Jana Gana Mana — Harmonium Notes

Rabindranath Tagore wrote and set Jana Gana Mana in 1911, and it became India's national anthem in 1950. On the harmonium it is a beautifully strict exercise: it moves in even beats, uses only natural notes, and asks you to hold one key steady for nine notes at a stretch. If your bellows arm wavers, this piece will tell you. All 13 lines of the official rendition are below.

The anthem in sargam, line by line

Sa is on C. Every syllable takes one even beat and each line's last note is held. Ṇ is the Ni below Sa; Ṡ is the Sa an octave above — it appears exactly once, in line 12. Each ▶ plays just that line; turn on 🐢 Slow while learning.

Three lines repeat: line 6 is line 2 again, line 11 is line 4 again, and line 9 is line 2 with one Ga fewer at the head. Thirteen lines is really nine shapes.

The same notes as Western keys

Harmonium notes in Hindi — हिंदी में सरगम

Reading the harmonium notation

Harmonium notation and harmonium notes mean the same thing — different sites use different words for the same rows of letters. What follows is sargam, the Indian system, where every note carries a name instead of a letter. The table above gives the Western key for each one.

• S R G M P D N — Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni: the seven swaras. With Sa on C they are the white keys running up from C.
• A dot under the letter — the octave below. This song uses Ṇ, which sits to the left of your starting Sa.
• A dot over the letter — the octave above. This song uses Ṡ, to the right of your starting Sa.
• | — a phrase break, put there so the line is readable. It is not a bar line and you do not pause on it.

Jana Gana Mana uses 7 of the twelve keys in the octave: Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni. Every note in Jana Gana Mana is a white key — no komal, no tivra anywhere in it, which is why it reads so cleanly on paper.

Watch it played

The same notes as on this page, sounded on the harmonium with the keys lighting up as they go — useful for checking your timing against the written line.

Getting the anthem's discipline right

1. Count before you play. The anthem's character is its evenness — one syllable, one beat, all the way through. Play it against a steady count (or the 🐢 slow mode) before you try full speed.
2. Hold Ga without re-striking. Where the lyric repeats syllables on the same note, singers re-articulate but the key stays down and the bellows keep the tone alive. Practise re-pumping without the pitch dipping.
3. Land the R G M close. "Jaya he" ends lines 1, 7 and 13 with the same three rising notes. Give the final M its full held length; cutting it short is the most common mistake.
4. Save your breath for line 12. "Jaya he, jaya he, jaya he" is the only place the melody climbs above Sa, and it arrives after eleven lines of steady pumping. Practise it cold, on its own, before you ever play the anthem straight through.
5. The scale behind it is all-shuddha — Bilawal thaat, the major scale. See the 10-thaat table for where that sits among the parent scales.

Common questions

What are the harmonium notes for Jana Gana Mana?

The opening line, with Sa on C: S R · G G · G G · G G G G G · R G · M. The full anthem is thirteen lines, all of them above — every one cross-checked against six independently published notations before printing.

Which raga is Jana Gana Mana based on?

It is commonly described as set in raga Alhaiya Bilawal — Bilawal thaat, the all-natural-notes parent scale — and the anthem's movement is consistent with that: with Sa on C, every note in all thirteen lines is a white key. That is also why the tivra-Ma reading of lines 3 and 10 is worth flagging rather than assuming — a sharpened fourth would put the anthem outside Bilawal.

How fast should it be played?

The customary full rendition takes about 52 seconds. The player on this page runs slower than that deliberately — it is set for learning, not for performance, and 🐢 Slow drops it further. Once the fingering is automatic, play it faster than the player does.

Is harmonium notation the same as harmonium notes?

Yes. Both names describe the same thing, and you will find Jana Gana Mana published under either one. This page gives the notation three ways so you can use whichever you read fastest: sargam, Western key names, and Devanagari. Jana Gana Mana draws on 7 of the twelve keys in the octave — Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni.

Where to go next

• All song notes — every song we publish, each with a follow-along player.
• Vande Mataram — the national song's opening phrase in sargam.
• The harmonium notes chart — sargam, komal and tivra, and the 10-thaat system.
• The beginner guide — bellows, drone, and your first five-minute practice.