The Music and Musical Instruments of Southern India and the Deccan c3.1

c3.1

WHETHER music as an attribute of man is as old as speech or not, we cannot say; for present consideration it is sufficient that both can be intensified into poetic expression with a common power in affecting the emotions, notwithstanding that there is a vast and unbridgable distance between the precision of articulate language and the vague suggestion and glamour of musical sound. There is a quality in recited poetry not inaptly described as musical, since it has a special charm due to the choice and rhythm of words, assisted by the personal note of the reciter. But this rhythmic euphony is only allied to the musician's art, it cannot correctly be said to be comprehended in it, owing to the absence of defined musical intervals. From whatever point of view we overlook the human race, its history and development, we can nearly always trace music as having some connection, however slender, with the particular form of culture, or it may even be the absence of culture, under notice. Let us for the moment turn aside from the modern European musician's standpoint, as for him Harmony, although of comparatively recent origin, is indispensable, and we shall find melody in the succession of notes and their rhythmic movement possessing a beauty and exerting a charm which have endured for ages and comprehend the whole art of Music in the older civilisations. In Egypt; in Babylonia, Persia, and Arabia; in Asia Minor, Greece, and Rome—and in India, modern as well as ancient, for here simple melody still reigns supreme. With the exception of the Drone, apparently of Indian origin, which is literally preserved in the Bagpipe and Hurdy Gurdy, and is a characteristic feature in our modern harmonic music—conspicuous as the Pedal point—the traces of any combination of musical intervals, out of Europe, are unimportant and need not be considered in a comparison of our Western music, with its elaborate system of harmony, and that of the rest of the world, whether ancient or modern, where harmony has no place.