The Music of Hindostan c6.3

c6.3

It must be understood that though many of these melodies were in queer scales, no attempt has been made, beyond an occasional superscript ♯, ♭, or ♮,¹ where the effect was characteristic, to represent niceties of intonation. Where such signs are not appended it does not necessarily mean that the songs were in the normal scale; perhaps the singers were finding their voice and the initial vagaries were not worth recording, or the tune only came once or twice—though generally it came a great many times—or perhaps I was not attending. It would have been good to have been able to note the exact pitch in each case; but the absence of the proper means made this, except in a few instances, impossible. A phonograph cannot be carried on the person or unlimbered and brought into action in half a minute, like a camera; there are also conditions, such as distance of the sound, or movement of the producer (e. g. in dancing) with attendant dust, which preclude its employment altogether. Secondly, as it is impossible for the European reader to reproduce the local colour which is imparted by curiosities of grace-note or of intonation, it is unnecessary to trouble him with them at this stage. And, lastly in attacking a new subject, as for Europeans, in spite of Captain Day’s excellent book, this must be called, it is better to treat intonation by itself (see Chapter IV). It is but little, in any case, of language, whether spoken or chanted, that symbols can recreate for us; and when, as here, the choice lies between symbols which falsify but are understood and symbols which tell the truth but are not readily intelligible, there is no doubt which must be adopted to convey a first general impression.