The Music and Musical Instruments of Southern India and the Deccan c10.3

c10.3

Throughout Southern India the native drama is exceedingly popular; the actors are generally well educated and of a high caste, and a good company always attracts full houses. Music is largely employed upon the stage, and there is a kind of orchestra attached to every native theatre. The songs sung at performances of the kind do not, as a rule, differ much from the ordinary music of the country, and of late years there has been a tendency to imitate foreign music, such as Arabian or Persian, and the English, Scotch, or other airs played by military bands at all large stations. These naturally find their way from the theatre into private houses—boys learn them and sing them in the street—and so their influence gradually extends and makes itself felt upon Indian music in general. The old melody types, or râgas, are being less jealously adhered to, and the better educated classes of Hindus are beginning to see that music is not necessarily confined to one or two particular systems, but that, like nearly everything else, it is capable of improvement and further development.