Is there Indian music notation?
Indian music is always said to be an oral tradition; this is only partly true. Indian musical notation stretches back to the Samaveda, which is several thousand years old, so it is arguable that India has one of the oldest traditions of music notation. Even today, notation is heavily used in education. However, since the classical music of both North and South is so heavily dependent upon improvisation, then a strict notation is somewhat irrelevant. Indian classical music resists notation for the same reasons that Western jazz music resists it. Musical notation is somewhat analogous to taxidermy. Indian music tied to notation has the same relationship to the actual performance as a stuffed animal does to a living one.
