Proceedings
International Seminar on ‘Creating & Teaching Music Patterns’
OmeSwarlipi: Communicating Complex Music Patterns
Dr. Rajiv Trivedi, Madhukali, Bhopal and Terence Tuhinanshu, Designer &
Developer, Philadelphia
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Abstract
Indian Classical Music, employing microtonal units blended with numerous rhythm patterns, is
expressed in Raga compositions. These compositions, unlike the western compositions, are proximate
to software, being relational and open ended rather than fixed in (note) sound. Development of
instrumental style independent of vocal music added to requirement of symbols for embellishments.
The reluctance to use, if not rejection of, existing notation system, grew as publishing switched to
computers.
After development of an editing software for Bhatkhande annotation with Dr. Ragini Trivedi, which
expressed all requisite marks through key-strokes, the impracticability of this system became
apparent even as some volumes (three published, one in press) using this software were published.
To address the needs of a digital user, a symbol-based notation system – OmeSwarlipi, invented by
Dr. Ragini Trivedi – did away with lower arch notations for beats and phrases by using Paluskar’s
convention of keeping all notes of a Matra within main and sub division-marks (Matra&Vibhag). The
starting Matra of composition is indicated with corresponding number below it, eliminating need for
creation of grid (16-beat or 14-beat). The mizrabBol-s accessible through single key-strokes placed
just below the notes provide easy visibility. The problem of mono-spacing of characters was resolved
even in software for Bhatkhande by creation of single characters for ‘नी, म॑’ etcetera, yet using Kan
affects readability and disturbs spacing.
Omescribe was developed as a portal (http://www.omescribe.com/) for providing open and free use
of the music-script, in which, input from user’s key-board get converted into symbols of OmeSwarlipi.
There exist several problems like desk-top-publishing software compatibility, support of ligatures on
browsers, etcetera. With twelve main notes, several keys like ‘l’, ‘u’, ‘q’, ‘{‘, ‘}’, ‘\’ are in use for
various expressions. To balance unique single or two key-stroke combinations with intuitive layout of
software poses challenge with each resolution.
This paper would identify circumstances, manner of development, problems (solved and remaining),
of (1) OmeSwarlipi and (2) delivery of OmeSwarlipi script through Omescribe portal.
Keywords: Music Notation, BhatkhandeSwarankanPaddhati, OmeSwarlipi, Omescribe, Digital Music Notation
System, Font delivery, Ligatures, UX Design
Introduction
As computers play an ever greater role in education and everyday life, the need for a computer
based solution for writing and representing musical compositions becomes paramount. After a long
history of oral tradition, the most popular of Indian music writing traditions is the Bhatkhande script
(Widdess 1996), invented by Pt. Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande in the early twentieth century. But
does it satisfy the needs of modern complex music patterns? What are the issues that writers of
music face today, and what can be done to address them?
In this paper we first discuss the requirements of a tool that needs to convey the specific patterns of
Indian music. Then talk of the needs of modern musicians and how existing techniques are
Department of Instrumental Music, Rabindra Bharati University | 16-18 December, 2013
Proceedings
International Seminar on ‘Creating & Teaching Music Patterns’
stretched. We outline the design of
OmeSwarlipi, a font developed for the
script of the same name created by Dr.
Ragini Trivedi, and explain how it satisfies
these requirements. Finally we lay the
foundation of Omescribe, an online Page | 262
service that promises to solve other issues
faced by those who would write music
today.
Requirements
Observing the evolution and adoption of
previous attempts at musical notation
from different perspectives, we can begin
to identify features which make a script
usable. For the purpose of this analysis,
we consider three perspectives: the
reader, the writer, and the medium.
Reader
The reader is the ultimate audience of
written music, even as they transform the
text into actual music for a new audience.
For a reader to read music, it is imperative
that they understand the rules of the
Figure 1 Comparison of Bhatkhande (left) and Paluskar (right)
script. Thus a script should be easily
(Trivedi, स्वरलऱपऩअन्कन: साववभौलमकताअथवाऩूर्ावलभव्यक्तत2008)
understandable. One of the reasons both
Bhatkhande and Paluskar scripts were
adopted abundantly was that they used local scripts to represent the notes – Devanagari in most
Hindi-speaking communities, but also Kannada in the South, and Roman by non-Hindi speaking
peoples. However, Bhathkhande’s script uses fewer new symbols, making it easier to learn than
Paluskar’s. For example, Bhatkhande’s script uses the same symbol to represent lower and upper
octaves (a single dot), just in different positions (below the note for lower octave, above for upper
octave), whereas Paluskar uses a dot below for lower octave and a vertical bar above for upper
octave.
Consistency is another desirable trait. A written phrase should not be ambivalent, but clear and
definite in its meaning and intent. The style for writing similar symbols should be alike, while the
style of writing dissimilar symbols should be distinct, and these rules should be applied and followed
consistently. Bhatkhande’s script is better at this than Paluskar’s, especially in multi-beat
representation where Bhatkhande uses one convex arc below the participating notes, and Paluskar
uses five different symbols, some of which (like the hollow circle) are used elsewhere for different
purposes. This is illustrated in Figure 1 below.
All these features help the reader comprehend quickly. However, there are also techniques that are
used to improve the mechanical aspect of reading. Both Bhatkhande and Paluskar scripts have
vertical parity in which one line with musical notes is followed right below by vocal lyrics or by
stroke notation (MizrabBol-s), and then by beat markings. This allows one to capture a complete
Department of Instrumental Music, Rabindra Bharati University | 16-18 December, 2013
Proceedings
International Seminar on ‘Creating & Teaching Music Patterns’
understanding of music in one movement of the eye. This vertical parity is demonstrated by a
sample composition shown in Figure2.
Paluskar script does have one advantage over Bhatkhande – its beat markings. In Paluskar script the
explicit number of the beat is written, whereas Bhatkhande uses a beat-sectioning approach. This
allows simpler compositions to be represented in a familiar pattern, but complex compositions and
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those that start at uncommon beats harder to represent in Bhatkhande.
Thus, the primary factors of usability for the reader are – ease of understanding, consistency of
style, and harmonious representation.
Writer
While the act of reading is performed in isolation, the act of writing is inevitably accompanied by the
act of reading. Thus many of the reader’s goals also apply to the writer. However the writer needs
more, and here we discuss some of these requirements.
Figure 2 Sthai in Teen Tal, Raga Bilawal (Trivedi, रागपवबोध: लमश्रबानी2012)
The primary concern of the writer is expressiveness. The script must be able to accurately express
content, and thus it should have features that support the various aspects of the subject. Both
Bhatkhande and Paluskar scripts provide features to represent notes, beats, divisions, meend and so
on.
In addition, the expression should also be coherent and idiomatic so that the spirit of content can be
expressed just as well as the body. Bhatkhande’s use of convex arcs to represent multi-beat notes is
Department of Instrumental Music, Rabindra Bharati University | 16-18 December, 2013
Proceedings
International Seminar on ‘Creating & Teaching Music Patterns’
more expressive than Paluskar’s vulgar fractions1 because they visually group notes. They help
visually convey the music in a more intuitive manner that can give the reader a sense of the music
without having to read it.
Another important feature is efficiency, or the amount of effort it takes to write. Because
Bhatkhande used fewer characters than Paluskar, one could write quicker using it. Thus, on paper at
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least, Bhatkhande had an advantage.
An important functional requirement for a writer is transferability, or the ease with which they can
use multiple media using their script. One of the most important reasons of Bhatkhande’s
prevalence is that it uses a set of characters much closer to Hindi then Paluskar’s, thus making it
easier to print on a metal press which is already equipped with Hindi characters. Thus it was easier
to transfer Bhatkhande to print than it was Paluskar, and it held an advantage in print as well.
Medium
Finally, the medium itself should satisfy certain requirements for it to be a viable choice for readers
and writers. It is important for a medium to be consistent and reproducible for correct propagation
of information. It should also be adaptable, and be able to exist on a number of platforms. Finally it
should be concise, having a minimal informational overhead apart from the content it carries for its
own purposes.
Limitations
The existing scripts were designed for a certain era with the requirements of the time in mind. As
music has evolved, this new era needs a new script to sustain it. There are now techniques,
Misrabani being the most prominent of them, that focus on the instrumental aspect of music. This
requires extensive use of stroke notation (MizrabBol-s), compositions that start at uncommon beats,
and degrees of complexity that would not find full expression in a Guru-Shishya manner of oral
tradition in which the teacher would sing to the student, leave room for improvisation, and not
write everything down explicitly.
But Bhatkhande’s script, for all its ingenuity, is not without its limitations. For example, it is not a
compact script – it takes a lot of visual space for one composition due to the beat structure that it
imposes. This is demonstrated in Figure 3. Traditionally written in Devanagari, it is difficult to learn
for non-Hindi speakers. When written in other scripts, the compositions become inconsistent and
non-transferable, locked in their own locales.
1
Vulgar Fraction, also known as a diagonal fraction (Strizver 2006), is a typographic term to describe a single
glyph that contains a whole number as a numerator and denominator, such as ½ or ¾. For details see (Quinion
2007)
Department of Instrumental Music, Rabindra Bharati University | 16-18 December, 2013
Proceedings
International Seminar on ‘Creating & Teaching Music Patterns’
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Figure 3 Figure 3.Sthai in Ada Chautal, Raga Yaman(Trivedi, रागपवबोध: लमश्रबानी 2012)
Because this composition starts at the 12th beat, most of the first row is empty and the composition takes two whole
rows. This demonstrates inefficient space use in Bhatkhande.
OmeSwarlipi has been designed with the requirements of the reader, the writer and the medium in
mind. The following section discusses aspects of the design.
Design
Glyph Design
The glyphs used for notation in OmeSwarlipi are derived from Devanagari and Roman scripts. The
symbols used for notes are simplified forms of their Devanagari counterparts, except for that of
Shadaj which is a circle to indicate its foundational stature (Trivedi, स्वरलिलिअन्कन:
साववभौलमकताअथवािूर्ावलभव्यलि 2008). The evolution of the glyphs is shown in Figure 4. In addition to
simplification, there is also some stylization to reduce the number of shapes, thus making it easier to
learn. For example, Gandhar and Pancham are mirror images of each other, as are Madhyam and
Nishad.
Figure 4 Evolution of OmeSwarlipi glyphs from Devanagari
Department of Instrumental Music, Rabindra Bharati University | 16-18 December, 2013
Proceedings
International Seminar on ‘Creating & Teaching Music Patterns’
The variant (Vikrit) forms of flat (Komal) notes are expressed with an underline. The variant form of
sharp (Teevra) Madhyam is expressed as a vertical bar above the note.
The symbols used for strokes (Mizrab Bol-s) are the Roman letters d, r, D, R and ∂r. Capitalization
expresses stress of stroke; thus d corresponds to da and D corresponds to Dā. The symbol for dir,∂r
uses the Mathematical differential sign instead of Roman d and is italicized in order to differentiate
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from d r which corresponds to dara.
Modifier characters, such as those for upper or lower octaves, or for Gamak, or for Meend, are zerospaced characters. This means that they take no horizontal space themselves, instead project
outside on to the next (in case of Meend) or previous (for all the rest) character. They are meant to
be used in conjunction with a note character.
The font is monospaced, which means that each character takes exactly the same amount of space.
This allows the user to write vertically aligned compositions, which is necessary since a composition
must have three layers of information: the notes, the strokes, and the beats, all of which must be
synchronized when writing just as they are when playing.
Keyboard Design
The current version of OmeSwarlipi has 45 glyphs: 7 for notes in their natural form; 4 for flat notes
Rishabh, Gandhar, Dhaivat, and Nishad; 1 for sharp note Madhyam; 2 for marking upper or lower
octave of preceding note; 5 for strokes da, ra, Dā, Rā, and dir; 10 for the numerals 0 to 9; 2 for
separators; 2 for parentheses; 1 for the number sign #; 2 for beat marking Sam and Khali; 1 for
comma; 2 kinds of hyphens for representing different gaps; 4 for Meend marking the start,
continuation, end, and stroke; 1 for Gamak; and the last a compulsory Not Defined character. A full
listing and key-map can be found in Table 3.
The notes are assigned to their first letters. Variant of a note is accessed by using a modifier key in
addition to the normal one. Any further modifiers are added by using supplementary keys after the
original note. These too are assigned to the relevant first letter, such as u for Upper octave, l for
Lower octave, and v for Vibration (Gamak). Other sets of related characters, such as Mizrab Bol-s or
Meend characters, are grouped together according to their function. Note modifiers, which affect a
single note, are applied after the note. Phrase modifiers, which affect the entire phrase (such as
Meend characters), are applied before the note. All these design choices make for an intuitive
experience that is easy to learn and quick to master.
The seven notes have been mapped to the first letter of their names: Shadaj = s, Rishabh = r,
Gandhar = g, Madhyam = m, Pancham = p, Dhaivat = d, and Nishad = n. This helps learn the
keyboard and makes typing natural. Since Shift is a modifier key, it is a natural choice for expressing
a variant of a note. Flat and sharp variants of a note (the VikritSwara-s) can be typed by capitalizing
the relevant note. Thus, we have KomalRishabh = R, KomalGandhar = G, TeevraMadhyam = M,
KomalDhaivat = D, and KomalNishad = N. Octaves can be typed by the u and l keys, which add a dot
above or below the preceding character respectively. The v key will add a Gamak sign over the
preceding character.
Mizrab Bol-s, or stroke notation, is relegated to the upper right corner of the keyboard. The upper
keys of [and] represent the stronger strokes Dā and Rā, while the keys immediately below ; and ‘
represent the weaker strokes da and ra. The \ key, which is often larger in size than regular keys,
types the double-spaced dir character. Dir was made into its own character because of the
frequency of its use. In addition, the - key is also used in Mizrab Bol-s.
Department of Instrumental Music, Rabindra Bharati University | 16-18 December, 2013
Proceedings
International Seminar on ‘Creating & Teaching Music Patterns’
Page | 267
Figure 5 Glyphs and Key Mappings of OmeSwarlipi
Meend symbols, on the other hand, reside together in the upper left corner of the keyboard. In
order to achieve a typographic representation of arcs of an arbitrary length, the Meend symbol —
usually represented as an arc spanning the length of the phrase — is split into three components:
the beginning, the middle, and the end. The beginning is typed using q immediately before the first
note of the phrase. Then, each note in the phrase except for the last is preceded by w. Finally, the
Department of Instrumental Music, Rabindra Bharati University | 16-18 December, 2013
Proceedings
International Seminar on ‘Creating & Teaching Music Patterns’
last note is preceded by e to indicate the end of the Meend. In addition, the capital W key
represents a stroke in the Meend, to indicate that the note should be stroked during the Meend.
Omescribe
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Figure 6 Screenshot of current beta of Omescribe, available at http://beta.omescribe.com
Department of Instrumental Music, Rabindra Bharati University | 16-18 December, 2013
Proceedings
International Seminar on ‘Creating & Teaching Music Patterns’
The font can be used in documents and presentations, in publishing (Trivedi, Sitar Compositions in
Ome Swarlipi 2011), and on the web at www.omescribe.com.
This plain-text representation, when combined with the monospaced quality, allows the use of a
number of modern computational facilities. Finding and replacing, for example, is readily doable
with any tool such as sed, Notepad, or Microsoft Word. Another example is version control: since
git, svn and other tools can track all changes to text documents, seeing the evolution of a Page | 269
composition, or keeping backups, or comparing versions, is easily done. A simple representation
such as this facilitates complex user behavior, such as real-time collaboration on a composition by a
number of participants.
Since the purpose of writing is to share with others, our current efforts are to develop a place on the
web that allows people to write, share, and interact with compositions in OmeSwarlipi. A beta is
available at http://beta.omescribe.com and more details can be found at www.omescribe.com. The
beta allows users to write compositions in OmeSwarlipi and save them by downloading as a PDF file.
Figure 6 is a screenshot of the current beta of Omescribe.
This fundamental proof of concept is to gauge the people’s demand for such a tool. If met with
enough demand, we will continue to add features to this tool: including ability to save and maintain
documents online, to share documents with others by sending them a URL to the composition,
embed compositions in web pages, comment on other’s compositions, a history view of a
composition’s evolution, and the ability to collaborate on compositions.
Results
OmeSwarlipi is perfect for modern times because it satisfies all three parties. It addresses the
requirements of the reader because it is easy to understand, since it uses simple characters that are
easy to learn, especially when one is familiar with their Devanagari roots. The style is consistent
since it includes all three aspects of music representation – notes, strokes and beats. It is
harmonious as all parts are written together and can be read in one flow.
It solves problems of the writers by being expressive, even more so than Bhatkhande since it has a
number of features such as Meend and Mizrab Bol-s built in to the script, which were later additions
to Bhatkhande. It is infinitely compose-able, and gives the writer flexibility like no other solution. It
is also efficient, since it takes less space than Bhatkhande, as well as self-contained, because it can
represent an entire composition in plain text without the need of a word processor. It is also easily
transferable, since the composition can be viewed on any platform that has the font installed, and
everywhere on the web with the support of webfonts.
It is a well-defined medium since it has an idiomatic style, and can be easily transferred by copypasting content from any application to another. It can be used in documents, presentations, emails,
in print and on the web. It can also be written down by hand, and then retyped into a computer. It is
a compact representation since a composition written in OmeSwarlipi takes less than a third of the
visual space required by a Bhatkhande composition. There is also minimal overhead, since apart
from specifying the font there is no other information that needs to be specified.
Department of Instrumental Music, Rabindra Bharati University | 16-18 December, 2013
Proceedings
International Seminar on ‘Creating & Teaching Music Patterns’
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Figure 7 Sthai in Teen Tal, Raga Bilawal
Future Work
Our immediate goal is to bring OmeSwarlipi to the masses via Omescribe. While the current beta
allows users to write and save compositions in PDF files, we have received a number of requests for
an improved, more feature-rich application. The next version, currently in development, will allow
users to have any number of compositions in their account, to organize and manage them, and
share the compositions with other people.
In addition to the work on Omescribe, there is more work being done on the font itself. The next
version of OmeSwarlipi will support Ati-Tar and Ati-Mandra octaves, symbols for Ghaseet, a greater
variation of dashes, and more. Backwards compatibility will be a high priority so as to have minimal
effect on work done using prior versions of the font.
A frequent request, especially from vocalists and lyricists, is the ability to write words in Hindi (or
other languages) below the notes in OmeSwarlipi. This is difficult for Hindi, and most Indic
languages, because they are written using Abugida Scripts (Wikipedia 2013). Abugida Scripts use
vowels as modifier symbols that combine with consonants to make the final grapheme. Because of
the variety of combinations, it is difficult to make a monospaced version of an Abugida Script (such
as Hindi), and monospacing is a fundamental requirement for a font to follow OmeSwarlipi. We look
forward to work by other researchers in this field, for it will greatly complement our efforts.
A similar request for TablaBol-s is also made from time to time. Perhaps a technique similar to
Mizrab Bol-s can be adopted to represent them, however TablaBol-s are more numerous and may
require a more complex treatment. Our focus with OmeSwarlipi is on Mizrab Bol-s and string
instrumentation, since we stem from Misrabani style of playing instruments. However, we are
excited to present our ideas to the larger music community, and hope it will help others with more
specialized interests to develop compatible solutions.
Conclusion
OmeSwarlipi was developed after facing a number of problems with Bhatkhande script. It has been
through various trials over the last six years, and we continue to explore new avenues where it may
be of use. In this study we looked at the prominent technique for writing music in India, identified its
advantages and disadvantages, and described our solution to the limits of said technique. We
believe that OmeSwarlipimeets the nexus of usability and expressiveness to gain popular adoption
in the music community, and carry music notation into the twenty first century.
Department of Instrumental Music, Rabindra Bharati University | 16-18 December, 2013
Proceedings
International Seminar on ‘Creating & Teaching Music Patterns’
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