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Originally Posted by davidhunternyc  Bunnyears - Aah, I knew it was dangerous responding to a complicated question. And of course, I am now in a defensive position. Didn't I mention the sliding note popularized by Jimi Hendrix? And the trombone. Sorry, I played the trombone for 10 years. Not that long, but long enough to know that the notes played on this instrument is the same equal-distant notes that the rest of the orchestra plays. Jazz and other forms of music are different altogether. Of course things started to change in the 1930's onward. I mentioned this for golly sakes. But to say that all the 36 unequal tones used in Indian music is the same as a quarter tone is incorrect. In terms of notational Indian music, yes, I'm sure it exists. My gosh, music anywhere these days doesn't exist in a vacuum.
My roommate, after graduating from Julliard, moved to India for 4 years and studied Indian music in a classical Indian music school, which there are only a few left in the whole country. His instructors never read a note in their life. So take it as it is. I am not a musicalogist, as I said before, so please, prove your point to someone else.
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There are no 8th tones discernable to any human ear. Those notes in between the half tones of the western scale are the quarter tones no matter what you want to call them. And, even if you don't hear them, a lot of people do. I hear them, my nephew with perfect pitch who is studying horn at Northwestern hears them, and so does another of my good friends who plays about 6 or 7 instruments -- although she doesn't have perfect pitch. Most audience western audience members who can hear them interpret them as being slightly off-pitch. They are heard; their sound is not preferred by convention and training.
I don't know where your friend studied Indian music, but most of my Indian friends have assured me that the systems of notation are used to created a record of classical Indian music. The system is extremely complex and difficult to master, so it's possible that many musicians might not use it. However, Indian music also has a great deal of variation and improvisation much as European music did before Beethoven instructed that the Emperor Concerto be played "exactly" as written. Until then, whenever there was a repeat in music, it was used as a place for the virtuoso to insert a cadenza of his own devising. Such improvisation was considered necessary for the musician if he or she wished to attain the heights of "stardom." Mozart's sister was an extremely talented player of the fortepiano, but she couldn't improvise. Mozart actually composed and wrote down a number of variations for her to use as "improvisations" when giving concerts as well as teaching her a simple formula so that she could produce and "improvise" a cadenza if necessary. As these improvised cadenzas were never written down, they have been lost. I suspect that the music that isn't written down in India is most probably of an improvisational nature.
Jazz also relies heavily on improvisational performance that is not notated so that the various variations that the musician thinks of are lost if not recorded. Nikolai Kapustin, the Russian composer and jazz musician, however has composed music and written down his jazz variations (or improvisations). They are beastly difficult to play, but amazing to listen to. With a skilled pianist, they sound as fresh as when he first composed them. Both Marc-Andre Hamelin and Stephen Osbourne have recorded some of his music.
Western groups also record Indian music. Check out Asha Bhosle's recording with the Kronos Quartet. That's been largely written and scored, so I imagine that it can be "covered" by other musicians eventually. You can download some of the tracks from Amazon or sample them to see how Western string players have used quarter-tone music. It's certainly not classical Indian music, but it's still the "sound" of the Subcontinent. The picture below is Bhosle performing with the Kronos Quartet. It's really a great album, but just about anything done by the Kronos Quartet is extremely high quality which is also true of Ms. Bhosle.
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