The Music of Hindostan c9.s2.89

c9.s2.89

The śruti is not an independent interval, but an increment of, or a defalcation from, some larger one. We get in this a suggestion which will reconcile the North and South Indian connotations of the word. A śruti is not, as it has hitherto been understood to be, the smallest audible sound, but the accurately audible sound—that which is ‘heard’ in accurate relationship to some other. This position throws some doubt on Helmholtz’s¹ account of the Greek quarter-tone (following Plutarch²) as a division (32/31 × 31/30) of the semitone (16/15). It seems possible, at least, that as the Greek and Indian systems were alike in so many other respects, they were alike also in deriving their ‘enharmonic’ tones from a persistence in just intonation and a refusal to compromise, i. e. to temper.