RAVI SHANKAR
INDIA’S MASTER MUSICIAN
Ravi Shankar, India`s musical ambassador to the world, is one of
the world’s leading virtuoso instrumentalists. He is also a walking
store house of the artistic heritage of one of the world’s oldest cultures.
But more than that, he is probably the most gifted and imaginative
master of improvisation that the musical world has ever encountered.
It would be difficult to conceive of anything more exciting, in terms
of pure animal joy, than the climactic passages of a Ravi Shankar
improvisation, Yet at the same time the intellectual process of creation
which goes into all of his performances is something which never
takes second place to the profound emotionalism of his music. The
combination, blended with impeccable taste of a universal sort which
requires no intimate knowledge of the history and systems within
which Ravi Shankar works, produces one of the rarest and most
moving musical experiences possible anywhere.
Ravi Shankar was born in Benares, India, the youngest of four
sons in an Hindu family. Raised by his mother
and older brothers, Ravi went to Europe at the age of 9 as part of
the famous company of Indian dancers and musicians organized by
his brother, Uday Shankar, India’s finest dancer. The troupe made
Paris its head quarters from there, Ravi toured everywhere, ‘learning
everything. He danced, played all the instruments, and eventually
began writing- poetry, plays and he even painted.”
By 1935, he was developing into a dancer and musician of obviously
extraordinary talent. In that year, India’s foremost musician, Ustad
Allaudin Khan, joined the Uday Shankar company. Young Ravi went
to him and asked if he could stud with the great master. To his
surprise, his query was met with a burst of rage, for Ustad Allaudin
Khan had seen how casually Ravi had been absorbing everything
involving the troupe Ravi’s talent, he cried, led him to think that he
could and should do everything, but if he wanted to be a real musi-
cian, he would have to devote his entire life to music. Although he
could not understand this approach at first, Ravi decided to discipline
himself; he devoted a year with the master to studying vocal music
and the sitar. At the end of the year, Ustad Allaudin Khan returned
to India Ravi rejoined him in 1938 for a truly intensive course of
study which lasted 6 years.
He embarked on his own career late in 1944, and by 1949 he was
with All-India Radio, where he founded the Indian National
Orchestra. He resigned as director of music for All-India Radio in june,
1957, shortly after his return from a tour which included his first
solo appearances in the United States. In that same year, four Indian
films on which he had worked as musical director or composer won
awards at International festivals in Berlin, Venice, and Cannes.
Today, Ravi feels that his work has not yet really begun. He feels
again the urge to widen his activities – not in terms of returning to
the days of his youth when he dabbled in all the arts, but as a
broadening of his musical activity. Ballet and orchestral music, he believes,
are his best outlets for the future in the meantime, he is grateful that
he has won the position of a national hero in his own country. Crowds
of 20,000 people have gathered to hear him play, and he is some-
times mobbed on the streets -“like a movie star.”
His constant travels find him, in 1959, returning to the United
States for a nationwide concert tour. American audiences which had
an opportunity to hear him in 1957 will recall – and newcomers to
the music of Ravi Shankar can anticipate – the electric atmosphere
which accompanied every Shankar concert.
A word about lndian music is in order, for a basic understanding
of the principles on which it is based will enhance the enjoyment to
these recordings. But first the instruments heard in this album. The
leading voice, played by Ravi Shankar, is the sitar, a plucked string
instrument with 20 movable frets. It is returned, with different
intervals, for each piece. It has six main strings and 19 sympathetic strings.
A plectrum on the index finger of the right hand is used to pluck the
main strings. Semi-tones an slides are produced at times by pulling
the strings to the side. Two gourds, one at the expected place at the
base of the instrument, and a smaller one near the upper end amplify
the sound of the instrument.
Also tuned to the main tones of each piece are the tamboura,
a 4 or 5 stringed instrument which is plucked, without stopping the
strings, in a constant drone, and the tabla, add pair of small
drums which are played by hand and which can produce an unbelievable
variety of sound, both as to timbre and pitch. The tabla serve not
only to mark the rhythmic cycle in which a particular piece is set.
but also to provide a virtuoso counterpoint to the lead instrument,
the sitar. When Ravi Shankar performs a particular piece, his playing
is almost all improvisation on a foundation consisting of a kind of
scale (“melody form” is a better term) known as Raga, with an
ascending (Arohana) and descending (Avarohana) mode, and a
“rhythmic cycle” known as Tala. Each piece will have its own Raga,
conveying a particular and fixed mood, time of day or year, and perhaps
associated with a ceremonial or other occasional consideration.
Theoretically, there are 64,848 Ragas, and 360 Talas.
On a given Raga, Ravi will usually begin alone. This initial movement
is called Alap and it begins slowly, without rhythm,
emphasizing each note with simple variations on the notes themselves, like
at person awakening, or, as Ravi puts it, “the unfolding of beauty.”
The principal tones of Raga are constantly heard in a drone
accompaniment from the tamboura.
Next comes an evenly rhythmic style, or but still without any
tabla or drums, for the Tala is not yet to be stated. The third step
is the jhala, which includes more right hand movement with the
plectrum, with the rhythm kept on the two top strings of the sitar.
A last the tabla make their entrance, in the Gat.
This portion will include short “fixed” compositions, set against
the rhythmic cycle of pre-determined number of beats with a constant
return to an emphasized “one” beat (called the Sum). The
tabla is in the position of a piano accompanying a violin soloist prior
to Ravi Shankar`s introduction of the tabla as a virtuoso instrument in
the ensemble, drummers had no status and were constantly exhorted
merely to keep the beat, whereas Ravi trains and encourages his
tabla players to play complex improvisations which are frequently
answers’ to his own improvisations as the leading voice of the
ensemble. The last step in to development of a piece is often a jhala,
which is more complex in ornamentation and either changes into a
faster Gat in the same Tala, or to a faster rhythmic cycle, building to
a brilliant climax.
There are two basic styles of presentation in the classical Indian
music of Ravi Shankar the southern, Kharnatic style is closer to the
old way, being less subjected to foreign influence than the Hindustani
style of the north. In the north, where music was heard in the courts
and palaces for pleasure, it became more florid and extroverted, with
musicians often competing with one another and playing for the
gallery, whereas in the south the music remained in the temples and
avoided acceleration (one of the means of creating excitement in the
Hindustani style) although there were frequent cross-rhythms and
multi plying of tempo to double and quadruple time, for instance.
Ravi employs both styles, when he gradually speeds tempo, it is done
consciously in the northern style, and also with the realization that
this is something which appears in music throughout the world in
Africa, Europe, and even America.
Many comparisons have been made between Indian music and
jazz, but actually they are quite far apart. ln subtleties and
complexities, jazz covers only a small fraction of what is contained in
lndian music. Further, jazz is in a most undeveloped state alongside
the enormously sophisticated body of Indian music, which has its
foundations in’ religion and philosophy, and requires an intensity of
discipline of mind and body which is unknown in any other music.
There are many untutored, “natural” musicians of great quality in
jazz in Indian music the standards and requirements are such that
this is manifestly impossible. As Ravi puts it “Each is a wonderful
music, but each has its own approach and must be considered on its
own terms.”