ABSTRACT
Music based on drones from Scotland and India exemplifies the same principle in action a fixed pitch norm against which another part strives to deviate and to which it usually succumbs. Instruments can be substituted for voices. Melodicas, harmonicas and string instruments will be especially useful, though wind and possibly pitched percussion could be brought in. In particular people drew an important distinction between sound materials and musical elements, a source of great confusion and misunderstanding at the roots of the theory and practice of music education. In Indian music the stopped strings of the sitar make sounds in relationship with the unstopped strings just as in bagpipe music the chanter relates to the drone. There is an apparent paradox here in that aesthetic sharing can be one of the principles of human interaction. Skill acquisition and literature studies are so easily substituted for the prime activities of composition, audition and performance.
