Play, music
A student of Carnatic music begins with the seven svaras, sa ri ga ma pa dha ni, sung in the scale of Māyāmāḷavagauḷa over a tānpūrā, and with the first exercise, the sarali varisai, counted in Ādi tāla in three speeds. The three exercises here follow that first lesson: hear a svara and name it, sing one and see how close you are, keep the count. The drone, the tones and the claps are made by your browser; the intervals are the just ones a tānpūrā makes natural. Choose your śruti first, as a singer does, and every exercise follows it.
Sa sounds, then one note of the scale. Name it. Turn the tānpūrā on and, when ready, turn Sa off and hold it in your own mind.
This browser cannot make sound, so the svara game cannot run here. The scale is S R G M P D N Ṡ; try another browser.
Sing into the microphone and the meter shows which svara you are on and how many cents sharp or flat, read sixty times a second. In practice mode a svara is set; hold it in tune for a second to earn the next. If the listed śrutis do not fit your voice, sing your comfortable Sa and press “Make this note my Sa”. Nothing you sing is recorded or sent anywhere.
This browser cannot use the microphone, so the tuner cannot run here. Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari 14.1 or later can.
Eight beats: a clap and three finger counts (little, ring, middle), then clap and wave twice. Start the count and tap on the beat while the first sarali varisai is sounded, sa ri ga ma pa dha ni ṡa and back down, in the first, second or third speed.
This browser cannot make sound, so the tāla game cannot run here.
Sing an Om, or hold the tonic, into your microphone. The recording stays on this device. Use it as the śruti in the first exercise, and as the site's soft background sound through the Sound button in the header, for this visit — or save the file to make it the site's own.
This browser cannot record sound. Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari 14.1 or later can.
The Nāṭyaśāstra's twenty-eighth chapter names the seven svaras, and goes on to the two grāmas and which notes sound in concord. The Library holds the chapter in Sanskrit; HREEM adds no translation of its own.
षड्जश्च ऋषभश्चैव गान्धारो मध्यमस्तथा । पञ्चमो धैवतश्चैव सप्तमो ऽथ निषादवान्
ṣaḍjaśca ṛṣabhaścaiva gāndhāro madhyamastathā / pañcamo dhaivataścaiva saptamo 'tha niṣādavān
Sanskrit only: no published translation is held for this verse.
संवादो मध्यमग्रामे पञ्चमस्यर्षभस्य च । षड्जग्रामे तु षड्जस्य संवादः पञ्चमस्य च
saṃvādo madhyamagrāme pañcamasyarṣabhasya ca / ṣaḍjagrāme tu ṣaḍjasya saṃvādaḥ pañcamasya ca
Sanskrit only: no published translation is held for this verse.
Carnatic music as sung today — its rāgas, its gamakas, its repertoire — is a living tradition learned from a teacher; nothing here replaces that. The scale used is the beginner's rāga; the drone and the tones are approximations.