The Music of Hindostan c12.17

c12.17

But the vīṇā, with its congeners the satār and surbahār, is only a younger brother of the ‘vīṇā of the body’, the voice. It cannot rival the voice in one notable respect, the passage at will from loud to soft or from soft to loud. It is true that Indian singers do not make so much use of this advantage as they might, or rather they do it in a different way from what we might have expected. Crescendos are but seldom spread over several bars so as to lead to a climax; they are used rather to assist the grace-notes in their work of rounding the edges of the notes of the melody. In this, as in other ways not confined to music, Indian art aims rather at elaborating detail than at corroborating the lines of structure.