Carnatic Music Notation Editing Application

[arunk]

Panchapakesa Iyer in all his books uses the vowel extension as one mathrai. So in your example as per this " paa , " would mean 3 mathrais.

Is this followed in other books too? I dont remember seeing it but I will check.

If you use 'p' to indicate the swaram then "pa , " would mean three mathrais. To avoid confusion I simply use "p , , " to denote 3 mathrais.

This is where I think it can be ambigious. Doesnt Pa , (3 mathrais) and P , (2 mathrais in your scheme) also allow an interpretation of panchamam followed by a pause of one mathrai? This is actually one of the reason why i personally dont prefer using "," for continuation since it is also used for pauses. But I thought maybe I am mistaken.

This also enables me to space my sahityams correctly so I can match the syllables in the sahityam more accurately to the swarams.

I agree although wouldnt a single dhIrha swara that takes 2-3 mathrais have only one lyric fragment i.e. you wont split that lyric fragment across 2-3 mathrais? For example let us say you have P , , (or Paa or Pa ,) i am not sure you will have separate syllables for the 3 mathrais in a song say as "sa ra va" (as in that case you would rather make it P P P)? Or am I misinterpreting what you are saying?

Thanks
Arun

[shanks]

I have been using truetype fonts and word for notation. I created these fonts a couple of years ago using a truetype font editor.

The link for the files is below:

http://rapidshare.com/files/2824524/cmfonts.zip.html

Includes Normal and Bold fonts + upper and lower case mapping of swarams to letters.

Shankar

[kkumar29]

This is where I think it can be ambigious. Doesnt Pa , (3 mathrais) and P , (2 mathrais in your scheme) also allow an interpretation of panchamam followed by a pause of one mathrai? This is actually one of the reason why i personally dont prefer using "," for continuation since it is also used for pauses. But I thought maybe I am mistaken.

I am assuming that you mean silence when you say pause. I generally don't use any pause in my swaram notation, but use it in the sahityam. To indicate a pause I use a forward /. Let me give you an example:

g , p , , , , sn s , s , s , s , snp, p , g n p g r s r
v i na----- ya ka / ni nu vi na-- / bro- su- da- ku-

Here I use the hyphen as a place holder to keep count and the / as a pause which I use to indicate a breather. Of course this way I know when I see a hyphen that is a time count and when I see a slash it is a pause or breather. I hope this is clear now.

Being from the engineering background I like everything neatly tied up , and starting to learn music at a very late stage in my life (52 years) I could use any help I can get whether visual or aural. It just takes me longer what a child learns in a very short time. Hence all this fuss about notations.

K. Kumar.

[arunk]

Agreed. But I was asking about ambiguity of "," in standard convention as-is as opposed to modifications of it to take care of it.

Yor scheme side-steps in one way, just like mine does so another way (i use , only for silence and use "-" for elongated swaras) .

But it does look like the standard convention ambigous in this respect? Would you agree?

BTW, what would you do if pauses appear in ciTTaswaras? I guess you can always use "/" even in swara line.

Arun

[vasanthakokilam]

I am with Arun that the notations used in music books have that ambiguity. If that is indeed correct and if knowledgeable people all agree, invent a symbol and use it for both the swara line and sahitya line to reduce the symbol overload.

This makes me think of this suggestion. At the lower level, have these mathra level structure. If you track the history of western notation, over time, as they find repeated usage of certain sequences, they invented higher level symbols for the same. That makes it easier for them to read the music in chunks.

In your case, you can consider such things later on ( post release 1 if I may ). Since we are talking about silences and kArvais, there are some standard things that are used in many compositions. Would some higher level symbols help? For starters, I am thinking of the following:

1) In Pallavis and in many songs as well, at the padhagarbam ( arudi ) there is a pause. The pause length can vary but it is a special use of the pause aesthetically. A notation for this will bring it out explicitly. I first thought PG6 to notate 6 mathrais of silence after padhagarbam but this is no good due to the ambiguity with P and G. So, something like that is the idea.

2) Many songs have a structure where there is a small pause as you land on the samam and again at the arudi ( whether as pronounced or not as in a pallavi ). Many of the half idam songs are like that. This may not require a new symbol but this kind of overall organization structure of the song can somehow be captured and represented. This will take out some of the apparent complexity that is found in song notations.

3) Desadi tala songs, for the most part, have a repeating, simple structure. ( but very catchy and attractive to listen to even for beginners ). In other words, the distribution of lyrics over the tala duration seems to follow a standard arrangement, like syllable on the 2nd half of even beats ( 2,4,6,8 ) and syllable on the odd beats ( 1,3,5,7). Of course, composers will not necessarily stick to this, so your tool can lay it out that way for desadi tala and then have the composer move it a bit if they want to deviate from the usual.

These are half-baked ideas, so feel free to take pot shots at them

[kkumar29]

Hi Arun,

I guess you might have found a short coming in the conventions used by authors. I checked all the books I have by Sambamurthy, Pachapakesa Iyer, Krithi Mani Malai, Papanasam Sivan's volumes, TKG, Ariyakudi etc. They all use varied schemes. Most of them use - for phrasing but I could not find pauses in chittaswarams. I don't know whether they have imbibed the silences as an extended swaram. Semmangudi uses both / and . I haven't quite figured out what they mean. I guess I need to learn a lot more before I can even attempt to decipher what these notations mean:):)

You seem to have given this some serious consideration, and I am willing to go along with anything that is comprehensive. I am just a novice trying to make my learning process easier.

K. Kumar.

[Rigapada]

At the outset, let me congratulate and also thank Arun. The demo ran on my computer very nicely. The basic idea is good and workable nicely. Hope we can get our hand on a working program shortly.
--Rigapada

[arunk]

thanks rigapada

[arunk]

If that is indeed correct and if knowledgeable people all agree, invent a symbol and use it for both the swara line and sahitya line to reduce the symbol overload.

It sounds good but considering no standards have come into being this long, i am skeptical about the success of a new one . Reminds me of the quote The great thing about standards is everyone can have their own

For now, I think what I need to do is have the user be able to choose between some well-known ones, and may be even customize them to create his own (?).

This makes me think of this suggestion. At the lower level, have these mathra level structure. If you track the history of western notation, over time, as they find repeated usage of certain sequences, they invented higher level symbols for the same. That makes it easier for them to read the music in chunks.

In your case, you can consider such things later on ( post release 1 if I may ). Since we are talking about silences and kArvais, there are some standard things that are used in many compositions. Would some higher level symbols help? For starters, I am thinking of the following:

Not sure again. I think CM, HM etc. are at a different animal. IMO, there is room for interpretation that will show up as differences in notation - different gamakas, different anuswaras for the same underlying swara pattern, or even different swara patterns that result in variations of the same sangati between schools.

1) In Pallavis and in many songs as well, at the padhagarbam ( arudi ) there is a pause. The pause length can vary but it is a special use of the pause aesthetically. A notation for this will bring it out explicitly. I first thought PG6 to notate 6 mathrais of silence after padhagarbam but this is no good due to the ambiguity with P and G. So, something like that is the idea.

Possible. In general for me anything that hides the relative lengths (in time) of different swaras gives rise to too much complexity. But lengthy pauses are not necessarily the same kind. Even in WM where time is shown precisely, length pauses are shown in "short hand" if you will.

2) Many songs have a structure where there is a small pause as you land on the samam and again at the arudi ( whether as pronounced or not as in a pallavi ). Many of the half idam songs are like that. This may not require a new symbol but this kind of overall organization structure of the song can somehow be captured and represented. This will take out some of the apparent complexity that is found in song notations.

I thought the standard pause denotion should be able to handle that? For catusra gati, you can denote as small as 1/8th an akshara (, with 2 lines on-top/on-bottom). Would that be enough?

Arun

[arunk]

Most of them use - for phrasing but I could not find pauses in chittaswarams

I did realize this. One reason why I do know my use of "-" for continuation cannot be that acceptable. Although i was also thinking whether there is a better way to visually indicate phrasing. I just think hyphen seems to naturally fit the bill for continuation if you sort of take it to how it is used in written English. I thought the same correlation applied for comma (a small pause when reading out a sentence with a comma).

Perhaps paranthesis or brackets may have been a better choice but can be visually too intrusive. In any case "-" for phrasing/grouping indeed is common.

Arun

[ramakriya]

Using , will be confusing; And too many [[ ]] look awkward IMO; So - remains your best bet

-Ramakriya

[arunk]

Using , will be confusing; And too many [[ ]] look awkward IMO; So - remains your best bet
-Ramakriya

, confusing for what and "-" is best bet for what :/?

I agree that [] would look awkward. The WM phrasing is a bit better IIRC as it basically joins all notes in the phrase "on top" sort of like devanagiri script . It is non-intrusive to the notation itself. CM cannot use that as we have the speed markers playing a similar role.

How about something like this (the blue lines - ignore the color just the concept of tiny brackets underneath/above depending on whether speed lines are below/above)?:

[ramakriya]

Using , will be confusing; And too many [[ ]] look awkward IMO; So - remains your best bet
-Ramakriya

, confusing for what and "-" is best bet for what :/?

I meant that for seperating out the svara phrases

For example, look at the last ettugaDe swara from DRS's Ranjani varNa

4) R* ; , | ;- S* N- | N D D M- | M G G S- |

R ; , | ; G S | N# D# S R | G M D S* ||

R* R* S*- S* | ,- S* N D- | N N D- D | ,- D M G- |

S R G- S | ,- S N# D#- | M# D# S R | G M D S ||

R* , R*- R* | G* S* N D- | S* ,- S*- S* | N D M D- |

M , M- M | D M G S- | R , R- R | G M D S ||

R* G* M* G* | S* , N- D | S* N D M | , D- R* S* |

, N D M- | G S ,- S | R G- M D | ,- S* R* G* ||


In here - : implies there is a natural break in between the swaras, and it may not always
conincide with a beat.

, : implies a dIrgha swara.

Think of the chaos if , was used for both.

(Pardon me if you guys were actually discussing something totally different)

-Ramakriya

[arunk]

Use of "," for a break we discussed earlier is not the same as the use of "-" in your example.

We were discussing it in usage for a real pause that has 1-mathrai duration (like how i had used in brOva bhArama). The question is what if you also use it for dhIrga swaras, it makes the scheme ambiguous unless you use something else.

But yes usage of "-" as per your example above is indeed the norm.

We need to represent 3 things:
1. symbol for dhIrga swaras as separate entities (as opposed to pa paa etc. as not everyone likes that)
2. symbol for pause/silence that will span "n" mathrais (n >= 1)
3. symbol for phrasing or as you say "natural break" in between swaras.

If we use any symbol for more than 1 of these, the notational scheme becomes ambiguous. This is the case with "," in notational scheme. The way I had used with "-" for #1, runs into problem as then you have to invent something else for #3.

Ideally, we need unique symbols for the 3 categories.

Arun

[drshrikaanth]

Arun
What is the difference between 1 &2? If my understanding of what you say is right, they are not different and there is no need for different symbols for these 2. "," and ";" will work fine while "-" will work for No.3. Even a so called "Silent Pause" will rest on one note only. Artistes will not stop siging and become silent during these pauses.

[arunk]

Arun
What is the difference between 1 &2? If my understanding of what you say is right, they are not different and there is no need for different symbols for these 2. "," and ";" will work fine while "-" will work for No.3. Even a so called "Silent Pause" will rest on one note only. Artistes will not stop siging and become silent during these pauses.

Maybe I am wrong but take the example of brOva-bhArama. The song starts 1.5 aksharas after samam. This means 1.5 aksharas of silence at the start (i.e. 1st sangati) of pallavi, anu-pallavi and charanam. Of course for subsequent sangatis you dont have silence, but then they have swaras filling in

But maybe it is not necessary. If a real pause maybe happens in krithis only at the start of a stanza, then "," there cannot mean dhIrgha as there are no swara prior to it. And so there is no ambiguity if you interpret it contextually. But is this correct that they happen only at the start of a stanza? But there is also the case vk points out the case of arudi in pallavi - which are real pauses in the middle. If one were to notate that, will we run into this ambiguity?

Arun

[drshrikaanth]

. But is this correct that they happen only at the start of a stanza? But there is also the case vk points out the case of arudi in pallavi - which are real pauses in the middle. If one were to notate that, will we run into this ambiguity?

Arun. In the case of padagarbha in pallavi, the long pause is still on a single elongated note. caesura does not mean a break in swara. In any case, there is no room for ambigutiy for 2 reasons

1- padagarbhas in pallavis do not appear at random places.

2- It is the longest elongation/pause in the pallavi. There can be no mistaking it.

Anyway, regardless of whetehr it is facilitated in the notation/kRti or not, artistes will certainly make breathing spaces for themselves, even at wrong places.

So, increasing the number of symbols only adds to confusion. I suggest using "," and ";" for 1 and 2 and "-"for 3 in your earlier post.

[arunk]

Agreed. I am not necessarily that eager to introduce any new standards. Even otherwise, my program will definitely allow for (and default to) for the popular standard.

For purposes of sharing, the existing standard nomenclature i.e. , for 1 and 2, and - for 3 should be good enough.

Although i still think usage of a single symbol for two different things is not the clearest usage . But only until you get used to it .

Arun

[thanjavur]

Going directly towards PDF maybe better (as you can specify the layout exactly as you want it in the language itself ), but i dont know squat about postscript language .

Arun

Ummm... probably send your document to the free PDFCreator (software printer) which can be
downloaded from

http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/

[arunk]

Ummm... probably send your document to the free PDFCreator (software printer) which can be
downloaded from
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/

Yes that is what i would recommend but this is not the same as "going directly to PDF". While once the PDF is generated you get the same layout regardlless of which machine you display it on, you cannot modify the underlying notations also.

Arun

[vageyakara]

I am a vageyakara willing to share what litle knowledge i have with discerning rasikas.
vageyakara

[vageyakara]

I WOULD LIKE TO request RASIKAS TO VIEW Karnatik.com -link Royal carpet composers and get their views.vageyakara

[meena]

Deleted

[rbharath]

hi
m just wondering, if this demo has materialised into a software???

[MuseOfLife]

Ummm... probably send your document to the free PDFCreator (software printer)

You can also use this Free PDF Maker.