Background

outside the Western music tradition, we find music that is organized by radically different principles. For example, the Indian rag (or raga) scales that govern much traditional Indian music are very different from Western scales. First, in much Indian music, there are 22 notes within each octave, far more than the traditional Western 12. In addition, few of these notes fall exactly at the same frequencies as Western notes. Thus, at a basic level, Indian music is using notes that would fall between the notes of the Western music scale. It would be impossible to play raga music on a Western instrument, such as a piano or any woodwind instrument.

Go to the next tab to listen to a Indian raga music example.

Indian Raga Music

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