The Music and Musical Instruments of Southern India and the Deccan c11.12

c11.12

A musical instrument, to be of any real practical good, requires in its construction not only skilled labour, but an experimental knowledge on the part of the maker of the principles of acoustics; he must know of the best materials, and the best known methods of building up an instrument from these materials. Such knowledge as this can only be attained by much study and the experience of a regular apprenticeship to the art. All this is, of course, obtained easily enough in Europe, where there is a ready sale for good instruments, and instrument making is a trade profitable enough for a supply to be kept on hand. In India, where, until comparatively recent times, music has been an art almost neglected for some hundreds of years, it is clear that there has been little scope for instrument makers of any ability, the supply being always far in excess of the demand.