The Indian texts speak of three registers across three octaves. Within each register, there are three scales (grama): the sadjagrama, the madhya-magrama, and the gandharagrama. The third of these, the gandharagrama, is rarely referred to by Bharata suggesting that it had long ago gone out of use and that it represents an early scale used deities of the three gramas are Brahma, Visnu and respectively.

The notes are termed consonant (samvadin), assonant (anuvadin) and dissonant (vivadin), depending on the distance in srutis with respect to the sonant (vadin). According to NatS 28.22-23: