Concert for George- Indian piece: Arpan

I got the DVD and watched it all. All I can say about the Ravi Shankar composed "Arpan" is MY GOD! I feel so inadequate as a musician after watching the Eastern and Western musicians doing this piece. The time changes left me in awe. The discipline needed for this kind of music is incredible.....and I think only Frank Zappa came close to understanding it. It made me feel that....with out crappy 300 year old culture and 3 chord love songs....we have a lot of catching up to do!

 

My wife and I held our breath for the first 40 minutes of that concert, the first time we watched that dvd.

Your rave review barely describes the amazement I personally felt watching that program.

IT REALLY SUCKS that George was recipent of such a once in a lifetime concert and he missed hearing all that stupendous indian music. I was in tears after this realisation hit me.

Anyone here on the forum owes it to themselves to buy this set. you may not "get" the indian music the first time you see and hear it (if you are not into that kid of thing already) but it will really open up your mind. Give it 3 plays!

 

I felt the same way, I just didn't wanna gush too much!

I have watched the first segment 3 times in 2 days! Anoushka Shankar's solo piece had me shaking my head in amazement.....the synchronizing with the tabla player is $%*&@^%$*&#^ unreal!!!!!

 

Don't forget to watch the bonus segment on the rehearsals. When I saw the amount of time it took to get the Indian and Western musicians on the same wavelength I appreciated it even more.

 

Does anyone have any recommendations of good CDs that would serve as an introduction to Indian music? I have always been interested in George's eastern/western fusions such as Within You, Without You and The Inner Light, but, as Dave64 noted, I was really impressed with Arpan and Anoushka Shankar's playing on the Concert for George DVD. Where's a good place to start appreciating this music?

 

George understood "stupendous" Indian music. He had been touched by it years before and undoubtedly he was well aware of Ravi Shankar's contributions.

While this concert was wonderful for us and a worthy tribute to George, we can rest assured that George had seen it all before.

Your sentiments for an inspired concert still stand.

 

John...My first exposure to Indian music was through Elektra's Nonesuch Explorer Series -- field recordings of traditional musics from around the world. The releases included very informative annotation. There were well over a dozen titles for India alone, each one dedicated to a specific area of this fascinating music. Ultimately though, you'll gravitate to Ravi Shankar (the "Godfather of World Music", as George Harrison once called him). Most (if not all) of his famous 60's recordings on World Pacific were reissued on CD a few years ago by Angel Records. You might want to check out IN CELEBRATION, a 4-CD set released in 1996; this collection provides a sampling of Ravi Shankar's body of work, organized into four categories: Classical Sitar, Orchestral and Ensembles, East-West Collaboration, and Vocal & Experimental. Finally, may I also recommend Ravi Shankar's CHANTS OF INDIA, produced by George Harrison and released in 1997.

Jim W.

 

Dave it was pretty amazing to see the girl (Anoushka Shankar) who played the Sitar almost solo with very little background. The to see her get up and conduct in the odd time signatures was what really blew my mind. Talk about Poly- Rhythms going on. WOAH!!!!!!

Here or should I say HEAR is the other thing that you must be able to hear is how to play a quarter-tone dead on the money.

I will say this that there are many middle eastern players really though that can in fact play that quarter tone right on the money because they grew up hearing those semi-tones in there ever day music and lives.

So don't really put our Western style of whole and half tones as being bad or crappy Dave. Because believe it or not, unless they have studied and listened to Western style music. Most of them can't honestly hit a half tone on the money in pitch! BELIEVE IT OR NOT....!!

George and The Beatles were looking for new sounds for their records as they recorded them. When he first used the Sitar on Norwegian Wood it was a piece of crap one and all he really did was figure out where to find and play those notes and put in the drone string to make it fit effectively in that song. It wasn't until later that he decided to actually take the time to learn more about eastern music and fuse it with The Beatles or his songs music.

So as a studied player of the guitar and musician, learn how to play everything you can in every style you can on your guitar. Don't worry about the odd time signatures. Keep your chops in shape and when you can play faster than you can say fast, remember this, be able to hear it first before you can even play it. The ears must be quicker than your fingers at that point you will have to be able to slow down so your ears can meet what your fingers want to play.

 

Hello John. My first in depth listening of Ravi and Indian music came with "In Celebration - Highlights" by Ravi which is a single disc sampler of the four disc box set. This CD represents all of his various stylings: Indian classical, vocal, with Western Orchestra and his Indian/Jazz fusion. All it took for me was one listen to "West Eats Meat"(Ravi's Indian/Jazz fusion) and I wanted to delve deep into his catalog.

From there, I purchased his albums with a Beatle connection (i.e. Chants of India, In Celebration (box), Live in Concert 1972, Shankar Family & Friends, etc.) and after thoroughly enjoying those titles, I moved onto his classical Indian albums available on EMI/Angel.

Since then, I have branched off and listened to fellow performers such as Ali Akbar Khan, Alla Rakha, Zakir Hussain, Tanmoy Bose and Anoushka Shankar and have enjoyed their performances as well.

 

And don't forget to watch Ravi Shankar at MONTEREY POP on Criterion DVD. He puts on an amazing performance, and it's in 5.1 surround sound.

 

A recommendation that I picked up from this forum is 'Bourbon & Rosewater' by Vishwa Mohan Bhatt. It is a hybrid and he is accompanied by Jerry Douglas and Edgar Meyer .

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&uid=UIDMISS70311171754553129&sql=Bs04gtq1ztu42

Vishwa appears to be one of the Indian players on the Concert for George.

 

Zahkir Hussain his Sitar playing is a WOMD.

 

I have Monterey Pop and I got the Concert for George for xmas, and the Indian music is amazing on both. The only thing I can add is John McLoughlin's "Remember Shakti" (I never got Shakti, just Remember). I saw his show in Boston a few years back, and his mix of guitar and Indian music is hard to beat.