A Tale of Twenty Two Shruti-s

Hello everyone, Exactly after four months and almost 5000 postings,
I take this opportunity to thank all the members of the Alternate
Tunings Mailing List, to help me in various ways -- too many have
been helping me in too many ways to enumerate. In my experience, each
member is a scholar, some of the members that I have come to know are
like institutions of learning. I have never seen so many scholars who
are, in a true sense, pundits, applying their knowledge and
experience with such singular singlemindedness of purpose. The
posterity can complain of neither the derth of musical scales nor of
information about them.

Thanks to the contributions of the members of the Tuning list in
general, and offline correspondence with Paul in particular, I have
been the fortunate recipient of fresh material, insight in and
gleanings on shruti and related topics. I know there is so much to
learn, that this growth process will go on for ever.

As far as shruti is concerned, this is the end of the beginning.
Using appropriate software **[which one?]**, I will "re-invent the
wheel" by firsh-hand measurements of Sa-Ma, Sa-Pa and the Octave
relationships. The research will continue from there.

The shruti summary is as under:

1. There are 22 shruti-s. They are classified into 5 groups for
reasons of aesthetics. [This grouping especially needs further study].

2. 9 shruti-s give rise to Sa-Ma interval, and 13 shruti-s, Sa-Pa
interval.
3. Out of those 22 shruti-s, 12 have been selected, to be called
swara-s. The swara-s are, first of all and most of all, shruti-s
only, though they do assume additional significance.

4. Shruti-s have a dual aspect: As the measurable, reproducible
frequencies; and, secondly, as dynamic intonations. In the first
case, the shruti-s are stand-alone; in the second, they can be, and
are ONLY to be, percieved during a performance. The performer does
not start with a scale of 22 shruti-s; rather, he uses them with the
only consideration of aesthetics in mind. The performer can be
completely ignorant, as far as using shruti-s is concerned. However,
he needs to be learned to study them in isolation, that is, as apart
from performance. The first is a technical measurement, the second
is an aesthetic judgement; they go hand in hand. The performer can
use a shruti lower or higher, depending upon the requirements and
extent of flexibility of the raga or his aesthetic mood. However,
there are raga-s, which require use of only specific shruti-s: for
example Todi, for its komal Re, komal Ga, and komal Dha. The
performer shall not compromise in such cases. Even the specificity
of such shruti-s is a matter, eventually, of aesthetics.

Regards,
Haresh.