The Music of Hindostan c13.s3.111

c13.s3.111

In order that rhythm, an articulation of the infinite variety of sounds, may be upon some regular plan, the plan must have some recognizable unit of measurement. India takes the short note and gives it for a particular rhythm a certain value as opposed to the long; Europe takes the stressed note and gives it in a particular rhythm a certain frequency as against the unstressed, and graduates its force. We find the unity of the rhythm in the recurrent bar (which is always in duple or triple time, just as our two melodic modes are either major or minor), and have to look elsewhere for the variety; they find variety in the *vibhāg* whose constitution is, as we have seen, extremely various, and must look elsewhere for unity. Both of us find what we want in the larger spaces of time; they find unity in the *āvard*, we find variety in the sections.