RAGA: a journey into the soul of India

To conclude its celebration of Ravi Shankar’s 90th birthday, East meets West Music has re-released groundbreaking documentary from 1971 as a DVD.

George Harrison once famously called Ravi Shankar the Godfather of world music and credited him with almost singlehandedly changing the way we listen. Whether or not you choose to take exception to this statement, it’s nevertheless fair to assert that most people in the west had never heard anything like Indian classical music before the Beatles introduced it to the world at large in the mid sixties. ‘Raga’, a film originally released in 1971 examines the fallout from this cultural encounter as an increasingly frustrated and bemused Ravi Shankar attempts to come to terms with the huge though often shallow and unschooled audiences who come to hear him play.

When I met Ravi Shankar after a concert last year in Vancouver, he graciously conceded that he believes western audiences have finally caught up with his music, and that they have learned to appreciate it now without the accompanying ‘cocktail of hashish, Kama Sutra and poor behaviour’ that made him wary of his ever increasing popularity when he first began playing outside of India. In one particularly powerful scene from ‘Raga’, the camera captures Shankar trying to speak with his audience, but his voice has been muted as thousands of stoned hippies, dance, talk, and appear to do everything except fully experience his music.

As the camera follows Shankar on a trip to revisit his guru Baba Allaudin Khan in India, the sitarist admits that even in his own country so much had changed by the end of the nineteen sixties that the rigorous training he received was impossible to duplicate given the demands of the modern world. As a young student, Shankar was not even allowed to touch his instrument for several years until he had mastered the theory behind its sound, an admission that is poignantly counterpointed by Shankar’s dismay with young American students who want to learn to play a full raga after only a month’s instruction. Of course this is a situation that has continued to decline as Shankar told me a story last year about students who now learn to play the sitar by watching videos on YouTube.

As interesting and important as Shankar’s perspective is, it’s important to put all of these sociological concerns aside and watch ‘Raga’ for what it offers – a document of Ravi Shankar at the absolute peak of his powers. From my perspective even though Shankar complains of the almost mindless adulation that greeted his music, his initial popularity in the sixties – at the very least – provided the impetus for the marvellous footage captured here from Monterey Pop and many other live performances. However undeveloped his audience may have been at that time, Shankar never pandered to the crowd or ‘dumbed down’ his sound for anyone and the music captured here is delicate, ferocious, intricate and breathtaking.

For Beatles fans, there is some wonderful footage of Shankar patiently trying to explain the rudiments of the sitar to a very young George Harrison. It’s easy to understand how he took solace in the guitarist’s devotion as Harrison struggles to grasp the huge tonal palette the sitar offers. Whatever he lacked in finesse and formal training, he more than made up for in looseness and enthusiasm. This is especially true when compared with the rather stiff and formal footage of Shankar trying to find a groove with Yehudi Menuhin, the renowned classical violinist.

There are many reasons to recommend seeing ‘Raga.’ It’s possible to enjoy it simply as a cultural document. The footage of hippies twirling obliviously to Shankar’s music is priceless and recalls a more innocent time in our recent history. On a deeper level, ‘Raga’ captures a world that is disappearing, and anyone who’s visited India recently knows that the country gloriously captured in this footage from 1970 has evolved more than we yet understand. More than anything, ‘Raga’ is a passionate journal of a committed soul who overcame huge physical and cultural obstacles to bring his ancient art form to the west. One only hopes that today Ravi Shankar is able to appreciate and enjoy the fruits of his decades of labour and understand that the sophisticated appreciation of Indian classical music that has evolved over time is largely due to his commitment and hard work.

Purchase the DVD on Amazon

For a chance to win, watch the video below; in it we’ve hidden FOUR images of The Lost Souls cover. If you can spot two of them, email james@buzz-erk.com noting the times in the video that they appear. (This is hard!)

Quirkiness, surprise, intrigue; every now and then we need to hear music that does something a bit different. Try this month’s podcast with its Twist theme and you won’t be disappointed.

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Tracklisting

Niraj Chag – Sita’s test

Links | Niraj’s website

Falu – Rabba

Links | Falumusic.com

Kishon Khan

Links | Kishon Khan on MySpace

Dengue Fever

Links | Dengue Fever on MySpace

Gold Panda – Quitter’s Raga

Links | IamGoldPanda.com

The Indian Type Foundry aims to give as much attention to Non-Latin as to Latin fonts. It’s the first company to develop and directly distribute digital fonts in India; the first font being Fedra Hindi. The project was recently recognised by the Society of Typographic Aficionados.

The first work focussed on Devanagari, but other scripts, Bengali, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya, Tamil, and Telugu will be also explored.

It wasn’t something I’d really ever thought about, but apparently India has long lacked typefaces. The very few which exist were designed by foreign software giants or as corporate fonts for the exclusive use of global companies. There are virtually no typeface collections that can be licensed by Indian designers.

There are many reasons for this; the several hundreds of languages spoken in India, written in any of the 9 Indic scripts, all of which are very complex and extremely time consuming to digitise. There is little standardisation, and major design applications such Adobe Creative Suite do not support any Indic languages. Additionally the high level of piracy discourages potentially interested parties from pursuing development activities in India.

When I’ve been in India, I remember seeing beautiful, hand-crafted Hindi signs, in a wide variety of font styles. It seems surprising that it has taken so long to offer the same diversity in digital fonts, but welcome and exciting nonetheless. Along with the recent introduction of non-Latin web addresses it’s something making the web more Eastern…

I was intrigued by his ambitious and complex sound and in May I had a chance to get to know more about him as we exchanged emails. Here’s three things I took away from the music and my experience of the man.

He’s not making music to anyone else’s pattern

Much of the music that I listen to is genre-specific – written to fit certain rules. In contrast, Shammi’s work strikes me as very un-self-consciously eclectic. When I asked Shammi about the narratives that drive his music, he explained that his albums

“play host to many different narratives and stories that are not always related.”

He went on to explain:

“I like to make music that I like to listen to. I also like to make music that interests me academically. And often, I like to make music for the simple pleasure of making music. Audio Descriptive and Cinema for the Ears are both collections of songs that may fit well into these areas.

I think that my use of instrumentation is influenced a lot by film music. I really love cinema and love writing music to images. Some of the songs on Audio Descriptive are directly written in this style. For example, the opening song ‘Pacifist’ has its roots largely set in film music. I created a fully formed war scene in my head, complete with a prelude, fight and aftermath and then took this as a solid base for music composition.”

If you appreciate sound production you’ll find plenty to interest you on Audio Descriptive

Shammi’s tracks are notable for their production – they really jump out of the speakers. I asked him about whether this was intentional and it was clear from his answer that the mixing was a very important part of the process to him:

“Firstly I’d like to say Thank You! I worked very hard in mixing this album and at giving each instrument the crispness and clarity I felt it deserved. I’m really happy to see that you can hear it!”

He went on to explain how he mixed each track individually according to its theme:

“ For example, I tried to create a lush and sweet sounding mix on the songs that were composed with types of romantic feelings in mind – Sweet Nothings, Ajnabee Anjani and Reveire are good examples of this.

On the other hand, for the songs that were more raw such as Forthcoming, I tried to dirty up the mix a little so everything snapped. I think this emphasizes the story and emotion further. In this context, raw is more.”

He also talked about the importance of overall sonic quality –

“If a sound is not doing what it’s supposed to be doing then there’s not much real point of it being there. For this reason I tried to give each sound its place, so to achieve the original and intended purpose for that song.”

A musical course that’s not set in stone

I’m sure that Shammi’s latest work will win him many fans; but I suspect that his next work will be completely different. It seems to me that Shammi is by nature an explorer; he has his influences (Talvin Singh and especially Nitin Sawhney among them) but also the will and ability to transcend them.

Certainly there’s one particular phrase in Shammi’s emails to me that gave me a clearer picture of him:

“Much of my influence has come outside of music, through stories and philosophy.”

These are the words of an artist who is prepared to run with ideas and concepts, and perhaps this is at the heart of Shammi’s eclecticism.

As far as delving into his personal philosophy goes, well, I think that’s all in the music – but I did find an insight into Shammi’s “worldview” when I asked him if the theme of Resistance meant anything to him:

“There are certainly things I ‘resist’, snobbery in music for one, inequality in education another. There are also things I resist in my personal life, or probably more accurately put, ‘things I choose not to do’.

As for my music, there maybe some shades of resistance. In fact, one of my latest pieces called ‘The Seeker’ reflects struggles of life. Everyone, including me, seems to be constantly searching for something, big or small. During this search there are many obstacles that we face. This song is about those obstacles and about overcoming them, I suppose in a way this touches upon resistance.”

• Now listen to the track Pacifist on the June podcast

The making of Monsoon Rain from Eastern Soul on Vimeo.

‘Inside James Brown was screaming soul, outside the rebels were freezing cold.’ – Linton Kwesi Johnson

Soul.

It’s a loaded word.

Soul music. Soul food. Save your soul. Sell your soul.

Our souls danced above us to the music of the spheres.

All that you have is your soul.

– OK, fine. It’s easy to use the word in a sentence, but can anyone tell me what it means?

It’s a word that’s been used to sell everything from vacation getaways to new world leaders.

Like the recipe for curry, how long will it be before somebody tries to patent it?

Certainly, the only other word in the English language that has been so abused, so heaped upon with baggage and expectation is ‘love.’

Here, in the west, soul has become a commodity. There is nothing quiet about it. We want it at no cost. With no surrender or sacrifice.

Yet, we are drawn to tales of suffering.

The suffering of others whether through –

the wail of old blues music,

the memoirs of slaves,

the symbolic actions of third world leaders –

has always held western spiritual seekers in thrall from the safety of their armchairs.

Offering the Dalai Lama a Nobel Prize for actions our governments would descry if the shoe was on the other foot.

Rumours that God is dead. Souls are forsaken.

Television promises of two cars in every garage.

Rats are the first to leave a sinking ship.

In the west, these hairy scurriers – beatniks, hippies, malcontents – found it easier to throw out the baby with the bathwater and look to the east where the myths tell us every cave is occupied by a spiritual seeker and enlightenment is borne on the wind.

But, just like the future ain’t what it used to be, the East they were looking for isn’t as tidy and ready to pluck off the shelf as initial reports suggested. It wasn’t a spiritual Disneyland that could be had for the price of admission and many left grumbling and disgruntled.

It’s too bad. Or, maybe it’s the best thing that could have happened as it left people in the east free to explore the meaning of soul in the modern world without any incursions from pesky westerners in need of help. From my perspective, I wasn’t that much different than the thousands of people who came before me begging bowls in hand to the dusty streets of Delhi and the ghats of Varanasi. But, the soul I found there was something entirely different than I was expecting. Thank God.

In India, I found a people assured of their own present and future prospects as they made music, art, and dance for themselves that respected the past, but was not trapped by it. I spent hours in bookstores in Delhi, shelves filled with contemporary Indian fiction by authors I had never heard of. A writer told me that only one in a thousand Indian authors are ever read outside of the country, yet they have a huge audience at home. I heard Bally Sagoo and Talvin Singh create music that everyone was free to listen to, but I never felt either of them needed outside approval. As a Canadian growing up in the shadow of America, I knew too well that our artists were only considered famous when they ‘made it’ in the States. Eastern Soul has no such requirements. It is confident without being brash. It doesn’t need us. It knows what it’s worth.

If soul is what emanates from the deepest part of us, Eastern Soul is a soul at play. It is a soul grounded in the timeless, but it’s not afraid of change. It embraces the world, globalism, technology, the Internet, yet can hear the teen tal in drops of water, the scales in the songs of birds.

Eastern Soul is thousands of years older than the passion of Christ, and at the same time, it’s just setting out on its journey. It’s something that is impossible to articulate, but fascinating to ponder. London Bridge has fallen down. Rock is dead. America is ruled by the corporations, and David Bowie is selling shares in himself on the stock exchange. Clear the deck. It’s time for something new, and I can’t wait to see where this is all headed.

© Doug Hesselgrave May 2010 | Images © Clive Victor France May 2010

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• Photos from Clive Victor France

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AS I NEAR THE ONE-HOUR CAP of my interview with Bombay Jayashri at a cozy little coffee shop by the Besant Nagar beach, I’m getting a bit fidgety. She’s told me a lot of fine things, a lot of solid things about her background, her career, her passions, her training – but I still haven’t gotten near that certain something that makes this superstar singer different from the next superstar singer. After all, everyone talks about the contribution of their guru, the endless hours they put in for practice, the way they structure their concerts, the day they got their first big break. And then, as if divining my dilemma, Jayashri begins talking about a chamber concert she presented in Melbourne recently. “After I sang Krishna nee begane, a lady came up and commented that my favourite deity would have to be Krishna. She said I must have been thinking of Him when I sang; there could be no other explanation for the way the song touched her heart and made her visualise Krishna. But I said no. I wasn’t thinking of Krishna. I was thinking about Yaman Kalyani, about the way the raga is styled in the composition, about the way I was presenting it. The song may be about the composer’s love for Krishna, but we are not so emotional about Krishna. My feeling, my love is for the raga, not for Krishna.

There. That’s an entry point to what Bombay Jayashri is about, because with that one instance, she has essentially offered a look at Carnatic music from an excitingly new perspective. Because down the ages, we’ve had it drummed into our heads that the essence of Hindustani music is shringara, love, while Carnatic compositions are capsules of bhakti, or devotion. And here’s Jayashri, implying otherwise. Or is she, really? “This is bhakti, but to the music – not to Krishna,  she says. “We’re not in an era where we’re into that kind of bhakti. Because if it’s just bhakti, and if it’s just about Krishna or Rama, why would I – someone who doesn’t come from a very religious or ritualistic background – revel in it? I don’t think I love God more than I love music. Why would a European sitting there, who doesn’t know the difference between Krishna and Rama, listen to this music for two hours? Why are instrumental concerts so popular? Do we know if the performer is playing a kriti in Kannada or Telugu, or if that kriti is talking about this lord or that deity? Our music is not about religion.‿ She repeats, “It’s about bhakti to the music. If I do my music well, I feel one with whatever we call divinity or spirituality – much more than if I sit and read the Lalita Sahasranamam for twenty minutes.

JAYASHRI was born in Calcutta, but that prefix to her name came because she grew up in Bombay. That’s where she began learning music, from first her parents – both Carnatic music teachers – and then TR Balamani, who, she says, “is a very reputed teacher, though not a known performer as such.‿ But alongside, there were the film songs of Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle and Mohammad Rafi, the ghazals of Mehdi Hassan, and there was Hindustani music. “I learnt the ghazal, the bhajan, everything that Bombay had to offer,‿ says Jayashri, who then decides to get into a bit of rapture about those modes of music. “I love Hindustani music. I love the aesthetics, the way they develop the voice. I wanted to learn the system at least to acquaint myself with their raga nomenclature, their elaborate raga singing, their phraseology, their training. And that has helped my music – my tuning, my pitch perfection, my breath control.‿ She quickly adds, “I do believe that Carnatic music is much more superior to any other music. Our tradition is a combination of the lyrical value, the spiritual value, the number of compositions in a number of languages (not just Hindi) – and we concentrate more on the laya aspect; there’s more complexity in our talas, for instance.

Every month we bring you a podcast with full-length tracks that we think you’ll love. All the tracks we choose will link to a theme, and this month that theme is ‘Resistance’.

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It’s a musical scale – the pentatonic scale, five notes that can be played on the black keys of a piano. The pentatonic scale has appeared in music throughout history and across the world, from Indian raags, to Chinese music, and from Celtic music to African spirituals to mention just a few.

My belief is that these five simple notes are so important to music around the world, because they are part of the fundamental part of what makes us human. Basically every single one of us is born with a relationship to the pentatonic scale, whether we know it or not. Sounds pretty unbelievable doesn’t it? Well, watch this video, it may convince you:

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

Pretty amazing isn’t it? But what is it about this scale that makes it so powerful?

Well, I’ve experimented with this scale in one of my own compositions called ‘Its Life’ and what I’ve discovered is that the secret of this ubiquitous scale lies in its bittersweet sound. It works equally well in joyful music as it does in sorrowful music or music about suffering.

I think this divine link between happiness and sadness – the yin and yang – is a really important part of being a human being. Sometimes there is a beauty in sadness – death is a sad thing but, without it, life would probably lose any meaning. Though these concepts are often so hard to accept I think somehow deep down we are aware of this link between extreme states – be it subconsciously or consciously.

So in many ways one could describe the human condition as bittersweet – just like the intrinsic sound of the pentatonic scale and maybe that has something to do with our special relationship with it.

I want to know your thoughts about this, so if you have a favourite piece of music that has a bitter-sweet quality to it, then tell us about it below.

Niraj.

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