writing ome swarlipi

Notes

There are twelve notes in Indian Classical Music.

For the seven natural notes, use lower case keys corresponding to the note, as shown below.

स्वर Note Key Swarlipi
Sa s s
रे Re r r
Ga g g
Ma m m
Pa p p
Dha d d
नी Ni n n

In Indian music, Ma is the only note which has a sharp variant. Re, Ga, Dha and Ni have flat variants. These variants are typed using a capital letter of the note.

स्वर Note Key Swarlipi
कोमल रे Flat Re R R
कोमल ग Flat Ga G G
तीव्र म Sharp Ma M M
कोमल ध Flat Dha D D
कोमल नी Flat Ni N N

Octaves

Indian Musical compositions usually span three octaves.

A dot symbol · above or below a note signifies upper or lower octave respectively. The absence of the dot signifies middle octave.

You can signify any note as in upper octave by typing lower case u immediately after the note. Lower octave can similarly be signified by a lower case l.

स्वर Note Key Swarlipi
मंद्र तीव्र म Lower Sharp Ma Ml Ml
मध्य प Middle Pa p p
तार कोमल ध Upper Flat Dha Du Du

Strokes

Also known as Mizrab-Ke-Bol, or Syllables of Sound, these are the movements of the right hand when playing Sitar.

All Strokes take the same space as Notes, except for Dir which takes the space for two Notes.

बोल Stroke Key Swarlipi
Da ; ;
Ra ' '
दा Daa [ [
रा Raa ] ]
दिर Dir \ \
खाली Khali - -

Dividers

Dividers are used in Ome Swarlipi to indicate the duration of a beat or a phase.

Each divider takes the space equivalent to one note. Smaller dividers typed by a divide beats, whereas larger dividers typed by A divide phases. The larger dividers when written exactly under each other in consecutive lines join together, providing a simple mechanism for making columns.

The usage of small dividers allows an arbitrary number of notes to be written in one beat. This is much harder to do in other lipi-s such as Bhātkhanḍē

Type of Divider Key Swarlipi
Beat Divider a a
Phase Divider A A

Meend

Meend is the horizontal movement of a string on a fret without lifting the finger, which produces continuous sound.

The Meend characters take zero space, and must be typed immediately before a note from any octave. The Meend characters, are to be used as a set.

A valid Meend sequence is that which begins with the Meend Start character q, is followed by one note from any octave, followed by zero or more pairs of a Meend Continue character w and one note from any octave, and finished with a Meend End character e followed by one note from any octave.

One note from any octave refers to any of the notes from the Notes or Octaves section of this document.

Meend Character Key Swarlipi
Meend Start q
Meend Continue w
Meend End e

The following examples illustrate how a valid Meend sequence is visually cohesive in its representation of a continuous pull:

Key Strokes Swarlipi
qgwGwRwGer qgwGwRwGer
qger qger
qgwGlwGeru qgwGlwGeru

Please note that while the third example above is syntactically correct, such a Meend is impossible in Sitars, on which pulling even a five-note Meend is extremely difficult.