By Aman Mittal
When people say that George Harrison made me famous, that is true in a way.
- Ravi Shankar
When people say that George Harrison made me famous, that is true in a way.
- Ravi Shankar
When one is asked to write about music, we can get on the bandwagon of album reviewers and boom, we have one article after another, but here I am going to write about a person, a name that is synonymous with the beautiful instrument that is – The Sitar.
It is not everyday that we sit and go on YouTube and search for ‘Pancham se Gara’ or listen to Ragas, cause as I see it, only a handful of us listen to classical Indian music, or as a matter of fact, only a handful of us listen to music behind the beats and ‘Aunty police bula legi’. While I am not trying to undermine that genre of music, what I am saying is like in my previous article – Beauty and the Beast, I give the center stage here to Sitar and Pandit Ravi Shankar. I am grateful that since I write about music, I have been exposed to new levels of transcendent music.
It is not everyday that we sit and go on YouTube and search for ‘Pancham se Gara’ or listen to Ragas, cause as I see it, only a handful of us listen to classical Indian music, or as a matter of fact, only a handful of us listen to music behind the beats and ‘Aunty police bula legi’. While I am not trying to undermine that genre of music, what I am saying is like in my previous article – Beauty and the Beast, I give the center stage here to Sitar and Pandit Ravi Shankar. I am grateful that since I write about music, I have been exposed to new levels of transcendent music.
Bengali families teach their children at least one instrument. Music is in their blood.
- Indian Society
Well apart from this stereotype, which may or may not be true, I am grateful for one Bengali family for learning or actually defining the music that comes from Sitar. I am talking about none other than Pandit Ravi Shankar. He embodied music and his children Anoushka Shankar and Norah Jones are carrying the legacy in their own ways, what genes to have right? God damn! He got naughty with Sue Jones and they had a ‘love child’ Norah who was labeled ‘Jazz artist of the past decade ( 2000-2009) . He also had a son Shubhendra Shankar who passed away in 1992 and was not an accomplished musician. Pandit Ravi Shankar was a virtuoso in his field and his music spread like wildfire all across the world.
- Indian Society
Well apart from this stereotype, which may or may not be true, I am grateful for one Bengali family for learning or actually defining the music that comes from Sitar. I am talking about none other than Pandit Ravi Shankar. He embodied music and his children Anoushka Shankar and Norah Jones are carrying the legacy in their own ways, what genes to have right? God damn! He got naughty with Sue Jones and they had a ‘love child’ Norah who was labeled ‘Jazz artist of the past decade ( 2000-2009) . He also had a son Shubhendra Shankar who passed away in 1992 and was not an accomplished musician. Pandit Ravi Shankar was a virtuoso in his field and his music spread like wildfire all across the world.
My earliest exposure to Sitar was at school when I was learning to play the guitar myself and had just started and another friend of mine, Digveer played the Sitar for the school assembly and I was astounded by the level of precision he played with. I have always admired sitar as an instrument and I want you all to feel the trance that music takes you to.
So I got hold of Digveer and asked him what made Pandit Ravi Shankar’s music unique to which he replied : Well, one thing unique in his music is the fact that he's learnt and toured with a lot more people than most musicians. So even though he belongs to one Gharana, you find elements from other regions of India, such as Baul Sangeet from Bengal or Maand from Rajasthan in his classical compositions, or different instruments in his non classical ones.
He couldn’t have put it better. While other sitar players have reached a certain level of excellence, not many have incorporated different styles and made them one.
Pandit Ravi played until the end of his life and even performed at the Woodstock festival in 1969, though he disliked the venue, but the hippies sure did love his music as seen here :
So I got hold of Digveer and asked him what made Pandit Ravi Shankar’s music unique to which he replied : Well, one thing unique in his music is the fact that he's learnt and toured with a lot more people than most musicians. So even though he belongs to one Gharana, you find elements from other regions of India, such as Baul Sangeet from Bengal or Maand from Rajasthan in his classical compositions, or different instruments in his non classical ones.
He couldn’t have put it better. While other sitar players have reached a certain level of excellence, not many have incorporated different styles and made them one.
Pandit Ravi played until the end of his life and even performed at the Woodstock festival in 1969, though he disliked the venue, but the hippies sure did love his music as seen here :
Wikipedia him for all the information but let’s talk music here. George Harrison learnt music under Pandit Ravi Shankar and his presence helped Pandit Ravi to get out on the world stage though he didn’t need much of that. It can be seen in his song “Norwegian Wood” and this led to the start of the genre : Raga Rock. But this came before his met Pandit Ravi. He met him in London in 1966, and learnt sitar under him for six weeks in India. Soon, Pandit Ravi Shankar was all over the world, he was the ‘sound’ of Indian music and won a Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance for West Meets East, a collaboration with Yehudi Menuhin.
To put it simply, I cannot summarize the greatness of the man on MS Word. You have to see it, listen to it to realize that he was and will be probably The greatest Sitar Player of all time.
Here is his daughter playing : ‘Pancham se Gara’ :
To put it simply, I cannot summarize the greatness of the man on MS Word. You have to see it, listen to it to realize that he was and will be probably The greatest Sitar Player of all time.
Here is his daughter playing : ‘Pancham se Gara’ :