22 Shruti Research Topics

   The 'natural' scale is the scale which produces natural sounds which are naturally consonant with the Shadja and are pleasing to the ear. When we hear an extremely well-tuned Tanpura, we find that it makes 3 such fundamental sounds. Firstly, the 'Shadja' in which it is tuned, it's 'Pancham', and the natural 'Gandhar'. These 3 notes when taken serially and their frequencies analysed, Shadja, Gandhar, and Pancham are found to be situated at a fixed distance. If Shadja is of 100 Hz, Gandhar is at 125 Hz, and Pancham at 150 Hz. How these natural harmonics/frequencies evolve has already been shown in Topic 4.

S:G:P are therefore the basic 3 universally accepted natural musical notes and they give rise to the 7 natural notes as shown below. (Refer to following table)

This system gives us 3 perfectly consonant triads at a ratio of 100:125:150 consisting of S-G-P, M-D-S', and P-N-R'.