This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

absence of the habit of wide travel, and the lack of facilities for intercommunication. However, things are rapidly changing, and to-day we have a permanent all-India organisation, which will undoubtedly gather together the scattered lines of development and bring them to bear upon Indian music as a whole. It is only recently that musical associations have been formed in India, and that music lovers have had opportunity to get together and compare their work. All this must be remembered in judging the progress that has been made by Indian music. Another thing that has greatly hampered this progress has been the absence of an adequate and universal system of notation. This too is being remedied, and it will be possible soon to judge the relative progress of western and Indian systems of music on a basis of equality.

2. Then again, Indian melody is cast in one definite mood throughout, and both time and tune are wrought into one homogeneous whole. Variations are not allowed to alter that mood, which persists with the raga. The balance of the music is obtained partly by time-variations and partly by grace. 'In western music mood is used to articulate the balance of the whole piece.' The particular times for singing the different ragas, the r^ga pictures and the emotions associated with them all fit into this idea of the Indian melody.

3. Then again, and perhaps most important of all, in Indian music the salient notes are fixed by long association and tradition, and any alteration of such saliency is not as a rule possible in a melody. The relation of the individual notes to one another is settled by ancient tradition. In western music, on the other hand, the salient notes are made by the momentary impulse of the harmony or of the counterpoint, and it is the cluster of notes rather than the individual note which has special value.

'In Indian music the notes are members of a form already supplied by tradition, and the newness is created by their arrangement and graces, while in western music they create new forms as the music proceeds.'

'In Indian music the notes stand out from each other as clearly as do the faces of our friends in our mind.'