Praising the Lord through song is a practice common across cultures. Tyagaraja in his Kriti koluvamare kadA in tODi talks about the various ways in which he has been fortunate enough to worship Rama. Singing HIS praises is one such way; one that is not available to most devotees.
Much as Tyagaraja has stressed elsewhere that knowledge of music or singing well but without devotion is meaningless (e.g., sangita jnAnamu bhakti vinA in dhanyAsi), he is quite vocal in several of his other compositions about the need for music to be, well, musical.
In the first line of the first charanam of koluvamare kadA, Tyagaraja says
vEkuva jAmuna velayucu tambura cEkoni guNamula celuvonDa pADucu
Which is commonly translated as
Early in the morning (well before sunrise), holding a tambura, singing lovingly in praise (of Rama)
