The musical sound of a single note is called a Svara in general. As per Indian tradition Svara is not exactly a frequency position but melody provided by so many aspects of music. As per classical music there are 7 basic notes in music. They are the alphabets of music. The seven svara are Shadja (षड्ज), Rishabh (ऋषभ), Gandhar (गान्धार), Madhyam (मध्यम), Pancham (पंचम), Dhaivat (धैवत) and Nishad (निषाद).

These 7 notes are further developed into 12 notes to get a uniform pattern of frequency and it is called svarasthana. The 12 notes are seven natural notes Sa, Ri, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni and additional 5 notes of Ri, Ga, Ma, Dha, Ni, which are the harmonics of the natural notes. Distance between any two of these 12 notes that are next to each other is a half step and distance between two half step is a full step. Svara and svarasthana are different. Some authors identify all the 12 svarasthana as swara and some goes even to the extent of 16 as sixteen swaras are mentioned in ragas. But this is not proper, as per Indian system, the svaras are not exactly frequency. They are a basic entity evolved from total structure of the music.