The morning call., 1894-01-28

in the midst of an eager. Impassioned flow
of words and oriental gestures and sinking
again into the dign fed, grave manner
with which he usually converses. IL am
carried away and sad at heart when
think OF what our women were once ald
what they have become nOw-they are edu-
Gated and learned no longer-but / was
speaking of music.
Their les of the art were laid down thou
sands of years ago by the Brahmins. They
Incorporated much of this learning in
poetical books, which were written on
palm-leayes. for they had no paper. and
were carefully preserved. Much of the
work OF those ancient composers was COM
mitted by heart and transmitted from one
sage TO another through the ages, for so
complicated and difficult is their music
that il cannot be reduced to a system of
notation.
Nov l will write down our names for
the scale" and as he spoke the Brahmin
took tablet and pencil and penned the
following syllables: 'Sa. ri, ga, ma. pa,
dha, mi. sa,' etc. They correspond to
your do, re, mi. ia, sol, la, 81, do.' ETC.,
the last 'sa' being the octave of the first
'sa,' just as in your major diatonic scale.
but between these notes we have varying
fractions Of tones which must be expressed
by our Instruments. and our rules for
using fats and sharps are different from
yours. An! II is horrible TO our ears to
listen TO some of the discordant intervals
which you permit yourselves to use with
out appearing 10 suffer at all"
1t viii be remembered that the "do, re,
NIL" ETC.. are generally ascribed to Guido
AretiDO, a Benedictine monk who -four
lsbed in the eleventh century, and the
Brahmin's syllables. five OF VIII CHI, by the
way, end in the more open vowel "a"
pronounced "ah," date back TO ages before
the Christian era.
Any singer who tries to vocaliZe upon
these oriental syllables VIII probably pro-
nOunce them to be as well adapted to
what we call correct position of the
mouth as our own do, re-" etc.
The ancient sages FIRST discovered the
scale by listening IT, the cries OF various
animals, and then combining them," con-
tinued the Brahmin. The first sound
your movable do, or the tonic, is called
| 'surgln. or six places, because it comes
from the heart, the brain, the lungs. etc.
1t was also like the cry Of peacock. The
second, your supeTtOnic, was copied from
the cry of bull; the third, or mediant,
from bird; the fifth, or tonic, from a
cuckoo; the sixth, or sub-mediant, from a
frog, and the seventh or leading ote from
the cry of the elephant. The sages noticed
that The various living creatures emitted
, their cries at different pitch, and combin-
ing the noises IN a pleasing succession of
sounds. they made the III ajor datonic scale,
which is the foundation of the whole
music IN India as ia America.
The way of combining is different
! Some OF your chords are good, but the ma
! jority Of them are mixed with flats, and
they sound badly In my ears. | will ex-
plain. Within the seven parts of the
scale we have twenty-four parts; indeed
our strlnged instrument players can make
! the one-slxth part Of a semitone. other.
wise we don't acknowledge them as
| players. And they have much, very
| much more difficult way of making thf
notes than you have. THEY do not move
! the fingers up and down the KEY board &c
make the strings long or short-they have
no key board; they pull the strings to the
| exact tension required to make the note
and so swift, oh so swift-that is our sys
| TEN, and do not think that our players are
| out of time. We do not call them player.
| at all il they are not true to the one-sixtl
| fraction of a semitone."
! While The reporter was considering il
| wonder and amaZemens how the space O.
| one life could possibly suffice TO aequir,
| the art of making notes in such an extra
| ordinarily difficult manner the Brahmir
| continued:
"It is your rules for fats and sharps tina
make discord to our ears. With US, wSer
| the second note of a scale is lowered :
semiloue, you also lower the sixth; tn,
| first and he fourth notes are also friends
! The tonic and the dominant cannot b,
| shaken in the slightest degree: sou mus
not raise or depress either of them b,
using a sharp or fat. They are called
'achala, which cannot be shaken from
! their constancy.' Use fiat or sharp 70