The Music of Hindostan c13.s3.51

c13.s3.51

² Pronounced like, and accidentally having the same meaning as, our word ‘sum’. It is important to be clear about this conception. The sam has no such stress as we place on the first of the bar. It gets its pre-eminence over the other tāls (beats) owing to the cross-rhythm (either with some other instrument or in the melody itself) being adjusted at that point. Or if there is no cross-rhythm, still the sam is pointed out by its distance from some typical or recurrent phrase elsewhere in the āvard (or vibhāg); as the quaver triplet of Tschaikowsky’s Scherzo tells us how far we have got each time in the series of crotchets. It is true that when singer and drummer coincide at that point their united triumph at having got it right after all does result in a little more tone, i. e. in stress, but this in no way necessary to the rhythm of the music.