Svara

Swara or svara is an Indian classical music term that connotes simultaneously a breath, a vowel, a note, the sound of a musical note corresponding to its name, and the successive steps of the octave, or saptanka. More comprehensively, it is the ancient Indian concept of the complete dimension of musical pitch. At its most basic comparison to western music, a swara is, essentially, a "note" of a given scale. However, that is but a loose interpretation of the word, as a swara is identified as both a musical note and tone; a "tone" is a precise substitute for sur, relating to "tunefulness". Traditionally, Indian musicians have just seven swaras/notes with short names: sa, re, ga, ma, pa, dha, ni, which they collectively refer to as saptank or saptaka. This is one of the reasons why swara is considered a symbolic expression for the number seven. In another loose comparison to western music, saptak may be interpreted as solfège, e.g. the notes of a scale as Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti.

Origins and history

Etymology

The word svara is derived from the root svar- which means "to sound". To be precise, the svara is defined in the Sanskrit nirukta system as:

svaryate iti svaraḥ,
svayam rājate iti svaraḥ and
sva rañjayati iti svaraḥ.

The Kannada word svara and Tamil alphabet or letter suram do not represent a sound, but rather more generally the place of articulation , where one generates a sound, and the sounds made there can vary in pitch.

In the ''Veda''s

The word is found in the Vedic literature, particularly the Samaveda, where it means accent and tone, or a musical note, depending on the context. The discussion there focusses on three accent pitch or levels: svarita, udatta and anudatta. However, scholars question whether the singing of hymns and chants were always limited to three tones during the Vedic era.
In the general sense svara means tone, and applies to chanting and singing. The basic svaras of Vedic chanting are udatta, anudatta and svarita. Vedic music has madhyama or ma as principal note so that tonal movement is possible towards lower and higher pitches, thus ma is taken for granted as fixed in any tonal music.
One-svara Vedic singing is called ārcika chanting, e.g. in chanting the following texts on one note:

aum aum aum / om om om
hari om tatsat
shivoham shivoham
raam raam raam raam
raadhe raadhe
siyaa-raam siyaa-raam

or the like. Two-svara Vedic singing is called gāthika chanting, e.g. in chanting the following text on two notes:
The musical octave is said to have evolved from the elaborate and elongated chants of the Samaveda, based on these basic svaras. Siksha is the subject that deals with phonetics and pronunciation. Naradiya Siksha elaborates the nature of svaras, both Vedic chants and the octave.

In the ''Upaniṣad''s

The word also appears in the Upanishads. For example, it appears in Jaiminiya Upanishad Brahmana section 111.33, where the cyclic rise and setting of sun and world, is referred to as "the music of spheres", and the sun is stated to be "humming the wheel of the world". According to the philosopher Ananda Coomaraswamy, the roots "svar", meaning "to shine", and "svr", meaning "to sound or resound" and also in some contexts "to shine", are all related in the ancient Indian imagination. This connection, however, is not supported by linguistic evidence and mere speculative

In ''Śāstra'' literature

The concept of a svara is found in Chapter 28 of the text Nāṭya Śāstra, estimated to have been completed between 200 BCE to 200 CE. It names the unit of tonal measurement or audible unit the śruti, with verse 28.21 introducing the musical scale as follows:
This text contains the modern names:
These seven svaras are shared by both major raga systems of Indian classical music, that is the North Indian and South Indian.

Seven ''svara''s and solfège (''sargam'')

Sapta svara, also called sapta swara or sapta sur, refers to the seven distinct notes of the octave or the seven successive svaras of a saptak. The sapta svara can be collectively referred to as the sargam. Sargam is the Indian equivalent to solfège, a technique for the teaching of sight-singing. As in Western moveable-Do solfège, the svara Sa is the tonic of a piece or scale. The seven svaras of the saptak are the fundamentals of heptatonic scales or melakarta ragas and thaats in Carnatic and Hindustani classical music.
The seven svaras are śaḍja, r̥ṣabha, gāndhāra, madhyama, pañcama, dhaivata and niṣāda. The svaras of the sargam are often learnt in abbreviated form: sā, ri or re, ga, ma, pa, dha, ni. Of these, the first svara that is "sa", and the fifth svara that is "pa", are considered anchors that are unalterable, while the remaining have flavours that differs between the two major systems.

Svara	Shadja	Rishabh	Gandhar	Madhyam	Pancham	Dhaivat	Nishad
Svara	Sa	Re	Ga	Ma	Pa	Dha	Ni
12 Varieties	C	D D	E E	F F	G	A A	B B

Svara	Shadjam	Rishabham	Gandharam	Madhyamam	Panchamam	Dhaivatam	Nishadam
Svara	Sa	Ri	Ga	Ma	Pa	Dha	Ni
16 Varieties	C	D D D	E E E	F F	G	A A A	B B B

Interpretation

North Indian Hindustani music has fixed names of a relative pitches, but South Indian Carnatic music keeps on making interchanges of the names of pitches in case of ri-ga and dha-ni whenever required. Swaras appear in successive steps in an octave. More comprehensively, svara-graam is the practical concept of Indian music comprising seven + five= twelve most useful musical pitches. Sage Matanga made a very important statement in his Brihaddeshi some 1500 years ago that:
i.e. Shadaj, Rishabh, Gandhar,... are not the real svaras but their pronunciation in the form of aa-kar, i-kaar, u-kaar... are the real form of the svaras.
It is said that Shadaj is the basic svara from which all the other 6 svaras are produced. When we break the word Shadaj then we get, Shad- And -Ja. Shad is 6 and ja is 'giving birth' in Indian languages. So basically the translation is :
षड् - 6, ज -जन्म. Therefore, it collectively means giving birth to the other 6 notes of the music.
The absolute frequencies for all svaras are variable, and are determined relative to the saptak or octave. E.g. given Sa 240 Hz, Re 270 Hz, Ga 288 Hz, Ma 320 Hz, Pa 360 Hz, Dha 405 Hz, and Ni 432 Hz, then the Sa after the Ni of 432 Hz has a frequency of 480 Hz i.e. double that of the lower octave Sa, and similarly all the other 6 svaras. Considering the Sa of the Madhya Saptak then frequencies of the other svaras will be,
Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni
'''Mandra Saptak: 120 Hz, 135 Hz, 144 Hz, 160 Hz, 180 Hz, 202.5 Hz, 216 Hz.

Relationship to ''śruti''

The svara differs slightly from the śruti concept in Indian music. Both the svara and the śruti are but the sounds of music. According to the music scholars of the distant past, the śruti is generally understood as a microtone besides veda and an ear. In the context of advanced music, a śruti is the smallest gradation of pitch that a human ear can detect and a singer or instrument can produce. There are 22 śruti or microtones in a saptaka of Hindustani music but Carnatic music assumes 24 śruti. A svara is a selected pitch from 22 śrutis, using several of such svaras a musician constructs scales, melodies and ragas. In the presence of a drone-sound of perfectly tuned Tanpuras, an ideal svara sounds sweet and appealing to human ear but particularly some 10 śrutis of the saptaka sound out of pitch when compared to the very drone. A tuneful and pleasing tone of the svara is located at a fixed interval but there is no fixed interval defined for two consecutive śrutis anywhere that can safely and scientifically be used throughout with respect to a perfect drone sound.
The ancient Sanskrit text Natya Shastra by Bharata identifies and discusses twenty two shruti and seven shuddha and two vikrita svara. The Natya Shastra mentions that in Shadaj graama, the svara pairs saa-ma and saa-pa are samvaadi svaras and are located at the interval of 9 and 13 shruti respectively. Similarly, svara pairs re-dha and ga-ni are samvaadi svara too. Without giving any example of 'a standard measure' or 'equal interval' between two successive shrutis, Bharata declared that saa, ma or pa shall have an interval of 4 shrutis measured from the pitch of the preceding svara, re or dha shall have an interval of 3 shrutis measured from the pitch of the preceding svara and ga or ni shall have an interval of 2 shrutis measured from the pitch of the preceding svara respectively. The following quote explains it all:
Bharata also makes some unscientific and unacceptable observations ignoring practically proven truths like samvaad or consonance of ma-ni, re-dha, re-pa and ga-ni as each of these svara pairs do not have equal number of shrutis to establish samvaad. In reality, the above-mentioned pairs DO create samvaad or consonances which Bharata did not recognize for unknown reasons. None of the musicologists give in writing the 'practical basis' or technique of ascertaining the ideal tonal gap between the note pairs like saa-re, re-ga, ga-ma, ma-pa, pa-dha, dha-ni, ni-saa* until Sangeet Paarijat of Ahobal. The svara studies in ancient Sanskrit texts include the musical gamut and its tuning, categories of melodic models and the raga compositions.
Perhaps the greats like Bharata, Sage Matanga and Shaarnga-deva did not know the secret of tuneful tones for they do not mention use of drone sound for any of the musical purposes. Most of the practicing musicians knew very well that all the tuneful tones of seven notes could be discovered with the help of the theory of samvaad, in which saa-saa*, saa-ma and saa-pa play the most crucial role.

Notation and practice

As per the widely used Bhatkhande Svara Lipi, a dot above a letter indicates that the note is sung one saptak higher, and a dot below indicates one saptak lower. Komal notes are indicated by an underscore, and the tívra Ma has a line on top which can be vertical or horizontal. In other words, the basic rule is that the number of dots or apostrophes above or below the svara symbol means the number of times dots or apostrophes, respectively, above or below the corresponding svara in madhya saptak.
The basic mode of reference in the Hindustani system is that which is equivalent to the Western Ionian mode or major scale. In the Carnatic system however, the beginner exercises are sung in the raga Mayamalavagowla, which corresponds to the Western Double harmonic scale. The reason for this being the symmetry of the scale, with the first half mirroring the second half, and the existence of all the important intervals. This is something that is absent in the major scale, which only consists of half and whole notes. In any seven-tone mode, R, G, D, and N can be natural or flat but never sharp, and the M can be natural or sharp but never flat, making twelve notes as in the Western chromatic scale. If a svara is not natural, a line below a letter indicates that it is flat and an acute accent above indicates that it is sharp. Sa and Pa are immovable, forming a just perfect fifth.
In some notation systems, the distinction is made with capital and lowercase letters. When abbreviating these tones, the form of the note which is relatively lower in pitch always uses a lowercase letter, while the form which is higher in pitch uses an uppercase letter. So komal Re/Ri uses the letter r and shuddha Re/Ri, the letter R, but shuddha Ma uses m because it has a raised form - teevra Ma - which uses the letter M. Sa and Pa are always abbreviated as S and P, respectively, since they cannot be altered.

''Svara''s in Carnatic music

The svaras in Carnatic music are slightly different in the twelve-note system. Each svara is either prakr̥ti or vikr̥ti. Ṣaḍjam and Pañcamam are prakr̥ti svaras, whilst R̥ṣabham, Gāndhāram, Mādhyamam, Dhaivatam and Niṣādam are vikr̥ti svaras. Ma has two variants, and each of Ri, Ga, Dha and Ni has three variants. The mnemonic syllables for each vikṛti svara use the vowels "a", "i" and "u" successively from lowest to highest. For example, r̥ṣabham has the three ascending variants "ra", "ri" and "ru", being respectively 1, 2 and 3 semitones above the tonic note, ṣaḍjam.

Position	Svara	Short name	Notation	Mnemonic	Semitones from Sa
1	Ṣaḍjam	Sa	S	sa	0
2	Śuddha R̥ṣabham	Ri		ra	1
3	Catuśruti R̥ṣabham	Ri		ri	2
3	Śuddha Gāndhāram	Ga		ga	2
4	Ṣaṭśruti R̥ṣabham	Ri		ru	3
4	Sādhāraṇa Gāndhāram	Ga		gi	3
5	Antara Gāndhāram	Ga		gu	4
6	Śuddha Madhyamam	Ma		ma	5
7	Prati Madhyamam	Ma		mi	6
8	Pañcamam	Pa		pa	7
9	Śuddha Dhaivatam	Dha		dha	8
10	Catuśruti Dhaivatam	Dha		dhi	9
10	Śuddha Niṣādam	Ni		na	9
11	Ṣaṭśruti Dhaivatam	Dha		dhu	10
11	Kaiśikī Niṣādam	Ni		ni	10
12	Kākalī Niṣādam	Ni		nu	11

As you can see above, Catuśruti Ṛṣabham and Śuddha Gāndhāram share the same pitch. Hence if C is chosen as Ṣaḍjam, D would be both Catuśruti R̥ṣabham and Śuddha Gāndhāram. Hence they will not occur in same rāgam together. Similarly for the two svaras each at pitch positions 4, 10 and 11.

Cultural, spiritual, and religious symbolism

Each svara is associated with the sound produced by a particular animal or a bird, like,
* Sa is said to be sourced from the cry of a peacock,
* Ri is said to be sourced from the lowing of a bull,
* Ga is said to be sourced from the bleating of a goat,
* Ma is said to be sourced from call of the heron,
* Pa is said to be sourced from call of the cuckoo,
* Dha is said to be sourced from the neighing of the horse,
* Ni is said to be sourced from the trumpeting of the elephant.

So each svara is said to be sourced from the sound produced by an animal or a bird.

Each svara is also associated with a classical planet:
* Sa – Mercury,
* Re – Mars,
* Ga – Sun,
* Ma – Moon,
* Pa - Saturn,
* Dha – Jupiter,
* Ni - Venus.
Each svara is also associated with a colour:
* Sa – Green,
* Re – Red,
* Ga – Golden,
* Ma – White,
* Pa - Blue or Black,
* Dha – Yellow,
* Ni - Multi coloured.
Each svara is also associated with the 7 Chakras in the body:
* Sa - Muladhara
* Re - Svadisthana
* Ga - Manipura
* Ma - Anahata
* Pa - Vishuddhi
* Dha - Ajna
* Ni - Sahasrara