Sambamurthy Sastry. After Kuppayyar attained a good level of proficiency in playing on Veena, he joined Thyagaraja for learning advanced music. He stayed in Thyagaraja’s house for gurukula vasam. He did not happened to mention the he had earlier learnt Veena. He was getting tempted to play on Veena of Thyagaraja swamy; but hesitated to ask for permission. Once when Thyagaraja was away, he could not contain his enthusiasm and mustered courage to take Veena into his hands for playing on. Thyagaraja’s wife peeped from inside to see who was playing on Veena so melodiously and got absorbed in the music. After a while Thyagaraja approached back to his house and overheard the music on Veena. He stayed outside till Veena Kuppayya finished and then he entered the house with full of praise for Kuppayyar. Later Veena Kuppayya became a great composer. Also he later stayed in Madras, and became instrumental in evolving that city into a centre for music,