Remote raga

Praneet Marathe

As a professional harmonium player and teacher, Pune-based Praneet Marathe knows the challenges of creating structured online learning modules for instrumental music. The existing swarlipi (notation system), he tells us, is difficult to use on digital devices. "It cannot be typed using a normal English keyboard as some of the symbols are not available." The prevalent notification system followed by music schools was formulated by Pt. Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande and Pt. Vishnu Digambar Paluskar. Swarlipi is essentially the script of notes, using lines, dots and other symbols.

After extensive research, Marathe has come up with a solution to the problem: a new, digital-friendly swarlipi. In any music notation system, there are a set of fundamental components, which includes symbols for matras, teevra swar (sharp tone shown by a small vertical line above the note), mandra saptak (notes with lower frequencies), bol (in case of vocals).

The new system has all the elements in one line - taal indicators followed by swars followed by matras - so there is a grouping of four characters for each swar

"In the traditional Paluskar system, for an instrumental music composition [which does not have bol/lyrics, only swars] a multi-line system is used where, for instance, the first row contains swars, while the second row has matras and third, taal indicators. This makes formatting very crucial. If the swars, matras and indicators are not aligned, it can lead to misinterpretation," explains the 29-year-old, who is key contributor at Gandharva Mahavidyalaya, Pune, in developing the curriculum, teaching and examining students of harmonium.

Coming to how the new system is different, he says it has everything in one line - taal indicators followed by swars followed by matras - making it easy to follow. "It uses some of the symbols from Paluskar lipi to make it easier for people to understand and introduces some new symbols readily available on the computer keyboard for easier typing on digital devices." The new swarlipi enables students to take notes on a device while listening to the instructor online. "Both the guru and the learner can quickly jot down ideas or thoughts. Moreover, this system crosses the language barrier as it can be used in any language - Hindi, English or Marathi, making it far more accessible to diverse learners."

Marathe has ensured that in doing so, he preserved some of the core fundamental principles of Indian classical music. "I just wanted to develop a system that is easy to follow, write and interpret. The aim was to steepen the learning curve and adoption."

Based on the feedback, he fine-tuned the system. Getting students to adopt the new swarlipi hasn't been all that easy, though. "People who are already using this system online found writing the notation for the first time time-consuming, but it got easier with each attempt. Once they were comfortable, they found it easier to follow. Now, we want to get this notation system adopted as widely and as fast as possible."