The Music of Hindostan c17.171

c17.171

When all composition is improvisational, and when notation is rarely employed for recording music and never for performing it, there can be no such thing as ‘visual’ music—music which makes a pretty pattern to the eye but disappoints the ear; and of this we have a surprising number of examples in the madrigal period, and it is by no means unknown in later times.¹ The Indian practice, described on page 85, of setting the syllables of the words to notes which bear the same Sol-fa syllable, is quite as childish; but it appeals, at any rate, to the ear, not the eye.