The Music of Hindostan c5.7

c5.7

But since harmony gives importance, at will, to this or that note of the tune, the ‘harmonic’ tune will in its turn tend to travel along the most telling points of the harmony and to reinforce its crises; and the significance of such music will be the result of the conflict between melodic idiosyncrasy and harmonic necessity. The compromise between these two impulses will lead to closeness of structure and make for unity, because each checks the tendency in the other to free improvisation. ‘Melodic’ tune, on the other hand, contains its law in itself, and it has merely to display that law, not to conflict with some other. Provided the ‘laws’ of melody are not transgressed, one particular structure seems no more desirable than another; and this leads easily to a variety and elaboration of detail, which blunts the sharp outline of *tune* and throws the weight rather upon definition of *mood*. The beauty of harmonic music is that of tilth and culture; of melodic music, that of the briony and the gossamer.