The Music of Hindostan c6.105

c6.105

This humble melody, improvised without shyness on the one hand or any idea of showing off on the other, may serve as an introduction to the tribal songs which follow. It shows the way in which they were varied and expanded, or would have been if there had been time; and the bare themes which are set down in the following pages must be imagined as having been so treated. The rapid succession of variations made it often difficult to note the tune at all, especially as regards that very elusive point, rhythm. The earlier melodies may, like eldest sons, be to some extent experiments; but nothing has been given that I did not satisfy myself was substantially correct. The question of quarter-tones will be dealt with later; any conclusions that may be drawn from these examples as to the general structure of folk-melody will not be vitiated by assuming them all to have been as they are written, and as in fact many of them appeared to be sung, in the (untempered) tones and semitones of the European just scale.