The Music of Hindostan c14.94

c14.94

PACE (*lāya*) AND ‘SPEED’ (*kāla*). There are three degrees of tempo; slow (*velambit*), moderate (*madhya*), and fast (*druta*). In whatever tempo, the music has a normal speed-unit, i. e. it is in crotchets, as we should say, or else in quavers, and so on. Doublings and halvings of this unit (*mātrā*)—as we say, augmentation and diminution—are common, and have names. The normal speed is called the ‘time of the time’ (*bārobārī*), or it is named *dhā* from the average length of the principal drum-beat of that name. The alterations of this speed are, taking the crotchet as the unit: