Swar Notation System

Sangeet the combination of Swar, Taal and Shabdh. Music notation is a system used to visually represent aurally perceived music played with instruments or sung by the human voice through the use of written, printed, or otherwise-produced symbols. 

These systems get refined over time. Also various notation systems across the world has seen both growth and fall. All styles of notation system has and is struggling to completely put on paper what is being performed vocally or with instruments.

Notation systems help promote classical and popular music of various countries and help explain the details of music very easily for people to understand and perform. Notation ensures that the performance of music is in a controlled fashion and does not let it stray away from the composer’s piece. Hence the notation system helps in maintaining the tradition of keeping the lyrical or instrumental styles safe in vocal, rhythmic, and keeping the Guru-Shishya tradition everlasting.

Swar Lipi Paddathi is the scientific notation of Swar in Time. The word Lipi refers to written form and Paddathi a system or tradition.

Many efforts were made to notate Indian musical Swar and Taal. Today, only two notation systems are popular namely, the Bhatkande Swarlipi and Vishnu Digambar Swarlipi. 

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Indian Swar have the following components which are denoted using the Swar Lipi.

1. Types of Swars - Shuddh, Komal, Tevra

2. The three registers of Mandra, Madhya and Taar Saptak

3. Time of rendering the Swar

4. Musical Ornaments such as Kan, Meend, Khatka etc.

This notation was invented by Pandt Vishnu Narayan Bhatkande. For beginners of music this Paddathi is very easy to read and understand any composition and hence it has become very popular.

Types of Swars

There are three types of Swar based on the pitching - Shuddh, Komal and Tevra. Shuddh Swars are written as such - Sa Re Ga Ma etc without any special marking. Komal Swars are represented with an underscore - Re and Tevra Swar is represented with a diacritic above the Swar.

The Registers

The Mandra Saptak or lower register is represented by a dot below the Swar. The Madhya Saptak or Middle register is represented without any marking, the Swar is written as such. The Taar Saptak or Higher register is represented by a Dot above the Swar. In case of representing more than three octaves, such as two octaves lower than the middle, two dots are used below the Swar. The number of dots above or below the Swar indicate the register.

Rhythm

Since Swar is sung in time, various symbols are used to denote the aspect of timing and tempo. When a single swar is written it is taken as to be sung or played in one beat. When a Swar is to be sung for an extended amount of time, then the Swar is followed by a hypen for that many beats. When a Swar is to be sung in less than a beat, say half a beat. then it written with the Swar and a hypen both encompassed by a semi circle on the bottom. Comma is used as a rest or pause where no sound is uttered Other complicated rhythms are given in the following figure

Musical Ornaments

While there are many musical ornaments in use in both vocal and instrumental music, the three main ones which have a symbol are Kan, Khatka and Meend.

Kan is represented by writing the grace note as a superscript, before or after the main Swar. Khatka is represented by enclosing the Swar in a curly bracket. Meend or glide is represented by drawing an arch over two swars.

This Taal lipi Paddathi was invented by Pandit Vishnu Digambar Paluskar to notate music which was taught in the schools set up by him. This is a very detailed and scientific way of notating Taal useful for advanced students in music studies. Pandit Visnhu Digambar was particularly influenced by the Western Music staff notation system and borrowed elements from it in his notation system.

Types of Swars

There are three types of Swar based on the pitching - Shuddh, Komal and Tevra. Shuddh Swars are written as such - Sa Re Ga Ma etc without any special marking. Komal Swars are represented with a line stroke on the right of the swar - Re, and Tevra Swar is represented with a line stroke on the left of the Swar - ,Ma

The Registers

The Mandra Saptak or lower register is represented by a dot above the Swar. The Madhya Saptak or Middle register is represented without any marking, the Swar is written as such. The Taar Saptak or Higher register is represented by a straight line above the Swar. In case of representing more than three octaves, such as two octaves lower than the middle, two dots are used above the swar. The number of dots or lines above the Swar indicate the register.

Rhythm

Since Swar is sung in time, various symbols are used to denote the aspect of timing and tempo. When a single swar is written with an underscore it is taken as to be sung or played in one beat. When a Swar is to be sung for an extended amount of time or in less than a beat, then there are separate symbols for each time. For singing in two beats, the Tilde sign is placed below the Swar. 

When a Swar is to be sung in less than a beat, say half a beat, then a small circle is written below the Swar.  For timings such as 1/3, 1/6 the fraction is written as such under the Swar. A small circle when placed on the right of a Swar will increase the timing by 1/2 and when placed below the Swar will reduce the timing by 1/2 Other complicated rhythms are given in the following figure.

Musical Ornaments

While there are many musical ornaments in use in both vocal and instrumental music, the three main ones which have a symbol are Kan, Khatka and Meend.

Kan is represented by writing the grace note as a superscript, before or after the main Swar. Khatka is represented by enclosing the Swar in a curly bracket. Meend or glide is represented by drawing an arch over two swars.

Areas for Improvement

While both the notation systems are very popular and has helped preserve numerous popular and unheard bandishes for the future, there are still many aspects of music which do not have a symbol for notation. Western music has been constantly adding many symbols for various musical ornaments and even specific to voice and type of instrument. 

1. Gamak is an important element in Classical music. Both the paddathis do not have any notation to represent various types of gamakas

2. Kaku is an element which is used in all aspects of classical music. There are no symbols for notating dynamics of Swar 

3. There are no symbols for notating changes in volume 

4. Orchestrated music sometimes uses pauses for certain instruments for certain amount of time. There is no symbol for rest