Hindustani music notation
The Indian scale (both Hindustani and Carnatic) consists of twelve semitones, like the western scale. As with western solfège (do re mi...), the pitches have names (as shown below), called swara in long form and sargam (from SaReGaMa) in short form. Tuning is not well-tempered, and some notes have different tunings in different ragas. Standard written notation uses a line below a note to indicate komal (flat), a line above to indicate tivra (sharp), a dot "." below to indicate an octave below, and a dot "." above to indicate an octave above. Since a plain text file cannot represent that notation, my notation instead uses lower case r g d n for komal (flat), m for shuddh (natural) ma and M for tivra (sharp) Ma, dot "." before the note to indicate the low octave, and single quote "'" after the note to indicate the high octave.
| notation | short | full | interval | comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| S | Sa | Shadja | unison | |
| r | komal re | flatted 2nd | ||
| R | Re | Rishabha | major 2nd | Carnatic: Ri |
| g | komal ga | minor 3rd | ||
| G | Ga | Gandhara | major 3rd | |
| m | ma | Madhyama | perfect 4th | |
| M | tivra Ma | sharp 4th | tritone | |
| P | Pa | Panchama | perfect 5th | |
| d | komal dha | minor 6th | ||
| D | Dha | Dhaivata | major 6th | |
| n | komal ni | flatted 7th | ||
| N | Ni | Nishada | major 7th | |
| S' | Sa | Shadja | octave |
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