The Music of Hindostan c9.s2.85

c9.s2.85

But in the North *śruti* has retained its original meaning, nice distinction of pitch. There, however, its nature has been sometimes misapprehended. Stress has been laid on there being twenty-two of them, and the scale has come to be regarded as an octave with twenty-two stopping places. Consequently theoretical musicians are to be found who are prepared to sing from C to C, stopping at twenty-one places on the way. We have seen that this is wrong artistically, because melodies rarely use two of these, and never three, in succession. But it is wrong scientifically also. For the *śruti* did not arise as a division, equal or unequal, of the semitone. It has no independent existence. It is only a difference between two intervals considerably larger than itself. Thus the A♯ which we reach from C through D, and the A reached through F or E differ by the interval A♯-A (27/16 × 3/5 = 81/80) the ‘Comma of Didymus’.