The Music of Hindostan c15.s1.184

c15.s1.184

In proceeding beyond this tetrachord there is nothing, apparently, in the nature of things to decide whether the F above should be first added, as consonant to C, or the A below as consonant to D. The F was, as a fact, added first. This is seen to be a result of the circumstance that the E was a graced note. It was, if we may judge from the modern secular usage (see Chapter VII), seldom sung pure; an upper note was, so to say, inherent in it; and this determined to an F rather than an F♯ owing to the C below. The A was added also; but, as the interest of the chant lay at the other end of the tetrachord, this A became more or less atrophied, and a G was never added below it. Meanwhile the F inherited the musical importance which had attached to the E, and the tetrachord F–C competed with the tetrachord E–B for supremacy.