Indian music

Haresh...you know, outside of a friend who listens to a lot of music with me over the years, I can't really recall listening to Indian music with other folks, so I don't know their perceptions of the tuning. From my own perspective, it doesn't sound "microtonal," so to speak, and perhaps that's because, as Gene mentioned a while back, music based off of 5 limit intervals doesn't seem "weird" or different, since 12 eq is based off the same sort of system. And I've been listening to Ravi Shankar since 1968, but never really thought of the tuning much, even though I knew, intellectually, that Indian music had "quartertones" (as I used to think of it way back).
And, speaking of Shankar, he's done numerous collaborations with Western musicians over the years, including Yehudi Menuhin and the LA Philharmonic, so the tuning systems must be pretty close in ways for it to work...and I am supposing that Shankar either tweaks his pitches a bit to make that work, or just plows ahead with the way he would usually do it...what do you think?
But, as far as 5 limit goes, I believe Arabic music (and I know that covers a lot of territory) is based off 5ths as well, but a lot of oud music DOES sound different to my ears, I can really hear microtonal inflections. Of course, it's often quite subtle, and my hearing has deepened a lot since I started playing non 12 music.
It's interesting; Jon Catler's 31 tone rock stuff (Cowpeople), from what I recall, at times sounds really different from 12, but a couple of the pieces sounded very "normal," but I haven't heard it in a while. His "Crash Landing" CD sounds REALLY out, and there's no doubt it's something not in the ordinary. It's a subject with many different takes, for sure, and a worthwhile topic to chat about...see you...HHH
microstick.net
PS...whether it's the tuning or not, a good friend of mine (who's a wayway out there guitarist as well) once told me that my piece "The Spider" (from "Other Worlds"), which is in 19 eq, was one of the only pieces of music he ever heard that actually scared him...