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THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SCALE

The history of the Indian scale is really a series of close inferences; for the materials do not exist for definite and incontrovertible conclusions. This chapter aims at giving a general view of the development of the scale, based on scattered data gathered together in a fairly extensive reading of the various works which have appeared in India and elsewhere on the subject. It is not always possible to give references or to adduce the evidence for the conclusions arrived at, but the more curious reader should turn to one of the books mentioned in the Bibliography.

The principal data available for this study consist of brief references in ancient Indian literature, the tradition of the Saman chant, the theory of the Grama scales and the musical facts implied in the various ragas used in the past or current to-day.

The scale of the Aryan peoples is based on the tetrachord (chatuhsvara). The tetrachord is the fourth with its intervening notes. This may give the following tetrachords in the Indian scale : SRGM, SrGM, SrgM, and so on.1

The process whereby the tetrachord was first produced depends upon certain universal musical facts. The musical ear in search of a note does two things. It creeps up or down, one step at a time; and it makes a bold plunge for the nearest consonant note (samvadi) from the note which has been sounded (vadi). The voice has a tendency to ascend by leaps and to descend by steps. Music recognizes the following consonant intervals : the third, the