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Abstract:
An old saying in Indian music has it that "shruti [pitch] is the mother, and lay [time] is the
father". This basic point about the equiprimordiality of metre and pitch seems obvious
enough with respect not only to Indian music but also to all music. Yet this conception of
rhythm and pitch as the fundamental material from which music is made has given rise to a
parallel formula specific to Indian music: namely, that rag [melody] and tal [rhythm], while
distinct entities, share in the constitution of Indian music as parallel, equally prior, and
equally basic systems. This formula, while seeming prima facie little different from the old
aphorism, is, I think, a subtle but significant error that has shaped a whole congeries of
ideas about the nature and theoretical basis of Indian music. Primary among these ideas are
those concerning the practice of tal, but also more specifically, as I will later show, ideas
about drumming traditions. In particular, this belief has given rise to the feeling that both
rag and tal should be explainable by similar theories and schemes, and should be musically
expressible in similar ways.
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