What Scale Do You Sing In?

If you sing Rabindrasangeet like, oh, say 85% of all Bengalis, then this is the first question your musical accompanist will ask you. If you ask him/her to elaborate, you’ll hear something like, “Yes, what’s your scale? Is it A or B-flat or C-sharp or.. ?”

“Setting the right scale” is of paramount importance in the “chorus” songs where men and women sing together, usually accompanied by much grumbling from the women that  “The men are singing way too high”.

At this point, anybody trained in Western classical music – where the concept of a scale comes from – will be scratching their heads in perplexity.

To begin with, things like B-flat and C-sharp are not scales – they are musical notes.

As for “men singing too high”….. well, just keep reading….

What follows is “original research” -  the pieces are all there, but based on my conversations, what I am about to say is certainly not common knowledge among Indian singers.

Western singers and musicians use the nomenclature of scales and so on, but the words are used quite differently in the Indian music context, resulting in much unnecessary confusion when talking “across cultures”.

So, let’s first get the language straight. 

Every note in music corresponds to a certain pitch or frequency, measured in Hertz (Hz). A higher frequency gives a higher note.

Musicians, however don’t refer to notes by frequency (too unromantic, I guess), but give them names as we shall see below.

Absolute Notes on a Piano

Take a look at the image of a piano keyboard. Each key sounds a note when pressed.

The white key on the extreme left is A0 (pronounced “A  zero”).

It corresponds to a frequency of 27.5 Hz, which is very close to the lower limit of human hearing (around 20 Hz). In fact, if someone plays an A0, you pretty much feel it as a vibration rather than hearing a sound !

The second white key from the left is B0, with a frequency of 31 Hz (still really low).

But we start our analysis with the third white key from the left.

This is C1 (“C one”) with a frequency of about 32.75 Hz.

The 7 successive white keys starting with C1 are: C1, D1, E1, F1, G1, A1 and B1.

The next white key is C2 (“C two”) and the cycle starts all over again with C2, D2 and so on.

The eight notes going from C1 to C2, form an octave. Every note in the octave has a fixed relative frequency to the other notes. For example, G1 is about 1.5 times the frequency of C1.

Most importantly, C2 has exactly twice the frequency of C1.

Similarly, D2 is twice the frequency of D1 and so on. (Also, A1 is twice the frequency of A0).

Now the cycle of keys just keeps repeating as you move from left to right – with C3, D3, etc, then C4, D4, etc – until you reach the extreme right of the keyboard.

That final white key is C8.

With a frequency of approximately 4192 Hz, it is well beyond the reach of any human voice. (But nowhere near the limit of human hearing, which goes up to 20,000 Hz)

So much for the white keys. What about the black ones ?

Firstly, note that every black key lies between two white keys.

The nomenclature formula is simple – If X is the white key immediately to the left, then your black key becomes “X sharp” (written “X#”),  if Y is the white key immediately to the right, then your black key becomes “Y flat” (written “Yь”).

The first black key from the left lies between A0 and B0.

Using our formula, it would therefore become A#0 (“A sharp zero”) or Bь0 (“B flat zero”).

Similarly, we have notes like C#1, Eь3 etc.

Two points to note here:

- The ordering of the keys starts with C. Hence, A1 and B1 are higher notes than C1 or G1, but lower than C2 or D2. (This is what happens when you leave nomenclature to musicians rather than scientists J)

- The sharp and flat notation has considerable overlap.  C sharp is the same as D flat, B flat is also A sharp and so on. Which name is used depends purely on convention.

Exercise for the reader:

Rank the following in ascending order of pitch: C4, B3, G#3, A4, Eь4, D5

I hope this clarifies why I said that B flat and C sharp are notes rather than scales.  In fact, one needs to be even more specific and pinpoint which C sharp you are talking about.

This is, in fact, what happens in Western classical music.

When a pianist plays, say, the Moonlight Sonata, the musical score specifies exactly which notes she needs to play.

I will call these absolute notes, as each note corresponds to a specific frequency.

Western musicians often talk about “middle C”. This is simply C4, near the centre of the keyboard, and having a frequency of about 262 Hz.

The notes around C4 are most frequently used in vocal music as they fall into the “comfort zone” of the human voice.

Relative notes in Indian music

A Western classical musician trying to learn Indian music starts off with complete confusion.

To begin with, the concept of notes seems to be absent.

Her guru will frequently allude to the Sapta Soor (“Seven Notes”) – Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni

In fact, people will often explicitly speak out the names of these notes while singing.

But there is no straightforward mapping from these onto the notes on a piano.

Even worse, different singers will sing out the same sequence of  Sa Re Ga Ma, but the actual notes they sing (as per piano), may be quite different !

After a while, however, the bewilderment begins to abate.

She observes that the relative pitch of the Sapta Soor notes remains fixed although the absolute notes being sung may change.

In fact, if she is familiar with the Sound of Music movie, she quickly realizes that Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni corresponds precisely to Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti  J

(You see, Indian music is starting her off at the very beginning…)

Swaralipi in Rabindrasangeet

So, Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni  spans an octave. But what if you want to go higher ?

Well, just like the notes on a piano cycling back to C, when you want to climb higher than Ni  in Indian music, you get back to Sa. Only it’s a “high Sa”. I will call this Sa^*.

Just like C2 and C1, the high Sa,  Sa^*, corresponds to a note with twice the frequency of the ordinary Sa. 
(But which notes are they on the piano ?? Patience, patience…)

Now you can continue upwards with Re^*, Ga^* and so on.

Similarly, if you want to go lower than ordinary Sa, you have Ni_* , Dha_* , (“low Ni” and “ low Dha”) which are half the frequency of the ordinary Ni and Dha.

Indian vocal songs – and especially Rabindrasangeet – typically span a maximum range of two octaves, so in terms of Indian musical notation, you rarely climb above Pa^* (“high Pa”) or go lower than Pa_* (“low Pa”).

However, in any given song, the bulk of the notes will lie within the “ordinary notes” – i.e. between Sa and Sa^*.

Now to illustrate the crucial difference between absolute and relative notes:

Suppose you are a western choir singer. Your music score requires you to sing C4, D4, E4 and F4

Instead you sing C3, D3, E3, F3.

Your choirmaster immediately hauls you out for singing out of tune.

Now in Indian music school, three singers are going to sing Sa Re Ga Ma.

Singer 1 hits the notes - C4, D4, E4, F4

Singer 2 goes - C3, D3, E3, F3

Singer 3 sings - A3, B3, C#4, D4

To your surprise, the guru is perfectly happy with all three!

“They are just singing in different scales”, he says.

Scales again! What on earth are these pesky scales?

Well, with all this background on absolute and relative notes, we are finally ready to answer the question.

What scale do you sing in?

Here’s an example of a scale in Western music – it’s called “C Major”.

It consists of the notes: C D E F G A B
Another one is "B Minor"
It consists of the notes: B C# D E F# G A

What the … ??!! What about scales like B flat, G sharp and so on?

Now the Western musician gives you a blank stare – “Those are not scales. Those are notes.”

A scale in Western music is a collection of notes.

Vocalists and musicians practice singing/playing these notes to perfect their technique.

Occasionally, you’ll see things like “XYZ Symphony in C Major”.

What it means is that XYZ Symphony only has notes from the set of notes in the scale.

So, you may have a C5 note somewhere in the score, but never a F#3.

In that sense, a scale is somewhat like a raga in Indian classical music, although the rules of a raga are somewhat more elaborate.

But then, what are Indian musicians talking about when they mention scales ?

Well, recall that the Sapta Soor of Indian music only defines relative pitches.
However, once you specify the absolute note corresponding to any one of the Sapta Soor, all the other notes become uniquely determined.

So, if you had to sing Sa Re Ga Ma and you set Sa to be the note C4, then you get C4, D4, E4, F4.

If you set Sa to A3 instead, you get A3, B3, C#4, D4 instead.

And that’s what the whole deal is about.

Your accompanist needs to know what absolute notes to play, and for that, all he needs is what piano note your Sa (ordinary Sa, not the high Sa) corresponds to.

So, here’s the dictionary translating the most popular “scales” in Rabindrasangeet to notes.

Scale                       Piano note corresponding to Sa (ordinary Sa)

G Sharp                    G#2 or G#3

A                                  A2 or A3

B Flat                         Bь2 or Bь3

B                                  B2 or B3

C                                  C3 or C4        (C4 = Middle C = 262 Hz)

C Sharp                     C#3 or C#4

(Just to irritate you further, the scale B Flat is often called “B” in Bengal and B is called “natural B”. This is just idiotic terminology. Please, people, there are no natural versus unnatural Bs, just good old B and B Flat.)

But wait, hang on, why the “A2 or A3” and so on? Why not just A3, say?

This brings us to the final question in this post.

Do men really sing high?

“Definitely yes”, answers the Rabindrasangeet singer.

In fact, it’s something he’s known since his early days in singing school - “Men always sing the higher notes in choruses and generally sing at higher scales.”

“No way”, responds the Western choir singer. “In fact, it’s the women who sing the high notes and the men who sing the low notes. Ask any choirmaster.”

The laws of physics concur.

Humans sing by vibrating their vocal cords. Men have longer and thicker vocal cords than women. Now, a vibrating string which is longer and thicker generates lower frequency sounds.

Hence, men must sing at lower frequencies – i.e. men must sing the lower notes. QED.

So, what’s going on in Indian music?

As a youngster learning Rabindrasangeet, this question puzzled me greatly – especially the contradiction between who sings the high notes in Indian versus Western music.

My music teachers in India brushed me off with an impatient, “Oh, that’s because Indian music and Western music are completely different.” (Nonsense !)

And of course, nobody understood the argument from physics.

But, now I do know the answer.

And if you have been trained in Indian music, you very probably don’t – so listen up!!

In Indian music, when men and women sing together, they are NOT singing the same notes (in the sense of absolute notes).

In fact, every note the woman is singing is one octave higher – i.e. twice the frequency – as that being sung by the man !

Knowing this immediately explains everything.

To begin with, the laws of physics aren’t being violated and the choir singer is correct – it is, in fact, women who sing at higher frequencies.

So, why are the women in India complaining about men singing too high ?

The reason is actually very interesting.

It seems that a typical woman’s voice is pitched at about 1.5 times a typical man’s.

In other words, if a typical man’s singing frequency range goes from X to Y, a typical woman’s range goes from 1.5 X to 1.5 Y.

But, in Indian music, the woman must sing at twice the frequency of a man.

So, if the highest frequency the man can hit is Y, the woman must hit 2Y rather than 1.5Y, which is of course, extremely hard on her voice, if not outright impossible.

Similarly, a man will find it difficult to sing along when the woman sings her lowest notes.

Thus, in an amusing inversion of the Western choir, the “high parts” in Indian vocal music are left to the men, when in fact, they are actually singing low!

So, ladies, don’t grumble in future about “men singing too high”. We really aren’t.

It’s just that, apparently, evolution didn’t intend men and women to sing in harmony. J

Finally, to explain the ambiguity of “A2 or A3” in the scale-to-note translation dictionary.

As you may have guessed, it’s due to the fact that men and women are singing different notes.

Hence, when “setting the scale”, the Sa must correspond to different notes depending on the gender of the singer.

Here’s the completed dictionary which adds in that bit.

Scale                       Piano note corresponding to Sa (ordinary Sa)

G Sharp                    G#2 (men) or G#3 (women)

A                                  A2 (men) or A3 (women)

B Flat                         Bь2 (men) or Bь3 (women)

B                                  B2 (men) or B3 (women)

C                                  C3 (men) or C4 (women)       (C4 = Middle C = 262 Hz)

C Sharp                     C#3 (men) or C#4 (women)

So, where do you go from here ?

Well, you can start by testing some of the things I said by connecting to this virtual piano
The key marked with a red dot is C4. The first key marked C to the left of that is C3.
Try playing the notes and matching them vocally. For best effect have a singer of the opposite gender with you. Its a real eye opener. J

PS: I’ve used the words Indian music and Rabindrasangeet interchangeably. This is, of course, inaccurate. Indian music has enormously many branches with Rabindrasangeet being just one.

However, from my experience, the usage of “scales” as I have described and the myth that “men sing higher than women” persists across all branches of Indian music I have encountered, including Hindustani and Carnatic classical music.