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Article: Indian Notation Systems
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| By Haresh Bakshi
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Introduction
The keywords for Indian music wold be: microtone (shruti), raga, consonance,
melody, improvisation, aesthetics, musical interval, culture.
Indian music is based on melody. The melody is brought out through the medium
of the raga. Typically, a taal is played on the percussion (tabla) to
accompany the performer. The accompaniment on the tabla takes place in a
certain tempo. The tempo may be slow to start with, but may keep accelerating
as the performance advances. Hence any notation system should be designed to
give information about
The notes being(or, to be) performed:
this involves the naming of the seven notes, and their accidentals
(sharps, called teevra, and flats, called komal)
Naming the three octaves in which these notes are being (or, to
be) performed
The taal with its name, number of beats (maatra), its
subdivisions (khand), the weightages (sama, taali, khaali), cycles
(aavartana).
The tempo of the taal.
The pros and cons
Indian music practice can be summed up as: IMPROVISING A RAGA.
It is all improvisation. So, the performance brings out an infinite number of
patterns permissible in a raga. It is impossible to notate all this. Further,
the complexities of the approach and treatment of notes make it impossible to
write music even in the staff notation (Western music notation system, which
is far more detailed than the Indian system). The melodic niceties and
nuances, details and refinements, shades and hues, sheer complexities and
overpowering varieties, cannot be represented on a sheet of paper. The
magnificent oral tradition of music transmission through the Guru-Shishya
parampara, is too overwhelming for any notation system. Thus, in the old
days, a notation system was neither invented nor encouraged.
But the times changed; music schools were opened and encouraged. A notation
system became a practical necessity, however imperfect it might be. With a
notation system in place, music became capable of being printed. Aleast, it
would help revive and revise the compositions; and an outline of the movement
of a raga came to be written down. The rudiments of music could now be
written and distributed. Of course, this would be atleast partly, at the cost
of the traditional Guru-Shishya tradition of transmitting music.
Anyway, the notation system has come to be firmly established.
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