Curiosities of Music - online book

Rare facts about the music traditions of many nations & cultures

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	HINDOO MUSIC.	11
	Hindoos call their scale tones sa, ri, ga, ma, pa, dha, ni, sa, which are certainly as easy to vocalise upon as our solfeggi; in fact the language is very well adapted to music, as it has all the softness, elesrance and clearness of the Italian. Von Dal-berg says that Sanscrit unites the splendor of the Spanish, the strength of the German, and the singableness of the Italian. With the resemblance of seven chief tones, how­ever, the similarity ends, for while our scale has only half tones as smallest interval, the Hindoos have quarter tones, and not equally distributed either; thus: In theory it will be seen that the octave is al­ways a half tone flat, but practically they correct this by singing it on its proper pitch. On six of the above intervals they found their chief modes but they form various lesser modes on each inter­val, i. e., they could give ten different modes, or scales, starting from C alone. These six chief styles, are, of course, six Genii, corresponding to the six Hindoo divisions of the year, these are each married to five Nymphs, the thirty lesser styles; each Genii has eight sons, who are each wedded, also to Nymphs, one apiece There seem to be few celibates in Hindoo My­thology, therefore an exact census gives to this interesting family six fathers, thirty mothers, for­ty-eight sons, forty-eight daughters-in-law, or one