There are seven notes in Northern Indian music, their pronunciation is:
Sa, Ray, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Nee,
Luckily none of these share the first letter, so we will be writing them as:
S, R, G, M, P, D, N

Never pronounce them as Ess, Are, Gee. Em etc. It will make matters much more complicated later on.
If you assume that ‘S’ (Sa) is on ‘C’ then ‘S R G M P D N’ make a natural ‘C’ major scale. Just like ‘C D E F G A B’ would. ‘Sa’ does not have any special frequency assigned to it; it is always the keynote.

If a note is underlined that means it’s in its flat position, if a line is standing on a note that means it is in its sharp position. All notes are accepted in their natural position in a major scale. So they are not marked.

In Western music, all notes have three positions, flat, natural and sharp, but in Indian music they have only two states. These are called Tivar (sharp) and Komal (Flat). A note (other than the first and the fifth) is always either in a Komal state or in a Tivar State. The notes as they appear in the natural scale, are not marked. Otherwise Komal notes are underlined and Tivar is shown with a standing line on top of it. ‘Sa’ and ‘Pa’ (first and fifth) have only one state.

Just imagine, if the following was the only way to write a twelve-note octave, you would be writing it just like in Indian music:

Now see the Indian twelve notes:

As you can see, Sa and Pa do not change. Other five notes have two positiona. the lower is the komal position the higher is the Tivar position. Only the forth (Ma) appears as komal in the natural scale. So, Re, Ga, Dha, and Ni (second, third, sixth and seventh) are marked flat (Komal) from their natural (sharp) position and ‘Ma’ (fourth) is marked sharp from its natural (flat) position. When a note moves from its natural position, it is called a ‘Vikrat Svara’ (moved note). So, we can say that when R, G, D and N are Vikrat (moved), they are Komal or flat, and when M is Vikrat, it is Tivar or sharp. ‘Sa’ and ‘Pa’ are never Vikrat as they do not move.

Other Signs:

Slur: Slur is drawn as an arch on top of the notes:

Long Notes: If a note is held for more than one beat, then it is followed by a dash ‘-‘sign.
Example:

‘S’ is held for four beats. Same sign is used in rhythm as well.
Octaves: Notes are written normal (with no extra markings) in the middle octave. Lower octave notes have a dot under them and upper octave notes have a dot above them. Two octaves higher or lower notes are shown by two dots. The following example shows three octaves of a major scale:

Few other signs do appear time to time and I will explain them if needed.

Now let’s see how to really write Indian music:

Suppose you want to sing a major scale in 8/4 (why not 4/4? Explanation is coming), it will be written like this:

Surgum Taal Kehrva

Explanation:
Header: ‘Surgum’ means names of notes (S, R, G, M etc.). We didn’t write any lyrics under the notes so it is just a Surgum. Next phrase ‘Taal Kehrva’ refers to what kind of rhythm will be played with it. ‘Kehrva’ is an 8 beat rhythm divided into two sections. The first beat in Kehrva is the Sum and the 5th beat is the Khali. So we mark those on the top of the page and start to write. ( Revise how to write rhythm here.) If you have a wider page, you can write it in four columns or more. The Main thing is to pay attention to the ‘x’ and ‘0’ signs. Once you learn all the popular Taals, then just looking at the top of a page will tell you what Taal that particular piece was written in.

Notation: The top line shows the Khali – Taali signs (rhythm signs, Xs and Os). Next line has 8 beats of Kehrva. Then appropriate notes are written under the beats. First two beats in the second line have doubles and ‘S’ is held for the last 4 beats of the second bar. To read the notes properly tap your pencil on the beats and count 1 to 8. Then keep taping the pencil on the beats while saying one or two notes’ names on those beats as they occur.

Triplets: In Indian notation everything is WYSWYG. Triplets and doted notes are shown with appropriate dashes (-). Here is an example:

In this example: first and 6th beats have one note, second and fifth have two, 3rd and 4th have three, and 7th and 8th have four. More complex times can be achieved similarly.

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