[James C. Bennett]

Some of the Indian Classical Music out there is purely divine.

It uses similar scales as Western Classical Music, but has a much older history, and often, more complex melodies.

[AnAmericanMother]

My daughter studied Indian Classical music in college.

One of their assignments was to go to local concerts. She heard through a friend that a sitar player at one concert announced to his fellow musicians back stage: "There's a little American girl in the front row counting tala!"

[left that other site]

I actually do like Indian Classical Music, and have been listening to it since Ravi Shankar made it available to Western audiences back in the 1960’s.

But my heart keeps returning to The late Classical period and The Romantics.

The delicious irony though is that China, which has a rich cultural history of its own, seems frantic to train WESTERN Classical Musicians.