Historical Development of Indian Music: A Critical Study c3.3

c3.3

Absence of this vital and essential general culture of music has created a lopsided and distorted position in our music. Parrot like copying from the voice of one Guru by his disciple has led to the gradual changing and distortion of the various compositions and even swaras. No human instrument is perfect and no Guru can transmit to his disciple exactly what he knew and hundred per cent correctly. The capacity of the disciple, physically and mentally, to assimilate whatever has been taught vocally, is the most important factor in any such transmission. As the physical potential of every being differs from others, it was natural that every disciple droped some of the finer points of the teaching of his Guru. In half a dozen generations this led to a very considerable change in the original compositions and the way of rendering them. This would not have happened if there had been the study of Shastra and the outline of music in writing.