The Music of Hindostan c10.2

c10.2

THE terms ‘scale’ and ‘mode’ are frequently used as synonymous, because it is often unimportant to insist on the distinction between them. But in their essence they name two primary musical instincts. Scale is the expression of the melodic impulse, mode is ultimately the outcome of the rhythmic impulse. They are relative, not absolute terms; and in two ways. First, any given series of notes may be in a scale, or it may be in a mode, according to the moments of it which we are taking to be important. And, secondly, it can seldom be said that at any given point in a melody a change of mode or scale has taken place; the change requires to be ‘established’, and that is a matter of degree. There is a sense also in which scale ‘is’ established mode. We propose shortly to discuss these points.