Tag: Western

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Entertainment

Asian Composers Replicate on Careers in Western Classical Music

Asian Composers Reflect on Careers in Western Classical Music

Asian composers who write in Western classical musical forms, like symphonies and operas, tend to have a few things in common. Many learned European styles from an early age, and finished their studies at conservatories there or in the United States. And many later found themselves relegated to programming ghettos like Lunar New Year concerts. (One recent study found that works by Asian composers make up only about 2 percent of American orchestral performances planned for the coming season.)

At times, the music of Asian composers has been misunderstood or exoticized; they have been subjected to simple errors such as, in the case of Huang Ruo, who was born in China, repeated misspellings of his name.

For all their shared experiences, each of these artists has a unique story. Here, five of them provide a small sampling of the lessons, struggles and triumphs of composers who were born in Asia and made a career for themselves in Western classical music. These are edited excerpts from interviews with them.

Music is my language. To me “West” and “East” are just ways of talking — or like ways of cooking. I’m a chef, and sometimes I find my recipe is like my orchestrations. It would be so boring if you asked me to cook in one style. Eastern and Western, then, have for me become a unique recipe in which one plus one equals one.

I am in a very special zone historically. I’m 63, and part of the first generation of Eastern composers after the Cultural Revolution to deal with Western forms. But it’s just like rosemary, butter and vegetables. You can cook this way, that way — and that’s why the same orchestras sound so different, from Debussy to Stravinsky to myself.

I’m lucky. When I came to the United States as a student, my teachers and classmates gave me enormous encouragement to discover myself. And I learned so much from John Cage. After this, it felt so easy to compose. And when people approach me for commissions, I re-approach them about what I’m thinking about. I remember when Kurt Masur asked me to write something for the New York Philharmonic — the Water Concerto for Water Percussion and Orchestra — I said, “Can I write something for water?” He said, “As long as you don’t flood our orchestra.”

Yes, we often are misunderstood. It’s like when you cook beautiful black bean with chili sauce and chocolate. They may say, “Hey, this is a little strange.” But you explain why, and that can be very interesting. Thank God I love to talk. And there has been progress for us. I am the first Eastern composer to be the dean of a Western conservatory, at Bard. That’s like a Chinese chef becoming the chef of an Italian restaurant. That’s the future: a different way of approaching color, boundary-less, a unity of the soul.

One thing about composers like Tan Dun: They came out of the Cultural Revolution, after a door had closed for so many years. So there was so much focus on what China was doing, a lot of curiosity — curiosity rather than active racism. Our generation — I’m 44 — is so different.

We learn Western music with such rigorous systems. And we do not close our ears to different traditions or styles; that attitude determines early on that you don’t have that kind of boundary, or ownership. But you still hear those conversation topics about “East meets West.” It’s so tiring. East has been meeting West for thousands of years; if we’re always still just meeting, that’s a problem.

Programming Chinese composers around Lunar New Year is in general very problematic. Do we need to celebrate the culture? Yes. Do we need to celebrate the tradition? Absolutely. But it can be part of the main subscription series, or a yearlong series. Then you can really tell stories, not just group people by a country.

My name does not give me ownership of Chinese culture. There are so many things I don’t know. There are so many burdens and fights — as the woman, the woman of color, the Chinese woman — that I decided to fight nothing and just create my own stuff. I told myself that if I had a great body of work, that would speak to what a Chinese woman can do.

I never wanted to be pigeonholed, to be a reduced representation. I wanted to always open that Pandora’s box of messiness — and I encourage others to celebrate messiness, the unclean narrative of your life. Every immigrant has her own path; your work should absolutely be reflective of that. So if I’m a spokesperson, it’s for my own voice. And through that particular voice, I hope there is something that resonates.

When I left China, it was a time of economic and cultural reform. I’m glad I came to the United States, but I do have a little bit of guilt. I probably could have done more there. At the time, my ambition was to try to learn Western music and become the best composer, pianist and conductor I could be. I was fortunate to work with many fantastic musicians and meet Leonard Bernstein, who took me under his wing for five years. Now, at 65, when someone asks me if I consider myself a Chinese or American composer, I say, in the most humble way, “100 percent both.” I feel well-versed in both cultures.

Occasionally, there has been racism and misunderstanding, but that is inevitable. Would that be different if there were more Asian people running orchestras? Maybe. My response has just been to try to produce the best music I can. I wrote an opera for San Francisco Opera — “Dream of the Red Chamber,” which they’re reviving. It’s based on a very popular Chinese story, and when I worked on it with David Henry Hwang, we asked ourselves: “Is this for a Western audience or Asian audience?” We decided first and foremost it should just be good, and it had to be touching. Good art should transcend.

Years ago, I wrote an orchestral piece, “H’un (Lacerations),” which premiered at the 92nd Street Y in New York. It is about my recollections growing up during the Cultural Revolution, and is thus sonically harsh and dramatic, with no melody. My mother was there, and she said it brought back a lot of painful memories. I was also sitting next to an old Jewish woman, and after I took a bow onstage, she leaned over and said, “If you changed the title to ‘Auschwitz,’ this would be just as appropriate.” That was the highest compliment.

The Korea of my childhood and adolescence was a very different place from what it is today. In the 1960s, it was an impoverished developing country, devastated by colonialism and by the Korean War, and until the late 1980s, there was a military dictatorship in place. In order to develop as a composer, one had to go abroad, as there didn’t exist an infrastructure for new music. Now 60, and having lived for 35 years in Europe, it remains important for me to contribute to the contemporary music scene in Asia.

When I moved to Germany, there was a tendency to put composers in certain boxes, with all the aesthetic turf wars back then. Since I was neither interested in joining any camp or fashionable avant-garde or other trends, fulfilling exotic expectations, or assumptions of how a woman should or should not compose, I had to start a career in other countries while still living in Germany. Prejudices such as viewing an Asian composer or performing musician only through “sociological” lenses are still relatively common in various countries, but times are changing. Of course, there exist prejudices and complacency in the whole world, including in Asia. Perhaps the only remedy to this apparently, and sadly, all-too-human impulse is try to retain a sense of wonder and attempt to find distance to oneself.

I have worked in different countries for decades, and have felt a need to stay curious about different musical cultures, traditions and genres. I believe in multiple identities and think that without curiosity, any musical style or culture atrophies and risks becoming a museum: Art has always thrived when there has been cross-fertilization.

At the same time, one should be wary of the danger of exoticism and superficial cultural appropriation. I think that a contemporary composer needs to study different cultures, traditions and genres, but make use of those influences in a selective, historically conscious and self-critical manner.

When people heard I came from China, they would often say, “Does your music sound like Tan Dun?” I don’t think they meant any harm, but it shows a certain ignorance. I tried to explain that China is a big country, and we all speak with our own voice.

I started as an instrumental composer, and a lot of those works got programmed at Asian-themed or Lunar New Year concerts. I didn’t notice at first, but you begin to see patterns. I don’t feel my work has any less quality than my other colleagues who are not minority composers, but for conductors, programmers and artistic directors, it doesn’t seem to come to their mind that you can naturally program an Asian composer’s work next to Beethoven or Tchaikovsky.

That’s one of the reasons I turned to opera. I thought, there must be no opera company having a themed season devoted to Asian composers. So finally, I got to be programmed next to “Fidelio” and “Madama Butterfly.” That was my revenge. Also, I’ve wanted to write on subjects that reflect Asian or Asian American topics, to really share these stories. In this case it is actually me making the choice.

Someone once told me I speak English with an accent. I said, “Otherwise, how would you know that’s me speaking?” I feel the same way as a composer. I want to have my own originality, to speak with my own accent — with my love of Western musical styles, but also this heritage I carry of Chinese culture.

Without coming to the United States, I would be a different composer. If I went to Europe instead, I would also be very different. But I feel I made the right decision, and at 44 I fully embrace who I am today, and where I am as well.

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World News

Tons of Lacking and Scores Useless as Raging Floods Strike Western Europe

Hundreds Missing and Scores Dead as Raging Floods Strike Western Europe

BERLIN – After a day of frantic rescue efforts and orders to evacuate cities that were quickly filling with water released from violent storms, German authorities said late Thursday that after confirming numerous deaths, they were unable, at least 1,300 people to explain.

That staggering number was announced after rapidly flowing water from swollen rivers poured through towns and villages in two western German states, where news outlets said more than 80 people had died and other fatalities were expected in the hardest-hit regions.

With communication severely hampered, the authorities hoped the missing people would be safe, if out of reach. But the storms and floods have already proven deadly.

At least 11 other people are believed to have died in Belgium, according to the authorities, who also ordered residents of downtown Liege to evacuate when the Meuse, which flows through the center, overflowed.

The storms and the resulting floods have also struck the neighboring countries of Switzerland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, as a slowly moving weather system threatened to bring even more rain to the flooded region overnight and until Friday.

The devastation caused by the storm came just days after the European Union announced an ambitious plan to move away from fossil fuels over the next nine years in order to make the 27-country bloc climate-neutral by 2050. Early on, politicians drew parallels between floods and the effects of climate change.

But the immediate focus on Thursday remained the rescue effort, with hundreds of firefighters, rescue workers and soldiers working to rescue people from the upper floors and roofs of their homes, filling sandbags to contain rising waters and looking for missing people.

One of the hardest hit regions was the German district of Ahrweiler, where flash floods flooded the village of Schuld, washed away six houses and left several more shortly before the collapse. At least 50 people died in the Ahrweiler district, the police said.

With so many missing, the district authority said late Thursday that the death toll is expected to rise. “In view of the complexity of the amount of damage, a final assessment of the situation is currently not possible,” it said in a press release.

“We do not have exact death numbers, but we can say that we have many people who fell victim to this flood,” said Armin Laschet, the governor of North Rhine-Westphalia, one of the most severely affected federal states in Germany.

“Many people lost everything they owned after the mud flowed into their homes,” said Laschet, who will replace Angela Merkel as Chancellor in the federal elections on September 26th.

The floods in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate were among the worst in decades, after days of continuous rain sank more water than the soil and sewer system could absorb.

Police asked people to upload pictures of the floods to help them find it.

The police in North Rhine-Westphalia reported at least 30 deaths, with at least 15 people being known in the Euskirchen district south of Düsseldorf. Many others were still saved, although some villages remained inaccessible.

Ms. Merkel, who was visiting Washington on Thursday, expressed her condolences to the missing and thanked the thousands of helpers. She has promised the federal government to support the affected regions.

“Whatever is possible, we will do wherever we can,” she said, adding that Germany had received offers of help from its European partners.

Hundreds of firefighters worked all night to evacuate the stranded people. In Altena, North Rhine-Westphalia, two firefighters were killed while rescuing people, the police said.

“The water still flows knee-high through the streets, parked cars are thrown to the side, garbage and rubble pile up on the sides,” said Alexander Bange, the district spokesman for the Märkisches Land North Rhine-Westphalia news agency DPA

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    • Floods in Germany and other parts of Western Europe cause at least 40 deaths: “I live in the upper Meuse valley in Belgium. After the rains yesterday and tonight, this morning masses of water tumbled down the hills in many parts of the valley. Roads were impassable. I had never seen that before; and we are not among the hardest hit places. ”Yves C., Belgium.
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“It’s really very depressing here,” he said.

Dozens of communities remained without electricity, while some villages were completely cut off, the police said. Telephone and cellular networks were also down, making it difficult for the authorities to track down the missing persons.

Belgium and the Netherlands also saw significant flooding when the weather system took hold in the region. According to the public broadcaster RTBF, at least two people were killed in the floods in the province of Liège in Belgium.

As the Meuse continued to reach dangerous proportions, the regional authorities asked the people of the city to evacuate and, if this was not possible, to take shelter on the upper floors of the buildings. All shops were closed and tourists were advised to leave.

The Belgian Defense Force said it was using helicopters and personnel to help with rescue and salvage work, while reports say the river is expected to rise several meters and endanger a dam.

In the Netherlands, according to the Dutch news agency NU.nl, soldiers were sent to the province of Limburg for evacuation, where at least one nursing home had to be evacuated.

Intense rain in Switzerland caused the country’s weather service to warn on Thursday that the floods would worsen in the coming days. On Lake Biel, Lake Thun and Lake Lucerne there is a high risk of flooding and the potential for landslides has been pointed out.

The chairman of Friends of the Earth Germany in North Rhine-Westphalia combined the severe flooding in the region with a failed policy of the state legislature. The effects of climate change are one of the issues that were hotly debated in Germany ahead of the September elections, in which the Greens are running for second place behind the conservative Christian Democrats led by Mr Laschet.

“The catastrophic consequences of the heavy rainfalls of the last few days are mostly homemade,” said Holger Sticht, who heads the regional chapter and made lawmakers and industry responsible for building in floodplains and forests. “We urgently need to change course.”

Megan Specia contributed to the coverage.

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Politics

Western warmth wave just about not possible with out local weather change, researchers say

Western heat wave virtually impossible without climate change, researchers say

People sleep at a cooling shelter set up during an unprecedented heat wave in Portland, Oregon, U.S. June 27, 2021.

Maranie Staab | Reuters

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — The deadly heat wave that brought triple-digit temperatures to the Pacific Northwest and western Canada and killed hundreds of people was virtually impossible without human-caused climate change, according to a new analysis by an international team of 27 scientists.

The temperature records were so extreme — 116 degrees Fahrenheit in Portland, Oregon, and 121 degrees Fahrenheit in Canada’s British Columbia — that researchers said it was difficult to quantify just how rare the heat wave was. The team, working under the umbrella of Oxford University-based World Weather Attribution, estimated it was a once-in-a-millennium event.

The scientists, who are based in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., the Netherlands, France, Germany and Switzerland, estimated that human-caused climate change increased the likelihood of such a heat wave by at least 150 times.

“An event such as the Pacific Northwest 2021 heatwave is still rare or extremely rare in today’s climate, yet would be virtually impossible without human-caused climate change,” the team of scientists wrote. “As warming continues, it will become a lot less rare.”

The researchers urged adaptation measures that account for the rising risk of heat waves, including action plans that incorporate early warning systems for high temperatures, as well as more ambitious targets to drastically reduce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions.

Researchers also found that in a world with 2 degrees Celsius of warming, which could happen this century unless there are significant cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, such a heat event would occur about every five to 10 years.

The Earth has already heated up more than 1 degree Celsius compared with preindustrial levels, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

The analysis by World Weather Attribution, which conducts quick analyses to determine if there is a link between climate change and specific extreme weather events, has not yet been peer-reviewed. However, it uses processes that have been peer-reviewed in the past 10 years.

Scientists used computer simulations that compared a hypothetical world without greenhouse gas emissions to the existing world in order to assess the impact of climate change on weather events. The research will later be published in peer-reviewed journals.

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The study, published on Wednesday, is in line with previous research on the impact climate change has on the frequency and severity of heat waves and drought.

The recent historic heat wave, which started at the end of June, fueled wildfires, threatened water shortages and was linked to hundreds of deaths in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. The official death count is expected to rise.

More than one-third of global heat-related deaths during warm seasons can be attributed to climate change, experts have said. Heat also kills more people than any other weather-related disaster in the U.S.

“Our results provide a strong warning: our rapidly warming climate is bringing us into uncharted territory that has significant consequences for health, well-being and livelihoods,” the scientists wrote.

North America just recorded its hottest June on record, according to scientists with the Copernicus Climate Change Service, with 2021 virtually certain to be among the 10 hottest years on record.

Categories
Health

Western Warnings Tarnish Vaccines the World Badly Wants

Western Warnings Tarnish Vaccines the World Badly Needs

South Africa immediately copied the American break in Johnson & Johnson vaccinations and enraged doctors who still call for gunshots, especially in remote parts of the country. In February, health officials dropped the AstraZeneca vaccine there because of its limited effectiveness against a dangerous variant.

To date, only half of 1 percent of the population is vaccinated and only 10,000 shots are fired a day. At this rate, it could be weeks, if not longer, for a single rare case of blood clotting to occur, said Jeremy Nel, an infectious disease doctor in Johannesburg. He was dismayed by the decision to pause the shooting, given the risk of building confidence in vaccines in a country where two-fifths of the population say they don’t intend to vaccinate.

“The slower you go, the more that failure is measured in terms of death,” said Dr. Nel. “Even if you are late by a week, there is a non-trivial chance that will cost your life.”

The solution in many European countries – stop using apparently riskier vaccines in younger people who are less at risk of Covid-19 – would not be practical in Africa, where the average age in many countries is under 20.

Further restrictions would tighten the hurdles for Covax, including a lack of funding for any part of vaccination programs beyond doses at airports.

Mali, in West Africa, has administered 7 percent of the AstraZeneca doses administered by Covax. Sudan in East Africa has given 8 percent of the doses it has received.

Analysts fear that dissatisfaction with AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines could fuel demand for recordings made in Russia and China, which are far less well known. Some global health officials have turned their attention to the Novavax vaccine, which is not yet approved but makes up a third of the Covax portfolio.

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World News

Chinese language T.V. Exhibits Censor Western Clothes Manufacturers

Chinese T.V. Shows Censor Western Clothing Brands

HONG KONG – Viewers of some of China’s most popular online variety shows were recently greeted by an odd sight: a blur of pixels obscuring the marks on sneakers and t-shirts worn by attendees.

As far as the audience could tell, the clothing showed no signs of profanity or indecency. Instead, the problem was with the overseas brands that made them.

Since late March, streaming platforms in China have been carefully censoring the logos and symbols of brands like Adidas that adorn items worn by participants performing dance, singing, and stand-up comedy routines. The phenomenon followed a feud between the government and well-known international companies that said they would avoid using cotton from western China’s Xinjiang region, where authorities are accused of having launched a widespread campaign of repression against ethnic minorities, including Uyghurs.

While the anger in China against Western brands has been palpable and lingering on social media, the sight of cast members transforming into fast-moving patches of censored shoes and clothing has a rare, if unintentional, view for Chinese viewers in a heated global argument Comic relief brought. It has also exposed the unexpected political trip wires that non-political entertainment platforms face as the government continues to armed Chinese consumers in their political clashes with the West.

Most of the brands were undetectable, but some could be identified. Chinese brands didn’t seem blurry. It is not clear whether Chinese government officials specifically ordered the shows to disguise the brands. However, experts said the video streaming sites appeared to feel pressured or obliged to publicly distance themselves from Western brands amid the feud.

Ying Zhu, a media professor at the City University of New York and Hong Kong Baptist University, suggested that the censorship was a response to both state and grassroots patriotism, especially as the opinions of nationalist viewers became more prominent and louder.

“The pressure is both top-down and bottom-up,” said Professor Zhu. “It is not necessary for the state to issue a guideline that companies can base themselves on. The nationalist mood is high and powerful and drowns out all other voices. “

The censorship campaign can be traced back to an argument that broke out last month when Swedish clothing giant H&M was suddenly scrubbed by Chinese online shopping sites. The move came after the Communist Youth League and state news media resurfaced a statement H&M made months ago expressing concerns about forced labor in Xinjiang.

Other Western clothing brands had also said they would avoid using Xinjiang cotton, and one by one, many Chinese celebrities parted ways with them. Since then, the loyalty test seems to have expanded to include streaming shows.

Fang Kecheng, an assistant professor of journalism at the Hong Kong University of China who studies media and politics, believed the platforms were most likely censoring the brands to prevent viewers from backlashing.

“If someone is not happy with these brands on the shows, they could launch a social media campaign targeting the producers, which could attract government attention and ultimately lead to punishment,” he said via E on Thursday -Mail.

As the blurring spread to clothing brands, shows started to hiccup. The video platform iQiyi announced that it would be delaying the release of an episode of “Youth With You 3”, a reality show for aspiring pop idols. The reason was not disclosed, but internet users suspected it had something to do with Adidas, which had supplied t-shirts and sneakers that participants could wear as a kind of team uniform.

Some internet users made mocking predictions about what the upcoming episode would look like and took photoshopping images to turn the contestants vertically so that their Adidas t-shirts read “Sabiba” instead.

When the episode was streamed two days later, pixelated rectangles obscured the t-shirts and sports jackets of dozens of dancers and the distinctive triple stripes on their Adidas sneakers. Internet users happily observed that none of the shirts had been spared, except for the one candidate who had worn his shirt backwards. Many expressed their condolences to the video editors for their lost sleep and the blurring of the T-shirts.

Other shows have performed similar blurring in post-production. Participants in another reality show for entertainers, “Sisters Who Make Waves”, practiced cartwheels in sneakers that flashed into imperceptible blurring. So many shoes were erased in the stand-up comedy series “Roast” that when a group gathered on a dais, the space between the floor and its long seams seemed to merge into a mist.

A representative for Tencent Video, which hosts Roast, declined to comment on why some brands have been censored. The streaming platforms iQiyi and Mango TV, which host “Youth With You 3” and “Sisters Who Make Waves” respectively, did not respond to requests for comments. Adidas did not respond to questions asked by email.

The blurring or cropping on the screen is hardly new in China. Male pop stars’ ear lobes have been airbrushed to hide earrings that are considered too feminine. A contemporary drama with cleavage typical of the Tang Dynasty was pulled from the air in 2015 and replaced with a version that cut out much of the costumes and awkwardly enlarged the speaking heads of the actors. Football players were instructed to cover arm tattoos with long sleeves.

The on-screen censorship shows the difficult line that online video platforms, regulated by the National Radio and Television Administration, must follow.

“The fuzziness is likely the platforms’ self-censorship to be sure,” said Haifeng Huang, associate professor of political science at the University of California at Merced and scholar of authoritarianism and public opinion in China.

“But it still implies the power of the state and the nationalist part of society, which is probably the message that the audience receives: These big platforms have to censor themselves, even without being explicitly stated.”

The blurry episodes also reveal how the platforms seem willing to sacrifice the quality of the viewing experience to avoid political clashes, even if they get the buttocks of audience jokes.

“In a social setting where censorship is commonplace, people become desensitized and even treat them as a different form of entertainment,” said Professor Huang.

Albee Zhang and Joy Dong contributed to the research.

Categories
Entertainment

With Open Ears, Indian Ragas and Western Melodies Merge

With Open Ears, Indian Ragas and Western Melodies Merge

Amit Chaudhuri, a writer and singer, combines memoir and musical appreciation in Finding the Raga: An Improvisation of Indian Music, which is now available on the New York Review Books. In it, Chaudhuri records a personal journey that began with a western-oriented love of the singer-songwriter tradition, followed by a headless immersion into Indian classical music.

This legacy remained overwhelming for him until an accident that he describes as “deafness” drew his attention to the elements that ragas and Western sounds have in common – a finding that led to his ongoing recording and performance project “This Is Not Fusion ”.

In the book, Chaudhuri reflects on the raga, the framework of Indian classical music. Resisting the urge to find an analogue to Western tradition, he writes: “A raga is not a mode. That is, it is not a linear movement. It is a simultaneity of notes, a constellation. “Elsewhere he adds that it is neither a melody, nor a composition, nor a scale, nor the sum total of its notes. In an interview, Chaudhuri gave a brief introduction to the raga and described the development of his musical life from childhood to “This Is Not Fusion”. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

One of the first musical experiences I had was with my mother singing Tagore songs. I grew up in Bombay and remember the calm energy of their style. it wasn’t sentimental, but it was alive. Without realizing it, I was drawn deeply into the sensual immediacy of tone and tempo, and also into a precise style whose emotion lies more in the tone than in the added feeling.

Of course there was also “The Sound of Music” and “My Fair Lady”. I was in love with Julie Andrews for a while. Then when I was 7 or 8 years old my father bought a HiFi turntable that came with some free records that I probably played a role in choosing without being informed in any way. I think one of them was from the Who, which I liked a lot; “I Can See for Miles” was one of my favorite songs. I also had a thing for the early Bee Gees and of course the Beatles.

I started playing guitar when I was 12 and when I was 16 I composed songs in a kind of singer-songwriter form. At the same time I became interested in Hindustani classical music for the first time.

There were several reasons. I had a youthful attraction to difficulty and was more interested in complex tonalities. I listened to Joni Mitchell, and I loved that she could be melodic and open in her harmonic compositions, while being quite complex at the same time. I also knew people like Ravi Shankar, partly because of the Beatles. When we thought of Indian classical music, we basically thought of instrumental music: tabla players playing really exciting rhythmic patterns, getting applause at the end of their improvisational spells, and of course the sitar and sarod. Vocal music seemed a little out of the way, arcane.

But then I heard Vishmadev Chatterjee – what an amazing voice. And at that time there was also this man, Govind Prasad Jaipurwale, who started teaching Hindi devotions to my mother. I realized that while teaching he was doing tiny improvisations with his voice that indicated a different kind of imagination and training. I began to be receptive to the kind of Indian classical music that had always existed but that I had excluded. I asked my mother if I could learn classical music.

For some time different types of music lived side by side. I played a little bit of rock guitar. And I was working on an album that I thought was my way of being a singer-songwriter. My song “Shame” comes from this time. Its melody begins with the note of C sharp, then the word “shame” returns to C sharp in the chorus. It goes to that note after touching C – so chromatic notes are introduced at the end of the chorus with some degree of alienation since the chords are C major and A major. I think I’ve already reacted here to the way notes in North Indian classical music create a hypnotic effect through small shifts.

Then I started practicing a lot of Indian classical music, about four and a half hours a day. And I spent a lot of time listening to music, understanding what happened to the time cycles, and then singing and improvising. Obviously, that took over some of the other musical activities.

I should say that a raga is not a melody. It is not a note, a scale, or a composition – although the raga is sung as part of a composition. However, you can identify the raga by a specific arrangement of notes related to the way they ascend and descend. A certain pattern on the ascent and a certain pattern on the descent characterize the raga.

You can’t introduce notes that aren’t in the raga, but you can slow them down. You can escape the immediate display of the demarcation. Part of this workaround is imagination and creativity. You could climb up to the octave and then you would be done with a series of notes that could be sung in a song in a minute. But doing this for 30, maybe even 40 minutes – that becomes an expansive idea of ​​creation that not only outlines or indicates, but finds different ways of speaking. That is what is at work here, especially in the khayal form.

The extended time cycle allows you to explore these notes to make the ascent and descent very slow. The ear may recognize the fast version of the ectal rhythm system, which sounds like the normal version.

When this additional space occurs, you are not maintaining time in the ordinary sense, but you are aware that the 12 beats of the ektaal have been multiplied by four beats each until they end and you are returning to the beginning.

So there is still so much time left to sing and talk about the progress. That is an extraordinary modernist development. You can hear it in Raga Darbari by Ustad Amir Khan. It’s an amazing shot.

Ragas are basically found material. Indians might say there are eighty-three of them, or a thousand; I dont know. In the North Indian classical tradition, no more than 50 ragas are sung today. And maybe there are 30 that you hear over and over again, considering that we don’t hear the ragas in the morning and afternoon because there are concerts in the evenings.

This is because ragas have specific times and seasons. The Raga Shree is associated with twilight and evening.

And the Raga Basant, which has almost the same notes, is sung in the spring.

If architecture is a language with which one can understand space and time, so is raga. It’s like language too. For example, you don’t use the word evening to refer to the morning. Likewise, one does not sing the morning raga Bhairav ​​in the evening. However, with recordings, if you wish, you can listen to ragas at any time of the day. Until the recording studios hit, ragas only came to life for a short time.

So that was mainly the music that I was practicing. The singer-songwriter had finally retired. But by the late nineties the zeal of the convert who had obsessed me in my youth was gone, and I began to return to my record collection and listen to Jimi Hendrix. Curved notes, the blues, the Gujri Todi raga – it all came together as I listened. A moment of “misheard” occurred when I thought I heard the riff from “Layla” in that raga.

It happened again a week or two later. I was standing in a hotel lobby and someone was playing this Kashmiri instrument and suddenly it seemed to start in “Auld Lang Syne”. Of course it wasn’t. But then I thought: is it possible to create a musical vocabulary – not about consciously bringing things together, East and West, but about the kind of instability of who I am and the richness of what I had discovered in that moment? capture. And that’s why I call it “no fusion”.

“Summertime” happened around the time I was creating these pieces. In it I improvise on the Raga Malkauns, but in the form of “Summertime”, an early type of jazz composition based on the blues. I show that it is possible to improvise on Malkauns according to this form, as a jazz pianist does. But I’m bringing in a different tradition.

The same thing happens in “Norwegian Wood”. I take the raga bageshri and improvise in the space that each piece gives me. “I once had a girl, or should I say she once had me” – that gives me space to improvise on these notes. What I do is a characteristic of Khayal. So I would say again, it’s not a fusion, because fusion artists don’t. What they do is they sing their own stuff in a western setting.

Research into these ideas has been profoundly gratifying. Has my musical journey closed? I didn’t become a singer-songwriter again, but I put everything I know together. When you are a creative artist, the things you know come back to you in some way. I am very happy that this happened to me.