Module 3: Sound fundamentals · Lesson 4

Octaves and notation

● Confidence: high Last verified: 12 Oct 2026

Three octave ranges

Music can go above and below the middle range of a voice. Carnatic music names three main registers, each called a Sthayi . (A school textbook adds two more at the extremes, one above the upper register and one below the lower, and says the human voice covers about three, while instruments can reach all five.)

Moving from one Sa to the Sa one octave higher passes through all seven notes. The upper Sa is exactly an octave above, and it is also the starting point of the next octave up. It is the same note, played an octave higher.

Writing it down: the basics

Written music, or Notation , needs a way to show which note, which variant and which octave. The conventions used on this site are:

• Notes are written with their capital letter: S, R, G, M, P, D, N.
• Variants are shown by a number: R1, R2, R3, G1 and so on. Sa and Pa never get a number.
• A note in the upper octave has a dot above it; a note in the lower octave has a dot below it. In plain text the upper octave is often written with an apostrophe (S’) and the lower with a comma.
• Notes in the middle octave have no mark.

Here is a scale that goes from the lower Ni up to the upper Sa. The dot above or below each note shows the octave:

Tala marks

Notation also marks the rhythm. Vertical bars divide the notes into the sections of the tala, and a note lasting several beats is written with extra dashes or commas. The tala lessons explain this in detail.

What notation cannot show

Notation records the skeleton of a piece. It cannot show the ornaments (gamakas ) that give each note its character, so the same notation can be sung quite differently by people who have learnt different versions. This is why Carnatic music is learned by listening, with notation as a memory aid.