The playing of instruments, accompanying songs with Sanskrit texts, was supposed to give energy, develop heroism, make a peaceful heart, and drive away harm and impurity.
The members of the different castes or sects had and still have meetings held sometimes in private houses and sometimes in the temples, when they sang religious hymns. Among the higher classes, they went to the expense of having good musicians and of giving artistic performances, but among the common people, their idea was that the greater the noise the more they showed their devotion, so they sang, beat drums and blew whistles without any regard for time or melody, and you can imagine the effect was pandemonium.
Notation
It is impossible to write the Hindu music in European notation, because instead of dividing the scale into semi-tones or half-steps, they use quarter tones.
Margaret Glyn, in her book, Evolution of Musical Form, writes:
“In the East notation is in an elementary condition, the staff being unknown. The Hindus, Chinese, and Abyssinians have ancient note-signs, consisting of a kind of letter to which some indication of time is added, but in this respect the Chinese system is wanting, having practically no time-notation. Probably note-signs existed in Persia and Arabia, but these do not appear to have survived. The modern Arabic notation is but three hundred years old, and is said to have been invented by one Demetrius de Cantemir who adapted the letters of the Turkish alphabet for the purpose. This has eighteen tones to the octave (we have twelve), and is used in Turkey and other countries of the near East.”
The Hindus seem to like both triple (3 beats) and duple (2 or 4 beats) rhythm. The scheme changes according to the poetry of the song, and the pitch and the length of tones are shown by Sanskrit characters and special signs or words.
Instruments
The Hindus have spent much time in studying music and the instruments of which they have many kinds. There are the strings, there are skins sounded by beating, instruments struck together in pairs, and those that are blown. They like the strings best. The characteristic instrument is the vina, usually of wood or bamboo strengthened by one to three gourds as sounding boards, and having five or seven wire strings played something like the zither, but sometimes with a bow. (Figure 16.) There are many varieties of the sitar, an instrument like a lute, and many viols of which the sarinda sarunja is typical and is played with a bow. (Figure 17.)
Among the percussion instruments are tambourines, castanets and cymbals; they had wind instruments such as flutes (seldom transverse or blown in from the side, and often played by blowing on them through the nostrils), trumpets, horns, bagpipes and oboes. Certain instruments were used only by the priests, others by beggars, and others by dancing girls. Imagine how weird a story could be told in music if a modern symphony orchestra played a piece of music telling of life among the Hindus. Maybe some of the readers of this book will get an idea for a Hindu tone poem, who knows?