Musical Notes and Notations

Musical Notes (swaras):

 

  1. Sa: Shadaj – Sound of Peacock
  2. Re: Rishabh – Sound of bull
  3. Ga: Gandhar – Sound of goat
  4. Ma: Madhyam – Sound of horse
  5. Pa: Pancham – Sound of Cuckoo
  6. Dha: Dhaivat – Sound of donkey
  7. Ni: Nishad – Sound of elephant
  8. There are 7 shuddha swaras – Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni (in ascending order of pitch). There are 4 komal swaras (re, ga, dha, ni) and one tivra swara (ma). Thus a total of 12 swaras.
  9. A komal swara is half tone lower in pitch than its shuddha swara, and a tivra swara is half tone higher than its shuddha swara. So all 12 swaras in ascending order of pitch are: Sa, re, Re, ga, Ga, Ma, ma, Pa, dha, Dha, ni, Ni.

 

Notations:

  • We will represent shuddha swaras as capital letter, e.g. “Ga”, and komal and tivra swaras by lower letters, e.g. “ga” or “ma”.
  • Lower octave swara e.g. dhaivat swara as: dha’; and the upper octave dhaivat as: dha”

 

Capital letters are shuddha swaras: Sa, Re, Ga , Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni

Small letters are komal or tivra swaras: Komal: re, ga, dha, ni; Tivra: ma

 

“ signifies taar saptak and ‘ signifies mandra saptak; else it is madhya saptak.

~ signifies alankar

 

Examples:

re” => is a taar saptak komal rishabh

ma => is a madhya saptak tivra madhyam

Ni’ =>  is a mandra saptak shuddha nishad

dha’ => is mandra saptak komal dhaivat