Sic Semper Tyrannis

Indian Music at the Library

One of the things I was committed to discussing from the outset of this blog was the shift in perspective that occurs whenever you engage a new aesthetic. It turns out that I want to be the kind of person who doesn’t mind a little bit of flux in life. I want to be unbothered by the presence of change in beliefs, attitudes, passions, etc. Whether or not I’ve kept to that original writing goal over the last couple years is questionable. But today I’m definitely writing on message…

It’s been a while since Dr. Stephenson’s introductory music theory classes, so I’m not exactly sure, but I think it was Aaron Copland who talked about comparing totally new music to our ears to the collection of music already in our head. Regardless, last night I experienced music that was about 98% new to me.

I went to hear a lecture/ concert at the library by two Indian classical musicians- Brij Narayan on an instrument called the sarod and Abhijit Banerjee on the tabla. They played and talked for an hour and I was amazed that the whole time, Mr. Copland was right. I was totally aware of my thoughts racing, trying to find analogues to the types of music with which I am already familiar. What a thrill is for me to hear something so foreign, for lack of a better word.

Folks, I’ve listened to a lot of music in my life. But it’s humbling when I come across this new world that has been hidden up until now for a variety of reasons. Mr. Narayan just skimmed over the basics of ragas, (which I believe is close to a combination of “song” and "key" for us Westerners), and how they are typically performed and I quickly came to realize that there is a whole system to how this music is performed, the bulk of which I can’t hear. Yet.

But the really intriguing thing to me is that these principles and even the tunes themselves are all transmitted in a mentorship method. That’s right- a completely oral tradition, since they never developed a notational method. It’s funny that the Indian classical music has so much in common with Westerners’ popular music.

Mr. Narayan made a point to distinguish between improvisation and “elaboration,” which I didn’t totally understand unless he was making the same distinction that exists between “jazz” and “free jazz.”

I was also interested in his answer to my question about whether they make this music in larger groups, (the idea of which fascinates me for two reasons: 1) the sound of the sarod and tabla together sounds “complete,” probably because once the tabla enters, it is very busy, not just providing a backbeat as we Westerners tend to think of the role of percussion in a small group and 2) there are a lot of droning strings that accompany the “elaborated melodies,” both on the sarod itself and the tanpura, the droning instrument that sounded like it was playing itself. I imagine the sound of more than one gets muddy fairly quickly.) Which Mr. Narayan answered exactly as I expected him to and betrayed the commonality between why our two cultures make music, philosophically speaking…harmony. He kind of jokingly equated adding more musicians to being a fight-- finding how to support other musicians, not overpower, but participate in a give and take to create something better than just the sum of its parts.

Playing with other people is a whole other musical art in itself and is why I’ve always felt sorry for performers who, for instance, play live with back-up tracks or a drum machine, etc. For whatever reason, they can’t or won’t rely on other people. Instead of getting mixed up in the messiness of working and playing with other people they go it alone. That’s always made me feel uncomfortable to see that kind of sad situation in public.

I said earlier that this music was about 98% new to me. I had heard George Harrison’s experiments with the sitar and Ravi Shankar, as well as some of John McLaughlin’s music with Shakti, but that was the full extent of my exposure to the Indian musical aesthetic. Not much.

Melodically, I heard what amounted to “Major and Minor Plus.” The sarod was uniquely developed so as to provide access to microtonal playing by sliding between notes, allowing the player to play all of the pitches between our Western half steps, which contributes to the “weirdness” to our ears. But every now and then I would hear a gesture or two that sounded pentatonic, as if that was Robert Johnson noodling around up there and not Brij Narayan.

It was a wonderfully interesting evening of music and ideas, unfortunately too short. Bit I am sure this is not the end of my exposure to Indian music.

posted by Mike @ 6:59 AM