Ravi Shankar
I’m generally not one to name drop. But for several of us teacher’s up here, our most successful classmate is Norah Jones. It is such a thrill to see what great music she has made over the past 10 years and mind boggling that she has sold over 100 million records. They say that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and in her case this is true.
Her father was Ravi Shankar, Indian musician and composer who played the sitar. The sitar is a plucked, acoustical string instrument much like a guitar only the frets are deeply scalloped which enables the musican to make vocal bends and vibratos with ease.
The music that Ravi Shankar played is Indian Classical music. Which has well over 300 different scales that are used, and play in meters that are genearlly unheard of in Western Culture. The most common meter that Ravi played in was Jhaptal which is a five count. Dave Brubeck who past a week ago made his impact on music playing in 5 as well.
Notable students of Ravi Shankar that you may be familiar with are George Harrison(beatles) and John Coltrane. This video is from “The Concert for Bangladesh” which was a benefit concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The show was to raise awareness and fund relief for the refugees.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYKPEQ1fRi8