Swar and Laya Fundamentals
Twelve swaras, not seven
- Shuddha: S R G M P D N.
- Vikrit: komal r g d n, plus teevra M.
- Twelve swaras make one saptak. Sa and Pa are achala (fixed); the rest are chala and take vikrit forms.
Shruti and saptak
Hindustani theory inherits 22 shrutis per octave from Bharat's Natyashastra. A saptak has three registers - mandra, madhya, taar; kharja and ati-taar lie beyond them. A dot below a swar means mandra, a dot above means taar.
Laya vocabulary
- Matra: one beat of the cycle.
- Vibhag: a division of the cycle, begun by tali (clap, marked x or a number) or khali (wave, marked 0).
- Sam: the first matra of the avartan and the point of resolution.
- Avartan: one complete cycle.
- Laya: vilambit, madhya, drut. Laya is the pulse, not the number of notes squeezed into it.
Worked example
Teentaal at 60 bpm means one matra per second, so one avartan of 16 matras lasts 16 seconds. At dugun you place 32 matras in those same 16 seconds - two per second, 120 bpm. Saying "dugun means a faster taal" is wrong: the taal is unchanged, only the density of matras doubles.
Traps
- Treating sam and tali as synonyms; sam is matra 1, while other vibhag starts are tali or khali.
- Describing khali as silence; khali is a sounding vibhag marked by a wave of the hand.
- Counting seven swaras when the question asks for twelve.
- Writing komal swaras as capitals in notation answers.