Sparsh Swara

Sparsh in hindi means ‘touch’. Swara means the surs in hindustani classical music i.e. Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dh Ni. To know more about swaras click here.

Sometimes a raag has a transition from one swara to another swara which is distant from it.

To beautify this transition from one swara to a distant swara, the swara in between is touched lightly i.e. the intermediate sur is applied lightly during the transition.

This smoothens the transition and makes the notations sound beautiful.

This sur or swara which has been inserted just to beautify and smoothen the transition from one sur to another is called Sparsh Swara.

For eg: Notations of Miya-Malhar raag the notations are – Sa Re Pa, Ga Ma Re Sa, Ni Dh Ni Sa.  Note the swaras in bold. 

Re is followed by Pa and Ma is skipped .

However, the singer may decide to sing Re and then just touch Ma lightly before singing Pa so that the transition is beautified.

Similarly Ma is followed by Re again skipping Ma.

A singer may therefore choose to sing Ma as a sparsh swara after singing Ma and before singing Re.