Some time back YT stopped watching Indian news
channels out of sheer respect for his own intelligence or whatever is left of
it. That leaves him with WWF and Nickelodeon … Therefore we are not in a
position to know whether at all World Music Day found a mention in the annals
of our august ‘channels’ this 21st June, or was the Muse muscled out
by the Yogi. About the print media, one notes that, alas, the yen for music is now
weaker that the Japanese ¥..Hha..Hha …Hhhaaa…., what a silly joke Carl.…Panduranga…asude.!
Reportedly, World Music Day was first celebrated in
1987, in the afterglow of the response to Paul Simon’s album Graceland, the
first consciously crafted confluence (wheww…) of various international musical
streams. Graceland ranks among the 20 top-selling albums of all times, keeping
company with Metallica’s Metallica
and Hotel California by the Eagles (selling
15-20 million albums). It also won the 1987 Grammy…
On a more general plane, the term ‘World Music’ was
coined by Robert E. Brown in the 1960s. To recall our earlier piece on Pta.
Kesarbai Kerkar’s Bhairavi and the
Golden Record placed on the two Voyager space-crafts, it was Brown who compiled
the unique collection for NASA…
We take a look here at the exchanges between Indian
and Western music, and possibilities and attempts of an Indian Western
‘fusion’, which in Ustad Amjad Ali Khan’s words, is more of ‘confusion’! It’s really
like trying to mix or fuse oil and water. IK has of course been talking about some
silent musical geniuses and their music, and also featuring the east-west interface
regularly, illustrating the exchanges with lesser known instances such as the
Bond Theme..
The difficulty in reconciling the Indian music
system to the Western starts right at the level of swaras or notes. Around the times of the Renaissance, the scale
based on ‘equal temperament’ (ET) was introduced in Western Music, to take care
of the difficulty in tuning to a changed key-note in a particular exposition, which
befell the user of the prevalent scale based on ‘just intonation’(JI). The JI
scale is, simplistically put, a collection of a note struck on say a string, and successive
overtones. These will follow a mathematically fixed ratio. Making a scale is
something like choosing a cricketing squad for a one-day match vs that for a
test-match. Different stalwarts for different genres…The ET scale involves
choosing a set of notes having minimum mutual dissonance, so as to enable a
fixed note instrument like a piano to play the widest gamut of tunes. But the
Indian ragas require notes differing by subtle shades. In fact the swaras themselves are said to be imbued with
emotions- like the komal rishabh engendering
ati karun or raudra emotions.
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| PV, right with Soumik and Conductor Stephen |
“When people look for so-called fusion music,
they’re looking for easy elements of musical gesture amalgamated into one
cultural artefact. This often involves surface features grafted from one
language onto another, and in my view this approach rarely works. I would like
to suggest that we might try to look at background structure to see what one music
can learn from the structure of another. For example, there is an element of
rhythm in Indian Music which also exists in Western Musical theory as a distant
relation. I refer to the marvellous parallel between the Indian concept of tala cycles (tali and khali) and the
medieval western idea of the isorhythm…”
PV goes on to explain the philosophy behind his
latest offering ‘Raga Fields’ in which the excellent British sarod player
Soumik Dutta has the lead role:
“I made it clear to the western musicians in the
ensemble that there was no requirement of them to try to sound ‘Indian’ in
style…any attempt by a musician from western tradition to attempt to adopt this
identity merely by adding glissandi to the mix and approximately playing the
notes of the raga is probably doomed for inadequacy”. Thus, the whole is not
the mechanical or static sum of assorted parts...
Here are the views of Ivan Hewett, writing in the
Telegraph:
“No wonder those well-meaning concertos for sitar
and orchestra, beginning with Ravi Shankar’s trail-blazing effort in 1971 tend
to sound so lame. The narrative is always the same. To begin with, the sitarist
rhapsodises ecstatically, just as he would (if) on his own. The orchestra is
superfluous, but the composer hides that awkward fact by giving them a drone to
play…Later on when things get exciting, the tables are turned. The soloist may
seem to be in the lime-light, but the overpowering orchestra, the onward drive of
the harmony…tells you which side is really in charge...”
This not to question Panditji's prowess so far as the purely Indian vadya-vrunda is concerned: it can be traced back to his Uday Shankar days and Maihar Band. Just listen to this: if this or that passage does not resonate incessantly in your head like the bee in the bonnet, when you get up tomorrow morning , nothing will:
Reviewing PV’s Raga Fields, he says things are now changing, basically due to the adoption of new rhythms by western musicologist, as opposed to the earlier ‘four square’ rhythms…opening the possibility of a middle ground…three cheers for Jazz I sayyy….! Taking the analogy of planting a tree, the present method starts from the fruit at the tree-top moving downwards to the seed. But nature starts from the seed- hence the failure of the plant to flourish. In the form of PV or his companions like Soumik, the seed is now planted in the western soil- we are now on nature’s side…
Reviewing PV’s Raga Fields, he says things are now changing, basically due to the adoption of new rhythms by western musicologist, as opposed to the earlier ‘four square’ rhythms…opening the possibility of a middle ground…three cheers for Jazz I sayyy….! Taking the analogy of planting a tree, the present method starts from the fruit at the tree-top moving downwards to the seed. But nature starts from the seed- hence the failure of the plant to flourish. In the form of PV or his companions like Soumik, the seed is now planted in the western soil- we are now on nature’s side…
Incidentally, the amazing piano skills of PV and
the operas Kid Stuff, Mikado, Oliver
Twist and Jesus Christ Superstar
created by Barry John-PV for Xavier School, Delhi boys (XOBAD) during the 1970s
were YT’s introduction to western genres. PV’s mother was a well-known
classical vocalist of Delhi in her day. And Shah Rukh Khan is the product of
Barry John’s acting school. In the 80’s PV migrated to UK and has made an
indelible mark on the music there…It’s an immense loss to us, but World Music
is a gainer…
That brings us to the earliest round of musical
exchanges between the Indian music and Western. Back to the Vedas….The last
decades of nineteenth century and those of the early 20th saw great
curiosity and interest on part of leading western composers. However the attempts
adhered to PV’s concepts rather than to the burden of Pt. Ravi Shankar’s
hurried expeditions. The early western composers address the feeling generated by the Indian subject,
say a ‘tarana’ they heard, or the story of the Ramayana. It’s like driving at the bhavaarth rather than the shabdik-arth. The Indian element is so
minimal in these compositions that forget fusion, one discerns only a soupçon
or ‘suspicion’ as the French say, of the Indian. But one does feel there is a
rustle behind the curtains, so to say…It’s like musical Impressionism. Remember individual ragas and raaginis being
likened to different Gods in our early music scriptures? Raga swaras were given some prominence
however, in the works of Kaikhosru Sorabji, the British-Parsi composer
(1892-1988). Some of the compositions ‘inspired’ by Indian themes have, however,
literally been world-shaking, such as the Leo Delibe’s ‘Flower Duet’, “Sita”
and “Choral Hymns from Rigveda” by Gustav Holst (1911), British composer etc…
We end the story with the French opera ‘Lakmè’, and
the remarkable aria ‘Flower Duet’. The opera was written by Leo Delibes and
first performed in where-else-but-Paris in 1883. The story is about Lakmè
(French rendering of ‘Lakshmi’), daughter of a Brahmin priest, who falls in
love with a British soldier in India. Lakmè is one of the best known operas in
history. Likewise, the tune of
the ‘Flower Duet’, sung by Lakmè and her maid
Mallika in the opera is said to be one of the most recognised pieces of music
in the western world. The signature tune of British Airways and the boarding
tunes of some other airlines are based on the Flower Duet. Hundreds of
Hollywood movies, western TV serials and advertisements have drawn on two Lakmè
duets, the other one being ‘Bell Song’ - the list can be seen under ‘Leo Delibes’
on Imdb.com. The list contains such distinguished names as ‘The Simpsons’
series, and ‘Friends’, as also innumerable movies including ‘The Hunger’. The
Yanni composition Aria is nothing but the ‘Flower Duet’. On Youtube, the combined
hits for this duet exceed 3 crores today! Though the Bell Song makes an effort
to sound like a fast alaap, the other
compositions do not strain to sound Indian. And Yes! JRD Tata’s mother Suzanne was
French…
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| Leah Partridge as Lakme |
This according to us is India’s contribution to humanity’s
journey, rather the Pushpak vimana or
plastic surgery…
Matter of Order!
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| THIS IS BARRY JOHN |
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| THIS IS JOHN BARRY |
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