This Tone Is The Middle F,
The Fundamental Tone Of Nature.
In our melodies it serves as the
starting point, which we embody in the key-note, and around which
are grouped all the other sounds.
Having noticed that every musical
note has its typical representative in the animal kingdom, our
ancestors found out that the seven chief tones correspond to the
cries of the goat, the peacock, the ox, the parrot, the frog, the
tiger, and the elephant. So the octave was discovered and founded.
As to its subdivisions and measure, they also found their basis
in the complicated sounds of the same animals."
I am no judge of your ancient music," said the colonel, "nor do I
know whether your ancestors did, or did not, work out any musical
theories, so I cannot contradict you; but I must own that, listening
to the songs of the modern Hindus, I could not give them any credit
for musical knowledge."
"No doubt it is so, because you have never heard a professional
singer. When you have visited Poona, and have listened to the
Gayan Samaj, we shall resume our present conversation. The Gayan
Samaj is a society whose aim is to restore the ancient national music."
Gulab-Lal-Sing spoke in his usual calm voice, but the Babu was
evidently burning to break forth for his country's honor, and
at the same time, he was afraid of offending his seniors by
interrupting their conversation. At last he lost patience.
"You are unjust, colonel!" he exclaimed. "The music of the ancient
Aryans is an antediluvian plant, no doubt, but nevertheless it is
well worth studying, and deserves every consideration. This is
perfectly proved now by a compatriot of mine, the Raja Surendronath
Tagor.... He is a Mus. D., he has lots of decorations from all kinds
of kings and emperors of Europe for his book about the music of
Aryans.... And, well, this man has proved, as clear as daylight,
that ancient India has every right to be called the mother of music.
Even the best musical critics of England say so!... Every school,
whether Italian, German or Aryan, saw the light at a certain period,
developed in a certain climate and in perfectly different circumstances.
Every school has its characteristics, and its peculiar charm, at
least for its followers; and our school is no exception. You
Europeans are trained in the melodies of the West, and acquainted
with Western schools of music; but our musical system, like many
other things in India, is totally unknown to you. So you must
forgive my boldness, colonel, when I say that you have no right
to judge!"
"Don't get so excited, Babu," said the Takur. "Every one has the
right, if not to discuss, then to ask questions about a new subject.
Otherwise no one would ever get any information. If Hindu music
belonged to an epoch as little distant from us as the European -
which you seem to suggest, Babu, in your hot haste; and if, besides,
it included all the virtues of all the previous musical systems,
which the European music assimilates; then no doubt it would have
been better understood, and better appreciated than it is. But
our music belongs to prehistoric times. In one of the sarcophagi
at Thebes, Bruce found a harp with twenty strings, and, judging by
this instrument, we may safely say that the ancient inhabitants
of Egypt were well acquainted with the mysteries of harmony. But,
except the Egyptians, we were the only people possessing this art,
in the remote epochs, when the rest of mankind were still
struggling with the elements for bare existence. We possess
hundreds of Sanskrit MSS. about music, which have never been
translated, even into modern Indian dialects. Some of them are
four thousand and eight thousand years old. Whatever your
Orientalists may say to the contrary, we will persist in believing
in their antiquity, because we have read and studied them, while
the European scientists have never yet set their eyes on them.
There are many of these musical treatises, and they have been
written at different epochs; but they all, without exception,
show that in India music was known and systematized in times when
the modern civilized nations of Europe still lived like savages.
However true, all this does not give us the right to grow indignant
when Europeans say they do not like our music, as long as their
ears are not accustomed to it, and their minds cannot understand
its spirit.... To a certain extent we can explain to you its technical
character, and give you a right idea of it as a science. But nobody
can create in you, in a moment, what the Aryans used to call Rakti;
the capacity of the human soul to receive and be moved by the
combinations of the various sounds of nature. This capacity is
the alpha and omega of our musical system, but you do not possess
it, as we do not possess the possibility to fall into raptures
over Bellini."
"But why should it be so? What are these mysterious virtues of
your music, that can be understood only by yourselves? Our skins
are of different colors, but our organic mechanism is the same.
In other words, the physiological combination of bones, blood,
nerves, veins and muscles, which forms a Hindu, has as many parts,
combined exactly after the same model as the living mechanism known
under the name of an American, Englishman, or any other European.
They come into the world from the same workshop of nature; they
have the same beginning and the same end. From a physiological
point of view we are duplicates of each other."
"Physiologically yes. And it would be as true psychologically,
if education did not interfere, which, after all is said and done,
could not but influence the mental and the moral direction taken
by a human being. Sometimes it extinguishes the divine spark;
at other times it only increases it, transforming it into a
lighthouse which becomes man's lodestar for life."
"No doubt this is so.
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