The Music of Hindostan c9.14

c9.14

Another guide is to be found in the tunings of local instruments. These are, if we can interpret them, a record of the essential notes of the melodies of the district to which the instrument belongs. Essential, because other subsidiary notes are got, or are always there to be got, by special fingerings and by varying pressure of lip or finger. We will examine some of these Ludwig Riemann¹ has given, from observations made on Indian stringed and wind instruments, with the help of an *Appunn's Tonmesser*—scales correct to an eighth of a tone. His results for stringed instruments may be neglected because the frets undoubtedly shift by lapse of time, by handling, and by the shaking of the journey, and also because such instruments as those of the *vīṇā* aud *satār* tribes, from which his examples are mainly taken, belong to civilized, i. e. modern, music. There is more help to be got from the wind instruments, because niceties of intonation obtained by fingering and overblowing belong rather to a fully developed art, whereas these rustic flutes would tend to be pierced in accordance with the accepted local scale, so as to save trouble in performance.