 He learned music from his father and was later mentored by Alleppy K.Parthasarathy a great patron of Music and sishya of Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar and later joined Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer.He was a Professor of Music at a music college in Chennai and later he was Dean of the School of Music and Fine Arts at the University of Delhi.TN Krishnan is married to Kamala Krishnan and has two children, Viji Krishnan Natarajan, and Sriram Krishnan.