The Music of Hindostan c15.s1.185

c15.s1.185

It was here that the Greeks parted company; and the reason for their doing so is instructive. They continued their tetrachord A–E upwards through a B♭ and downwards through a D, but we do not make out that the tetrachord B♭–F ever attained any sort of eminence in their song. The B♭ did not come into their scale as a ‘graced’ A, as the Hindu F was a graced E. For they aimed at singing their notes pure, as Aristoxenus tells us.² They regarded their B♭ therefore merely as a consonant to the F below, not also as a kind of heightened A.