This book explains the art of music from the aesthetic point of view, and at the same time takes the reader, step by step, to an understanding of music as a science. It is a critical interpretation as well as an appreciation of the Carnatic traditions in Music. The book comprises a series of lectures which the author delivered to a group of scientists and music lovers at the Kalpakkam Atomic Energy Centre and in other institutions. She has succeeded in guiding the reader on the correct lines of appreciation of good music and its scientific basis. A lucid exposition of the musical scale, the classification of ragas-s and tala-s, the concept of sruti-s, the fretting of the vina and the teaching of music are the highlights of this self-sufficient treatise. These will benefit the lay reader, the student of music and the erudite musicologist alike. Noteworthy, as showing the practical slant of the book, are the masterly illustrations from the songs of the great composers to elucidate her exposition of the delicacies of sruti-s and the patterns of the several ragas. The charts in this book add a new dimension to Indian musicology.