The Music of Hindostan c10.77

c10.77

is a *mūrchana* with two similar tetrachords and with its *madhyama* at A. A, then, is the note of greatest emphasis. Songs sung in this mode came to have a certain character whatever it might be; let us say, sombre. They would then lie on the whole in the upper part of the compass of the mode—not necessarily in the upper register of the voice, for the mode might be taken at any pitch—and the Predominant note (early *madhyama*, later *aṃśa*) would consequently lie low in the song. In order that the low position of the A, on which the character of the song depended, should be effectively felt, a note about the position of F, let us say, assumed the character of fundamental note—the *mūrchana* had of course, as such, no fundamental—and if instruments were used, this fundamental was furnished with a drone. Thus the *mūrchana* (*Harmoniā*) passes into the *Rāg* (*Tonos*):