The Music of Hindostan c11.219

c11.219

What, then, are the main differences, if we consider melody alone without rhythm for the moment, between this music and ours? First of all the song is cast in one definite mood throughout. This mood calls up associations, unnameable, but yet distinct, of similar song heard under similar circumstance; so much so that to tell an Indian what *Rāg* a singer chose on such and such an occasion is to tell him a good deal about the song. We have no similar classification. We have plenty of ‘mood’ in our music, but we use it to articulate the balance of the song, not to differentiate one song from another.