Drawing parallels between Indian swaras and Western notes (theory)

12 musical notes are common to both Indian and western music. The difference lies in the naming conventions of the musical notes. 3 important points to be noted:

1. Sa, Re (Ri), Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha (Da), Ni are the Indian music notes/ swaras and they correspond to Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti of the western music.
2. The set of swaras is called ‘Sargam’ in Indian music while it is called ‘Solfege’ in western music.
3. Saragam is a movable Solfege.

Wondering what the last point meant? It can be explained in a clearer manner by looking at the diagram of a key board:

Illustration 1

Looking at the the keys C, D, E, F, G, A, B? If you play them, you will get the tune of the seven main notes of western music or the seven shuddha swaras of Indian music. The black keys are nothing but the five variant notes (western music) or the five vikrut swaras (Indian music). ‘#’represents sharp while ‘b’ represents flat. So the black key next to C is called C# (C sharp) because it has a sharper/ higher frequency than C, or it is called Db (D flat) because it has a flatter/lower frequency than D. Same logic goes with the naming of the other black notes.

These keys are set in a particular frequency e.g. ‘A’ key is set to the frequency of 440 Hz. In western music, mostly the first note ‘Do’ corresponds to C, ‘Re’ to D, ‘Mi’ to E and so on. The point being that ‘Do’ is fixed to the frequency of ‘C’ key. This makes it ‘fixed Do’ or ‘fixed solfege’.

On the other hand, the Sargam can be called a ‘movable’ solfege because the first note ‘Sa’ does not necessarily have to start at the C key. It could start from F, A, B#, Eb etc. The successive notes would be placed according to the position of Sa.

So in order to get the shuddha swaras of Indian music, the formula is: tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone and again semitone (to get to the upper Sa). [A tone is nothing but two semitones. A semitone is the frequency distance between two adjoining keys. Example: C# key is a semitone distance away from C and D is a tone distance away from C. Similarly E to F or B to C becomes a semitone. ]