The Music and Musical Instruments of Southern India and the Deccan c8.27

c8.27

² The grace here implied is more the “Bebung,” or vibrato, than anything else, and cannot therefore be executed upon a pianoforte. In the clavichord it consists in giving to the key a certain trembling pressure producing a pulsation of sound without any interval of silence. In stringed instruments the effect is obtained by a rocking movement of the finger without raising it from the string. This peculiar grace must be remembered as applying specially to all Indian melodies. It should be borne in mind that Indian stringed instruments, owing to the great length of their strings in proportion to the thickness, are far less confined in their intonation than are European instruments, consequently they are capable of producing an infinity of delicate grace by modification of pitch that cannot be expressed in our notation.