The Music of Hindostan c9.s2.49

c9.s2.49

The ear, therefore, takes by preference the intervals derived from the 5th partial, the major Third, which form ‘tertian’ harmony. As ‘quintal’ harmony was derived from the Octave and Fifth, so tertian harmony is derived from the Octave, Fifth, and Third; and ‘septimal’ harmony, if it is ever used, is derived from these three and the 7th partial. In tertian harmony the series is again infinite, as indeed any of these series must be, since no basic interval is an exact power (or root) of another basic interval. But since there are three basic intervals instead of, as before, two, it is found by experience that a larger number of derived intervals, about eight, are easily intelligible in tertian harmony. We have no experience of septimal harmony, and it is impossible to say what intervals the ear would here accept. And this is important. With the acoustical material available, many and diverse scales might be constructed, and they would all look equally well—or ill—on paper. Whether Indians have modified the ancient Hindu theory of strictly quintal and tertian intervals by the introduction (due, Mr. Clements suggests, to Mohammedan influence) of septimal intervals, can only be established on evidence. If any people hears septimal intervals, the Indians and Greeks, with the fine ear which practised and the fine discrimination which recorded the niceties of the *genera* and the *grāmas*, would have been among the first to do it; but to establish the fact it requires, in the complete absence in their theoretical works of any hint that they did so, a broader basis of observation than is provided by the performance of a single singer.