Pandit Ravi Shankar - the world class maestro of Hindustani music and sitar virtuoso has taken classical music to great heights and shared with India and the world his experience of musical ecstasy! His unique playing technique with rhythmic patterns, complex taan-s and tihai-s, make him a musician par excellence. The love and respect he commands both in India and in the West is unique in the annals of the history of music.
In this special album, he presents some of the brilliant Hindustani ragas in his inimitable style.
The Sitar
The sitar is perhaps the most popular string instrument in India. It has also become widely popular in the west, and synonymous with Indian culture throughout the world.
The sitar consists of a long, wooden neck ending at a large resonating chamber made of a gourd. On the neck rest about twenty curved, metal frets that are moveable and raised. A typical sitar has 18 or 19 strings- 4-5 melody stings, 2-3 chikari (rhythm) strings and 12 sympathetic taraf (resonting) strings under the frets. The right hand is used to pluck the strings using a 'pick' called the mazrab. The left hand controls the melody, by pressing and pulling a main string across the curved frets to play a meend (slide or glissando). The fing finger is utilized during extremely fast passages, and the small finger is used to strum the taraf (resonating) strings to accentuate the rhythm.
Pandit Ravi Shankar
Pandit Ravi Shankar is not just a living legend; he is arguably the best-known Indian instrumentalist in the world and a recipient of the Bharat Ratna, the highest Indian civilian honour. Single-handedly he has done more than any other musician to introduce and popularize Indian classical music outside the subcontinent. His explorations into New age and world music, and collaborations with international superstars like Yehudi Menuhin and The Beatles have earned him a place in contemporary music history that few others enjoy.
In his classical avatar Pandit Ravi Shankar plays his sitar in the traditional tantrakari (instrumental) mode. The raga is rendered through resonant and powerful strokes of the mezrab (pick) in tandem with elaborate meend-s (slide or glissando) and gamak-s (atonal embellishment with a hint of the proceeding and succeeding note). He produces ocean-deep sounds in the lower octave with the extra kharaj string (bass string) he has added to the instrument. His Masitkhani gat (slow tempo) and Razakhani gat (fast tempo) contain elaborate rhythmic patterns with highly complex taan's (an improvsed vocal or instrumental phrase) and tihai-s (a rhythmic phrase repeated three times- 'Ti'=3, 'Hai' represents the suffix meaning triple).
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