Has Western music imbibed oriental instruments or music modes into its repertoire?
Many Western instruments are of oriental origin although not all of them can be traced to one region in particular as Europe was quite a cultural melting pot from antiquity to the very present. The violin was perfected in Cremona (northern Italy) barely one or two centuries before it was introduced into Carnatic music and is of definite West Asian origin, probably introduced in the wake of the Crusades and Venetian trade links. The flute existed for thousands of years in the Orient but’ gained prominence only during the past three centuries. The list is endless. In other words, in terms of global cultural history, Western classical music (in the generalised sense) is really very modern compared with other classical systems. Western musical instruments too were developed from earlier instruments whose origin are only partly known, and perfected further (the wind instruments have mechanized key-systems). What then is a “foreign” instrument? We simply do not know! Has the choice of an ins
