Supriya the Musician

Supriya, Manisha and I were watching the Winter Olympics late last night, after Aseem had fallen asleep. The Ladies' Figure-skating Short program was on. Suddenly Supriya asked me, "Isn't that Chinese music?" Neither Manisha nor I were paying any attention to the piano-violin duet that was accompanying the Japanese skater, but Supriya's sharp ears were tuned to the music. Once she brought it to my attention it was obvious. I explained to her that Chinese and Japanese music sound very similar (being based on the pentatonic scale). She said she had heard the music somewhere on TV a while ago. Like the true musician that she is, she abstracted the structure of the music and made sense of it.