The Music and Musical Instruments of Southern India and the Deccan c7.24

c7.24

ascend like ours—by a sharp third.” From many experiments I am led to believe that a wrong idea as to the temperament of the Indian scale—as practically employed—has hitherto been held. I played over all the various scales shown later upon a pianoforte—tuned to equal temperament—in the presence of several well-known Hindustani and Karnâtik musicians, all of whom assured me that they corresponded exactly to those of the vina. Upon comparing the two instruments this was found to be the case—as far as could be judged by the ear alone—in every instance. Native airs are played by the private band of H.H. the Maharajah of Mysore; and as far as melody is concerned they are acknowledged to be perfectly in tune, according to Indian ideas, by all. Native airs are also played by the band of H.H. the Gaeckwar of Baroda, the chief musician at whose court—“Professor” Maula Bux—a man of considerable attainments, took pains to explain to me that the tempering of the modern Indian scales differed in no whit from the European. In fact, in practice, as among the ancient Greeks, the old enharmonic genus would seem to have given place to the chromatic.