RE: Indian music

Kami wrote,
>My question is : When playing a note in a given raga, which note, of the
>two shrutis separated by a comma, is the "right" one? There are many
>raga listings, but they dont seem to take this subtlety into
>consideration.

A good reference for ancient shruti and raga stuff is

Rowell, Lewis. 1992. Music and Musical Thought in Early India. University of
Chicago Press.

The modes and alterations thereof described here lead to various scales with
steps of 4, 3, and 2 shruti. The "just" interpretation of the shruti scale
makes these intervals unequivocally 9/8, 10/9, and 16/15, respectively. The
22 shruti have often been interpreted as 22-tet. Using 12-tet works better
than 22-tet for these modes, though, since the difference between the 4- and
3- shruti steps is large enough to disturb the melodic beauty of the scales
in 22-tet (as Rowell points out). However, interpolating chromatic notes
into these modes so that the three 4-shruti intervals become 2+2 in 22-tet
leads to melodically satisfying 10-note scales that can form the basis for
7-limit harmony and tonality. (See my upcoming paper in Xenharmonikon 17).
Two of these three interpolations indeed correspond to the two recognized
altered notes of ancient Indian music theory.


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