The Music of Hindostan c10.7

c10.7

effect. It causes the melody to droop a little at that point, and so to give value to the F♯ when it is restored later on. The ear has been cheated for the moment of the major scale it expected, and has been presented with another, the major scale with the flat seventh. It is owing to this species of deception which they involve that such devices are known as *Musica ficta*, feigned music. They come in the first place as vocal accommodations, but they stay as musical effects. They do not establish, they only suggest a new scale. If in this song the F♮'s had been the rule and the F♯'s the exception, we should have said the melody was in another scale (of G) or in a mode (of C). For our present purpose, since we are discussing G not C, it is a change of scale.