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Show HN: SwaraNotebook – a notation editor for Indian classical music (swaranotebook.com)

105 points by shark8me ↗ HN
As an enthusiast of Indian classical music, I needed to write music notations in the traditional typeset format. When I didn't find any existing editors, I developed a Swara Notebook, a mobile focused web app to write North Indian Classical (Hindustani) music notations.

The notes (called Sargam, similar to Solfege) can be written in English, Devnagri and Bangla scripts. The transcribed song can be played back in 6 different rhythmic cycles (Taal) to the accompaniment of the Tabla(a type of drum) or a metronome. Here's an example of a transcribed song https://swaranotebook.com/view/vlB9hVgb5OdKcadbhOOYyzKwvpl2/...

Since North Indian classical music is oriented around Ragas (similar to modes in western classical music), the keyboard adapts to the notes of a Raga, making it contextually easier to key in notes.

A common question I get: can it handle microtones? I chose to not support microtones and other pitch ornamentation such as glissando (called Meend) since a mobile interface is not the easiest place to add such details.

I also find it a useful tool for ear training, by typing out notations to songs I know, and playing it back to know if I guessed the notes right.

It is an open source project written in Clojure/script https://github.com/Studio-kalavati/bandish-editor

27 comments

[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 75.8 ms ] thread
SuperNinKenDo
Sounds awesome. Do you have any tips on getting started with this kind of musical tradition?
delphico
There are multiple classical musical schools, the most prominent are the Hindustani (Indo-Persian) and Carnatic music. There is commonality in both with respect to notes and how combinations are formed to raag/raagas

Here is an example of Carnatic music for beginners (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YNv1qwxJ0o)

abdullahkhalids
Very cool. I play the tabla, and perhaps a tabla variant of this would be useful. For this, I imagine, we will need

- Tabla sounds for both bayan and dayan

- Better handling of taal and timing. Initially double or quadruple time but later polyrhythmic structure.

Tabla would also benefit from annotations, say for labeling the tihai, etc.

shark8me
That's an interesting use-case. There are 37 buttons in the keyboard (for 12 svaras, 3 octaves, plus 1). How many might be needed for the Tabla? Is there a 'universal' set of Tabla Bols ?
abdullahkhalids
I know that there has been a lot of work done in India for writing down Tabla. I am Pakistani, and I can't read hindi in devanagari script, so I am not familiar with this work. Here is my understanding.

In tabla a bol is equal to hitting one or both drums at a given moment.

The dayan (the smaller one) roughly has a set of standard 'hits'. At least 8. But the same hit can be done with different fingers, which has different effects. I am also not sure how to classify dhir dhir, which is played by striking/rubbing the palm of the hand across the surface back and forth.

The bayan is much more complicated. Technically, there are only two types of hits on it, either an open handed hit with the finger tips or a closed handed hit with the palm. But, in practice there are many more, because by pressing with the base of the hand/wrist on the surface while striking, one can change the note (frequency) being played.

Anyway, I think combining two drums, there are maybe 16 simple bols you can play. You miss out quite a lot by trying to write it down in a simple way because of the aforementioned modulation. But perhaps simple compositions or tukrai can be written down.

shark8me
That's cool! I'm a big fan of Ustad Tari Khan's tabla style.

So what language would you write a composition in? Urdu, or English?

I'm somewhat familiar with the bols since I learnt the Tabla a long time ago. 16 sounds a manageable number. Of course, putting together the audio samples to play a piece and making it sound non-robotic would be another challenge.

But another question is: would you find such a tool useful? There's a similar trend with Raga music, because recording is so easy now, few seem to want to take the trouble to write down notes. Would you, as a Tabla practitioner want to write down a composition? <and do similar tools exist already?>

abdullahkhalids
I would not use a written down version over a memorized version because it misses all the nuances of the piece. But a playable tool for Tabla would be useful for learning, for instance, polyrhythmic practice. As someone who started learning Tabla (and music) in my 30s, I don't even have the neurons in my brain for that kind of stuff. Just listening and playing along will be a huge aid in the absence of a live teacher.
shark8me
Could you share an audio/video or written example of this? If I understood correctly, you'd like the composition to be played first in 1x speed, and later in 2x or other speed (multiple times) so that it lands on the Sam.
abdullahkhalids
> If I understood correctly, you'd like the composition to be played first in 1x speed, and later in 2x or other speed (multiple times) so that it lands on the Sam.

Yes, that is correct. But doubling the speed is kind of trivial.

I need to think about this a bit more to see what's useful. I see that you have linked your github, so if you don't mind I will use that to contact you.

mrniket
Indeed! I've been building a digital tabla notebook for Bhatkhande notation. I've made it as a plugin for Obsidian currently. You can write any text as bols as it's just plain text.

The plugin is here: https://github.com/mrniket/palta-obsidian-plugin. If you want to see it in use, here is my notebook: https://niket.london

shark8me
This is neat! Where do you type in the bols ? In Obsidian, using plain text?
mrniket
Thanks :)

Yes, via code blocks. So once you install the plugin, you can type something like:

  ```palta
  taal: teental
  ---
  DhiGe Dhina TiriKit Dhina
  DhaGe NaDhi GeDhi NaNa
  TiKe Tina TiriKit Tina
  DhaGe NaDhi GeDhi NaNa
  ```
and it will render it in the correct format. It uses a web component behind it, so if you wanted to use it directly to render the above, it would be:

  <palta-note taal="teental">
    DhiGe Dhina TiriKit Dhina
    DhaGe NaDhi GeDhi NaNa
    TiKe Tina TiriKit Tina
    DhaGe NaDhi GeDhi NaNa
  </palta-note>
xaqtiman
Very nice. As a beginner Hindustani student, this tool is helpful in both vocals and playing around with different ragas.
shark8me
And also for playing with Taal, an unintended use-case is: you could write a composition in one Taal, and then change the Taal to see how sounds in another Taal. Of course since the cycle won't end on the Sam in the new Taal, it won't sound as clean.

Question: Do you think it'll be useful to record vocals along with it? That way one can vocalize Meends and other ornamental features without having to write it.

svat
Very nice, thanks for sharing! Some feedback (I'm not a musician and know very little, so take all this completely not seriously):

• The tool would be easier to understand and get started, if you pre-populated it with some example songs (like the example notebook you linked in the post here, but which AFAICT isn't reachable from the tool itself). Even better if selecting a Raag/Rāga would automatically populate with a representative song in that rāga :-)

• Is it only meant to be used from mobile? From a laptop, the keyboard seems to do nothing (hitting backspace, etc).

• Really love the feature when selecting a rāga will set all the svaras to those of that rāga — if the keyboard worked, this would mean one could mash random keys on the keyboard and get something that sounds somewhat nice / appropriate :-) (I can kind of do this on mobile already! But on mobile the finger tends to move less randomly…)

shark8me
Thanks for the detailed feedback

| example song

I guess having a default page pre-populated with an example song is nice for a demo or a first-time user. But for someone who wants to write a new song, having to delete the pre-populated song could be irksome.

The default keyboard shows only the shuddha or regular swaras btw.

I didn't follow what you meant by "the example notebook is not reachable for the tool". You could just edit that song (https://swaranotebook.com/view/vlB9hVgb5OdKcadbhOOYyzKwvpl2/...) and save it as a new copy.

| mobile

The Swara keys (example: the "r/R" key) are used in twice in each octave, and because there are 3 octaves shown, there are 6 variations , which is difficult to input on a physical keyboard without having additional modifier keys to indicate the octave. For some keys (like the backspace), it would be straightforward. It sure is possible, just haven't worked out what would be ergonomic.

subhashp
This is awesome!

I was looking for software, where I could input notes of Hindi songs. And then replay them in a loop to practice singing the song. I will try your application.

soamv
Nice app! How did you source the sounds? Are there permissively licensed tabla and santoor samples somewhere?