source file: m1380.txt
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 16:08:11 -0700

Subject: Re: TUNING digest 1379

From: alves@orion.ac.hmc.edu (Bill Alves)

>>Actually, the world's largest movie industry (at least in terms of the
>>number of films produced) is India's.  Given the classical Indian
>>tradition of non-12-eq, just _imagine_ all the xenharmonic film scores
>>that are going on over there!
>
>Unfortunately, as Harry Partch pointed out at least 25 years ago,
>Indian music has been drifting closer and closer to 12-eq ever
>since the British took over, and as far as I know it's still drifting
>(someone correct me if I'm wrong).
>
I used to watch excerpts from Indian movie musicals regularly (a kind of
Indian MTV that's on the international channel here). Unfortunately, most
soundtracks did not use traditional instruments, and those that did almost
always used the them as a "coloristic" backing for an ensemble of mostly
Western instruments. That's not to say that there wasn't a lot of
pitch-bending going on, especially in the singing. Like most popular music
all over the world, 12TET is accepted as the standard in most Indian film
music that I've seen. I would mostly blame modern mass media culture for
that, not British colonialism per se.

The availability of tunable synths as a replacement for the harmonium or as
another addition to Indian music came up some time ago, but I haven't yet
heard of any Indian musicians who have taken up the idea. Perhaps harmonium
players are already too used to 12TET and the lack of a pitch-bend wheel.
We certainly have the British to thank for the harmonium in India, like
rabbits in Australia and starlings in the United States.

Bill

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^ Bill Alves                                      email: alves@hmc.edu ^
^ Harvey Mudd College                 URL: http://www2.hmc.edu/~alves/ ^
^ 301 E. Twelfth St.                            (909)607-4170 (office) ^
^ Claremont CA 91711 USA                           (909)607-7600 (fax) ^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^