Music and the Power of Sound: The Influence of Tuning and Interval on Consciousness

Rating:
Summary: Stimulating polemics by a pioneer ethnomusicologist
Review: Danielou was a Frenchman who spent two decades in India studying the vina. This book, a revision of the 1946 "Introduction to Musical Scales," compares the basic scale structures of India, China, and ancient Greece, relating each to the philosophical worldview of its parent culture. In a nutshell, he finds Chinese and Indian music to be equally profound but utterly dissimilar, and Greek music to be a confused merging of the two. Modern Western music, because it is based on the flawed Greek system, he finds decadent--capable of moving the listener, but only by overcomplicated means in comparison especially to the directness of Indian classical music. WARNING: Though a Frenchman, Danielou wrote this book in his idiosyncratic English. Be prepared for some puzzling passages.

Rating:
Summary: Stimulating polemics by a pioneer ethnomusicologist
Review: Danielou was a Frenchman who spent two decades in India studying the vina. This book, a revision of the 1946 "Introduction to Musical Scales," compares the basic scale structures of India, China, and ancient Greece, relating each to the philosophical worldview of its parent culture. In a nutshell, he finds Chinese and Indian music to be equally profound but utterly dissimilar, and Greek music to be a confused merging of the two. Modern Western music, because it is based on the flawed Greek system, he finds decadent--capable of moving the listener, but only by overcomplicated means in comparison especially to the directness of Indian classical music. WARNING: Though a Frenchman, Danielou wrote this book in his idiosyncratic English. Be prepared for some puzzling passages.