Swaralipi () 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 Book, books or Pamphlet, pamphlets ...

in order to represent aurally perceived

music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...

through the use of written notes for

Indian classical music Indian classical music is the art music, classical music of the Indian subcontinent. It is generally described using terms like ''Shastriya Sangeet'' and ''Marg Sangeet''. It has two major traditions: the North Indian classical music known as ...

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 ...

(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 ( ; , ; ) is a melodic framework for improvisation in Indian classical music akin to a musical mode, melodic mode. It is central to classical Indian music. Each raga consists of an array of melodic structures with musical motifs; and, fro ...

, 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 Pythagorean, meaning of or pertaining to the ancient Ionian mathematician, philosopher, and music theorist Pythagoras, may refer to: Philosophy * Pythagoreanism, the esoteric and metaphysical beliefs purported to have been held by Pythagoras * Ne ...

fifth rather than an equal-tempered 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