In today’s computer age, word processors are indispensable tools. Western music relies heavily on symbolic staff notation, which necessitates specialized software for computerized notation. Conversely, Indian notation systems such as Bhatkhande or Rabindrik employ alphabets for notation. Regrettably, the current method of writing Indian notations isn’t conducive to word processors. Drawing from conventions used by musicians, I’ve devised a hybrid convention, amalgamating aspects of the Bhatkhande and Western systems, making it effortlessly typable in any standard word processor.
Basic Notation: We write sudhh swars in its nearest Roman letter i.e. S R G M P D N. Other komal or tivra swars we write in lowercase, i.e. r g m d n. Each note is indicated by a space after the swar. Beat is indicated by a pipe (|) symbol. For example: S R G M | P D N S’| …
Notes in an upper octave are indicated by the apostrophe symbol. The lower octave is indicated by a succeding comma. Example:
N, S R G | N D M – | S’ N d P | m G m R |
A sustained gap is indicated by a dash (-). A semicolon (;) is used to indicate silence.
Timing: Each note followed by a space denotes one matra. When more than one note is played in one beat then we write the notes together without any space in between. For example, in the notation below “PGM” denotes one note, it should be played at the same time that one takes to play the notes like S R, etc.
S R G M | PGM D N S’| …
Half-matra Notes that should be played in half the time it takes to play one note can be denoted by adding a colon after the note. For example S: will mean Sa should be played for just half the time.
Quarter-matra: On rare occasions, we may want to indicate one-fourth time for a note. We can use a dot symbol to indicate one-fourth time for the note. Ex: S.
Ornamentation:
Kan(touch notes): These are indicated by superscipt. Example: S R MG P| G M D S’|
Meed (Glissando): An underline indicates that notes will is played or sung as a smooth glide from lower Dha to Re while touching teevra Ma and Ga along the way. This is indicated as:
N D – R | S N, d, P, | m G m R |
Murki(Trill or Mordent): A small quick taan made up of 3-4 neighboring notes for ornamentation purposes. It is denoted by a preceeding tlide. Ex. P~ could indicate a quick taan such as PdP. Reverse murki or lower modent is indicated by putting the tlide symbol before the note, as in ~P. This will indicate PmP.
Gamak: Gamak is a combination of meed and murki, where the notes slide from one to another with a oscillation. This is indicated by meed sign preceeded by a tlide sign. Example:
N ~D ~ R
Polyphony: Unlike Western staff notation, the Indian notation system does not have a method to indicate polyphonic notes. But with keyboard, harmonica, etc. It is possible to play multiple notes together. I propose to put the notes in a bracket to indicate them being played together. For example, here G and P are played together:
S R (GP) S’| G M D S’|
Section Seperator: A double pipe symbol (||) indicates end of a section like Asthaye, Antara etc. Normally, in indian music asthaye part is played after every section.
Repeat:
Modern notations make many innovative uses of repeat to write the notations in concise manner. We can use few such concept from the western notation system.
Repeat: A curly bracket indicates repeat of the certain part of the notation. If there is some variation in the repeat then that section should be put in a square bracket.First bracket is for playing first time and second one is for second time. For example:
||{S R G D | [GDG – – -]| [GDR – – -]}| MG RS RN, -| N, – N -| P D M G ||
Yeah! You are right. It is the famous Sholay tune.
Measure Repeat Another common type of repeat symbol you may see is a measure repeat, or bar repeat. A bar repeat tells you to play the same thing as in the previous bar. Sometimes you’ll see multi-measure repeats which span 2 or more bars. We can use % symbol for such repeat. A single % sign means repeat the previous beat, %% means repeat previous two beats, and so on.
Da Capo Da Capo is an Italian word that literally means from the head. It is abbreviated as DC and written above the main notation line. This means to play the notes from start. There are three variations to the Da Capo.
1. Da Capo al Fine (often abbreviated as D.C. al Fine): Repeat from beginning to the end, or up to the word Fine (should that appear at the end of the passage)—the word Fine itself signifying the end. Example:
Fine D.C. al Fine
|{S R G D | [GDG – – -]| [GDR – – -]}| MG RS RN, -| N, – N -| P D M G |
Here after the last “P D M G” the musician should go back to the start and play till “MG RS RN, -”
2. Da Capo al Coda (often abbreviated as D.C. al Coda): Repeat from beginning to an indicated place and then play the tail part (the “Coda”). It directs the musician to go back and repeat the music from the beginning (“Capo”), and to continue playing until one reaches the first coda symbol. Upon reaching the first coda symbol, skip to the second coda symbol and continue playing until the end. The portion of the piece from the second coda to the end is often referred to as the “coda” of the piece, or quite literally as “the tail”. This may also be instructed by simply using the words al Coda after which the musician is to skip to the written word Coda. We use “@” symbol for Coda. Example:
@ D.C. al Coda
N D – R | S N, d, P, | m G m R |
@
|{S R G D | [GDG – – -]| [GDR – – -]}| MG RS RN, -| N, – N -| P D M G |
Here after playing the first line the musician should go to start and play till the @ sign. After playing “N D – R” he will jump to the portion given in the second line, starting from “S R G D”.
3. Da Capo al Segno (often abbreviated as D.C. al Segno or simply D.S): It means “From the beginning to the sign”. We shall use “$” symbol to indicate the sign. Example:
$
D.S.
|{S R G D | [GDG – – -]| [GDR – – -]}| MG RS RN, -| N, – N -| P D M G |
In my next blog post I will show how the notation system will work.