Understanding Swaras: The Building Blocks of Raga
Every raga, every phrase, every note you'll ever play on a sitar is built from the same twelve pitch positions. Hindustani classical music calls these positions swaras, and understanding them — really understanding them, not just memorizing the names — is the single most useful piece of theory a beginning player can learn, because it's the vocabulary everything else in this system is written in.
The twelve positions
An octave divides into twelve semitones, and Hindustani music names all twelve using seven base syllables with flat and sharp variants:
Sa, re, Re, ga, Ga, Ma, Ma#, Pa, dha, Dha, ni, Ni
The convention used throughout this site (and in the
Virtual Sitar and Compose tools) is: lowercase marks
a komal (flat) variant, uppercase marks a shuddha (natural)
variant, and Ma# marks the single tivra (sharp) swara. Two of the
seven base syllables — Sa and Pa — have no flat or sharp variant
at all; they're fixed points, which is part of why they play such a
central structural role in raga theory. That leaves five syllables (Re,
Ga, Ma, Dha, Ni) with a komal or tivra option, which is exactly where the
other ten positions come from.
All twelve, at a glance
| Swara | Semitones from Sa | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Sa | 0 | fixed |
| re | 1 | komal |
| Re | 2 | shuddha |
| ga | 3 | komal |
| Ga | 4 | shuddha |
| Ma | 5 | shuddha |
| Ma# | 6 | tivra |
| Pa | 7 | fixed |
| dha | 8 | komal |
| Dha | 9 | shuddha |
| ni | 10 | komal |
| Ni | 11 | shuddha |
If you've studied Western theory, that "semitones from Sa" column is exactly a chromatic scale — Hindustani and Western music ultimately divide the octave into the same twelve equal steps. What differs is the naming convention, the moveable reference point (Sa instead of a fixed C), and, in real performance, the use of shrutis — the microtonal shadings within and around these twelve positions that a fretted, tempered instrument can only approximate. That microtonal layer is a genuinely deep topic in its own right and one this site doesn't try to cover exhaustively here — the twelve-position system above is what actually governs sitar fretting and notation, and it's the right foundation to build on first.
Sargam: solfège, but not quite the same idea
Sargam is the name for this whole solfège system, built from the first syllables of Sa-Re-Ga-Ma-Pa-Dha-Ni. If you've studied Western solfège (Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Ti), the resemblance is real — both systems name scale degrees with syllables rather than fixed letter names — but there's an important difference in how "Sa" behaves compared to "Do" in moveable-Do solfège. Sa isn't tied to a specific pitch like C is in fixed-Do systems; it's simply wherever the performer sets their tonic, and every other swara is defined relative to Sa, not against an absolute frequency. Set Sa anywhere comfortable for your voice or instrument, and the same relationships — the same ragas — transpose along with it.
Octaves: mandra, madhya, taar
Swara names repeat every octave, so Hindustani theory adds a second layer to say which Sa, or which Re, you mean. The three octaves relevant to most performance are:
- Mandra saptak — the lower octave
- Madhya saptak — the middle octave, where a performance is usually centered
- Taar saptak — the upper octave
Traditional notation marks mandra with a dot below the swara and taar
with a dot above it; on this site's Compose tool, that's
written more simply as a trailing , for mandra and ' for taar (so
P, is Pa in the lower octave, and S' is Sa an octave up).
From twelve positions to one raga
No raga uses all twelve positions at once. A raga is defined, in part, by which subset of these twelve swaras it draws on — typically seven, one per base syllable, though some ragas use fewer or bend the rule in specific ornamental contexts. Two ragas can even choose the same seven positions and still sound completely different, because so much of a raga's character lives in melodic movement, emphasis, and the specific notes it treats as resting points — ideas covered in more depth in our pieces on the thaat system and vadi and samvadi. But every one of those ideas is built on top of the twelve positions described here — there's no shortcut around learning them cold.
The full notation system, at a glance
Everything above maps onto a small set of plain-text symbols used consistently across Compose and Songs — worth having in one place, since the theory and the tools are teaching the same system under different names:
| Symbol | Meaning |
|---|---|
S, R, G, M, P, D, N | shuddha (natural) swaras |
r, g, d, n | komal (flat) swaras |
m | tivra (sharp) Ma — the only raised swara |
' after a letter | taar saptak (upper octave), e.g. S' |
, after a letter | mandra saptak (lower octave), e.g. P, |
- or an empty box | a rest |
| space-separated notes in one box | subdivide that box evenly, e.g. S G plays two notes in the time of one |
> after a letter | meend — glides into the next note (see meend and gamak) |
~ after a letter | oscillation — gamak/andolan (see meend and gamak) |
\ after a letter | da — an outward mizrab stroke (see mizrab technique) |
/ after a letter | ra — an inward mizrab stroke (see mizrab technique) |
A letter can carry at most one octave marker and one of the four trailing
markers above (>, ~, \, /) — so G'> is a taar-saptak Ga that
glides into the next note, but a single letter can't stack a glide and a
stroke marker at once yet. None of these trailing markers change what you
hear from the sampled sitar tone except meend, which gets a slightly
longer overlap into the next note as an approximation, not a real pitch
bend — they're notation for reading and writing a phrase down accurately,
not a simulation of the technique itself. Compose's own
"Notation & shortcuts" panel has this same table if you need a reminder
while you're actually writing something.
Hear it, don't just read it
Reading a list of swara names only gets you so far. Practice this: open the Virtual Sitar, set a tonic, and play through all twelve positions in order — komal and shuddha side by side — so your ear starts attaching sound to these names, not just spelling. That's the same foundation every concept elsewhere on this site builds from. The glossary has quick one-line reminders for swara, sargam, komal, shuddha, and tivra if a term slips your memory later.