Swaralipi ( bn, স্বরলিপি) is any system used in

sheet music Sheet music is a handwritten or printed form of musical notation that uses musical symbols to indicate the pitches, rhythms, or chords of a song or instrumental musical piece. Like its analogs – printed books or pamphlets in English, A ...

in order to represent aurally perceived

music Music is generally defined as the The arts, art of arranging sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Exact definition of music, definitions of mu ...

through the use of written notes for

Indian classical music Indian classical music is the classical music of the Indian subcontinent. It has two major traditions: the North Indian classical music known as ''Hindustani'' and the South Indian expression known as '' Carnatic''. These traditions were not ...

History

The Indian scholar and musical theorist

Pingala Acharya Pingala ('; c. 3rd2nd century BCE) was an ancient Indian poet and mathematician, and the author of the ' (also called the ''Pingala-sutras''), the earliest known treatise on Sanskrit prosody. The ' is a work of eight chapters in the l ...

(c. 200 BC), in his ''Chanda Sutra'', used marks indicating long and short syllables to indicate meters in Sanskrit poetry. In the notation of Indian

rāga A ''raga'' or ''raag'' (; also ''raaga'' or ''ragam''; ) is a melodic framework for improvisation in Indian classical music akin to a melodic mode. The ''rāga'' is a unique and central feature of the classical Indian music tradition, and as a ...

, a solfege-like system called sargam is used. As in Western solfege, there are names for the seven basic pitches of a major scale (, usually shortened Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni). The tonic of any scale is named Sa, and the dominant Pa. Sa is fixed in any scale, and Pa is fixed at a fifth above it (a Pythagorean fifth rather than an

equal-tempered An equal temperament is a musical temperament or tuning system, which approximates just intervals by dividing an octave (or other interval) into equal steps. This means the ratio of the frequencies of any adjacent pair of notes is the same, wh ...

fifth). These two notes are known as achala swar ('fixed notes'). Each of the other five notes, Re, Ga, ma, Dha and Ni, can take a 'regular' () pitch, which is equivalent to its pitch in a standard major scale (thus, , the second degree of the scale, is a whole-step higher than Sa), or an altered pitch, either a half-step above or half-step below the pitch. Re, Ga, Dha and Ni all have altered partners that are a half-step lower (Komal-"flat") (thus, is a half-step higher than Sa). Ma has an altered partner that is a half-step higher (-"sharp") (thus, Ma is an augmented fourth above Sa). Re, Ga, ma, Dha and Ni are called ('movable notes'). In the written system of Indian notation devised by Ravi Shankar, the pitches are represented by Western letters. Capital letters are used for the , and for the higher variety of all the . Lowercase letters are used for the lower variety of the .

References

Indian classical music Musical notation Musical scales Hindustani music terminology {{music-stub