The Music of Hindostan c3.5

c3.5

Two branches of the music have been left untouched—the instruments and the notation. About the latter there is very little to say except that it is a Tonic Sol-fa notation of which the various local scripts and special signs are easily mastered. The typical instruments have been admirably described and illustrated by Day; the more interesting part, the technique, can, of course, be communicated only orally, with the instrument in hand. But India is now, instrumentally, at the same stage as mediaeval Europe, with a great variety of means of supporting the voice but absolutely no sense of orchestration; and though a close study of its instruments would probably reveal more than one ancestor of those which our orchestra employs, it would hardly throw much light on any principle of art, and has therefore been omitted. Exception has, however, been made in favour of the drum, the treatment of which is possibly unique.