Correcting a handwritten Jhaptaal notation before the fair copy
A student submits this handwritten opening line for a Bhoopali bandish in Jhaptaal:
| S R | G M P | D P | G R S |
Above it she has written × over matra 1, the figure 2 over matra 5, and 0 over matra 7, explaining that khali comes 'a little after the first clap'. Her teacher knows the bandish actually has a one-matra pickup before sam, so what she has written on matra 1 is really the anacrusis and everything after it has shifted one place. The Ma in the second vibhag is defended on the grounds that 'the harmonium played it'. The examiner's rubric awards marks for correct vibhag division, correct tali and khali placement, and correct swara choice. She has three days before the fair copy is due, a three-minute viva on notation conventions, and no access to the original recording.
1. Identify every error in the submitted line and explain the reasoning behind each correction.
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1. The Ma is not available. Bhoopali is audava–audava: S R G P D, with neither Ma nor Ni. Any Ma in a Bhoopali notation is a swara error, not a variant reading. The tivra Ma sign makes it worse, since Bhoopali has no Madhyam of either kind.
2. The vibhag division is right, but the marks are attached to the wrong matras. Jhaptaal is 10 matras in 2 + 3 + 2 + 3, with tali on matras 1, 3 and 8 and khali on matra 6. She has put a tali figure on matra 5 and khali on matra 7. Matra 5 begins no vibhag at all, and matra 6, the true khali, is the first matra of the third vibhag (2 + 3 = 5, so vibhag 3 opens at 6). Her error is a classic one: she has counted syllables rather than matras, and has confused 'the middle of the line' with 'the khali vibhag'.
3. The missing pickup shifts every number by one. Because the bandish begins with a one-matra anacrusis, the syllable she places on matra 1 belongs before sam, and the true sam falls on the next syllable. Everything downstream - her tali marks, her khali mark, and her sense of where the line 'arrives' - is displaced by one matra.
4. No matra numbering and no vibhag bars in the correct places. The bars she has drawn do fall at 2 + 3 + 2 + 3, so the line is at least 10 matras long; but without matra numbers under the syllables the displacement in (3) is invisible to a reader.
2. Rewrite the line correctly, with the pickup, vibhag, tali and khali marks, and state which conventions you used.
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Corrected notation (Ma removed; the second vibhag's Dha retained as a passing note):
pickup: S
| R G | P D P | G R | S – |
matra: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
marks: × 2 0 3
Reading of the correction. After removing the Ma, the line has nine syllables for ten matras, so one matra is held (shown as –) at the close. The pickup S stands outside the first bar; sam (×) falls on Re. The second vibhag opens at matra 3 (tali 2), the third vibhag at matra 6 (khali 0), the fourth at matra 8 (tali 3). The count is 2 + 3 + 2 + 3 = 10.
Conventions used.
|marks the start of each vibhag, not each matra.×marks sam, the first matra of the first vibhag.0marks khali, the open (non-clapped) vibhag.2,3… mark the tali vibhags in order after sam.–marks a held or empty matra.- An anacrusis is written before the first bar, preferably with an arrow or in a bracketed cell, so the reader knows it does not belong to avartan 1.
One caution for the fair copy. If the original bandish genuinely contains a Madhyam, then the piece is not Bhoopali and should be reclassified - the notation must not be 'fixed' by silently deleting a swara that the composition really uses.
3. In the viva, how should she answer the examiner's question: 'If the harmonium played Ma, why does your notation not have Ma?'
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The short answer: notation records the raga's grammar, not the accompanist's fingers.
The reasoning to give the examiner, in three steps:
Raga identity is a constraint, not a preference. Bhoopali's audava jati excludes both Madhyams. A notation that includes Ma is not a variant of Bhoopali; it is a different raga or a different composition. Whatever was heard on the recording, the written line must belong to a single, identifiable raga.
Accompanists introduce notes for reasons that are not compositional. A harmonium is tuned in equal temperament and cannot reproduce the intonation a raga requires; a player may slide through a note, anticipate the next phrase, or simply be in a different Sa. A passing touch of Ma during a fast phrase is an instrumental accident, not evidence about the raga's scale.
The correct procedure when the two conflict. Check the source: the teacher, a second recording, or the composer's own notation. If the Ma is genuinely structural - for example, it recurs on a strong matra - then the composition belongs to another raga and the concert programme, not just the notation, must change. If it appears once and weakly, it is an ornament or an error and is not notated.
She should also say what she did not do: she did not silently delete a note she could not explain, and she flagged the discrepancy to her teacher. That answers the examiner's real question, which is whether she understands the difference between transcription and notation.