A Journey to Listen to an Album from Every Single Country
3/198
Album: The Sounds of India
Artist: Ravi Shankar
Year: 1957
Length: 53:40
Genre: Hindustani Classical Music
Originally I was going to talk about a different album from India. I was so determined to write about it and had listened to it with glee and excitement. See, Ravi Shankar felt like an obvious choice, but his nephew Ananda Shankar was right there and was doing something very interesting with his album, “Ananda Shankar” from 1970. A master of the sitar himself, he took classical Indian music and, after staying in San Francisco for some time, decided to combine it with modern rock music. What we get is this wonderful fusion of western rock sensibilities and classical Indian music with covers of Jumping Jack Flash and Light My Fire, played primarily with the sitar, sitting next to Raga compositions. What a great way to fuse the classic with the modern.
One problem, I only just found out about five minutes ago from writing this… despite Ananda Shankar being an Indian musician, that particular album was actually released in the US on an American label… oops. One could say that technically it would still be considered an Indian album seeing as Ananda Shankar is a big Indian artist, but this seems to be considered an American album, and I want to keep to the rules of an album from the country I am doing. So, the obvious choice it is with his uncle, the true master of the sitar, the sitar god himself, Ravi Shankar.
I had thankfully just listened to this album recently to wind down before bed one night, so it is still fresh in my mind. Before I do though, I think it is important to mention just how important Ravi Shankar was to Indian Music in the 50s and 60s. He was basically the biggest sitar player in the world and the most internationally famous Indian musician, practically single-handedly bringing classical Indian music to the western world, exposing them to their compositions and sounds. I don’t know how many other Indian musicians at the time managed to get western audiences as fans, but I feel even the average music listener had at least heard of Ravi Shankar in some capacity. He would also be the first Indian to compose music for non-indian movies and would even perform at the famous Woodstock Festival in 1969. Despite the sitar becoming synonymous with hippie culture in the 60s, he was also very outspoken against it and their heavy drug use because he felt that music was their connection to god and didn’t like the association to their music with such a bad thing (the bad thing being the drugs). Now you see what I mean by he was the obvious choice.
You can tell how passionate he was about his music and this album is good proof of that. The name “The Sounds of India” wasn’t just a literal album name but was meant to be seen as an educational title for western audiences listening to it. At the beginning of each performance, before he plays any music, Ravi Shankar describes the different attributes and sounds of the music he is about to play with short examples. This is as much a teaching of Classical Hindustani Music as it is an example of the great music Ravi Shankar made. He was the greatest ambassador for Classical Hindustani Music and merged his love for playing it with his love for teaching western audiences about it onto this one album. This is equally and excellent historical artefact to preserve the sounds of Indian music for modern audiences and also just a solid album of great music. I cannot understate the musical skills Ravi Shankar presents here on the sitar, it is truly transcendent.
One form of music he uses here is a Raga, which is a melodic framework for improvisation in Indian music and… honestly, I could attempt to explain all this but Ravi Shankar explains it better than I ever could on the album. Why not let the master share his knowledge?
Camila’s thoughts: “Wow, George Harrison really westernized the sitar when he added it to music”
-Bosco
Bosco's Modern Life 