Swara

Swara refers to a kind of musical sound that is a sole note, which defines a relative location of a note, rather than a distinct frequency. Swaras too refer to the solfege of Carnatic music, which consist of seven notes, "sa-ri-ga-ma-pa-da-ni" . These names are abbreviation of the longer names shadja, rishabha, gandhara. madhyama, panchama, dhaivata and nishada. Unlike other music system, every part of the solfege has three variant. The exceptions are the drone notes, shadja and panchama , which contain only one form; and madhyama , which has two form. A 7th century stone writing in Kudumiyan Malai in Tamil Nadu shows vowel change to solfege secret code with ra, ri, ru etc. to signify the higher quarter-tones. In one scale, or ragam, there is regularly only one variant of each note here. The exceptions live in "light" ragas, in which, for artistic effect, there may be two, one rising and another downward.