ABSTRACT
Some recent Indian performers have lost touch with laya, probably under the influence of post-Cubist Western ideas. Though not overtly recognized, and hence not named in the West, it is nevertheless an aspect of artistic practice that is no less important here, especially but not exclusively for recent Western composers who are interested in both monody and the spiritual purposes of music. In fact, once it is explicitly identified, it can turn out to be no less vital to the interpretation of polyphonic Western music. The presence of laya in Indian music probably lay behind the once-common Indian question “why is all Western music march-music?” A letter to a newspaper1 even responded to the query “why must music for non-thinkers usually have every beat emphasised by drums?” by asserting that only drumming is truly expressive, and that ‘thinkers’ cannot ‘feel’ music because ‘thinking gets in the way’. This is a fallacy; and laya, for reasons I shall be explaining, gives it the lie. As a time-linear phenomenon having nothing to do with heavy beat, laya is entirely about feeling expressed with fluent melody as well as rhythmic subtlety. A
major part of the letter-writer’s problem may be a dumb idea that feelings are crude, only to be aroused by crude methods.
