After reading the introduction to Indian Music and the West, I realized that even though Indian music has spread through Western culture, we still do not fully understand it. "Royal Musicians of Hindustan were
astonished that Western audiences enthusiastically applauded them after they
had tuned their instruments, mistaking this for a performance of Indian
music." That quote pretty much sums up the Western interpretation of Indian music in the early twentieth century, and not much has changed since then. Western music that we consider to have Eastern themes are in reality greatly estranged from their Indian roots. "It has been distanced from its source
by the strait-jacket of staff notation, twisted out of shape by the imposition of
harmony, reduced to a few musical 'tags' in opera and parlour song, and form-
ally altered in the recording studio." In order for us to fully comprehend the intricacies of Indian music, we must move away from our confining Western mindset.
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