Indian Classical Music

[momatt]

Just saw an amazing raga show last night (Pandit Budhaditya Mukherjee + Pandit Shivkumar Sharma).  Found it absolutely fascinating and moving, one was a santoor group and the other a sitar and tabla duo.  The musicianship, the great droney harmonics and tightness of performance were amazing.
But it highlighted that I know pretty much nothing about the form, how it works, what a raga even is.

Are there any good documentaries anyone can recommend about Indian classical music?  Any must-listen albums?

https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2019/event/pandit-budhaditya-mukherjee-pandit-shivkumar-sharma

[Sin Agog]

Three Hindustani classical things (or in that ball park) I do adore:

Nikhil Banerjee's Hemant.  I love my man Ravi, and sometimes brag about getting to see him before he died, but this guy's the mothucking sitar master to me.  So warm and entrancing.

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan does this long, tantric spiritual singing I think called Qawalli which is strangely catchy and fucking ace.  Shahen-Shah is the one by him to get.

And Abida Parveen's his female counterpart, and she's almost just as good.  Check out Visal.

Also Shivkumar Sharma is indeed great, congrats on seeing him- Call of the Valley is bootiful-  Ram Narayan, Dariut Dolat Shahi, and yeah tons of Ravi's stuff, particularly his soundtracks to things like the Apu trilogy.

Whatever you do, though, DO NOT listen to a Morning Raga in the afternoon or an Evening Raga at dawn!  Unless you're a Walmart heir or something, you will not be able to afford the ensuing therapy bills.

[Twit 2]

I like me some Carnatic.

L. Shankar (electric violin) and U. Srinivas (electric mandolin) are great.

[momatt]

Thanks chaps!
I'll check these selections out later.

There don't seem to be many documentaries out there weirdly.  Saw one about Ravi Shankar that looks interesting, but couldn't find it online.

[sponk]

Didn't George Harrison do a documentary about Indian music? Can't remember what it's called but he was promoting it on his famous Dick Cavett interview.

[Sin Agog]

Didn't George Harrison do a documentary about Indian music? Can't remember what it's called but he was promoting it on his famous Dick Cavett interview.

That was for his Concert For Bangladesh, featuring such South-Asian luminaries as Bob Dylan and Leon Russell.  (To be fair, I think Ali Akbar Khan and Ravi did the opening set).

[NoSleep]

The Indian classical singer, Pandit Pran Nath, taught several western avant-garde artists the disciplines of his art; Terry Riley, La Monte Young, Henry Flynt, Michael Harrison, Jon Hassell, Lee Konitz, Don Cherry, etc.

I read their accounts of meeting with him and remember somebody mentioning that he regarded a high point of Indian classical music, a golden age, was coming to a close in the 1940's. I've yet to investigate further but I'm hoping to dig up some old recordings to witness this.

I met Irshad Khan in a recording studio many years ago. He was the son of Ustad Imrat Hussein Khan, the renown Sitar & Surbahar ("bass" sitar) player. I remember Irshad told the story of his instruments; how the wood had been selected for them and put aside to season generations (centuries) before his own birth, in anticipation of the continuation of his family's musical tradition. I have an album by his father from 1974 where each side is the same raga (Sree) but played on sitar and surbahar respectively. I remember when I first heard it that there was something unusual about the scale that is played in this raga, even compared to other Indian scales I have heard, but I now understand that it is the tuning system that makes it particularly unusual. I've become used to it now but remember how new and exciting it sounded to my ears on first listen.

Going back to Pandit Pran Nath, some of the western students he taught adopted his understanding of tuning in their music; Terry Riley, La Monte Young, Catherine Christer Hennix and Michael Harrison, most notably, so he has become instrumental in introducing microtonal tuning to western music.

[Sin Agog]

That was for his Concert For Bangladesh, featuring such South-Asian luminaries as Bob Dylan and Leon Russell.  (To be fair, I think Ali Akbar Khan and Ravi did the opening set).

Actually, sorry for being a cunt here.  Just remembered he and Ravi were on there promoting another doc as well called Raga.  I remember George mentioning hanging out with John and Yoko at the premiere.  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067648/?ref_=nm_flmg_slf_61

[Petey Pate]

That was for his Concert For Bangladesh, featuring such South-Asian luminaries as Bob Dylan and Leon Russell.  (To be fair, I think Ali Akbar Khan and Ravi did the opening set).

I've been meaning to watch this for ages. A friend of mine told me that there's a pretty funny moment where the crowd starts applauding Ravi Shankar when he finishes tuning up, unaware that it wasn't part of his set.

The opening track of Ravi's album The Sounds of India is him explaining the forms of Indian classical music to western audiences, if you've not already heard it.

[Bennett Brauer]

Just saw an amazing raga show last night (Pandit Budhaditya Mukherjee + Pandit Shivkumar Sharma).  Found it absolutely fascinating and moving, one was a santoor group and the other a sitar and tabla duo.  The musicianship, the great droney harmonics and tightness of performance were amazing.
But it highlighted that I know pretty much nothing about the form, how it works, what a raga even is.

You've probably already seen Budhaditya playing in a thunderstorm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFenlzgBEns .

[Smeraldina Rima]

NTS radio/archive is good for Indian classical music but I don't know about a documentary.

Throwing Shade (her show is now just called Nabihah Iqbal) does more introduction/talking than most presenters:

throwing shade sitar special 26 July 2014 (this one has a little introduction to sitar and raga music)
sarod special 26 March 2016
nikhil banerjee special 8 October 2016


If you click the 'Indian Classical' tag it takes you to all the pertinent archived shows/episodes. Then you can find things like this one off episode:
https://www.nts.live/shows/lavender-kite-audio-research-hour/episodes/lavender-kite-audio-research-hour-w-barnaby-bennett-28th-january-2019

This month's Lavender Kite Audio Research Hour focuses on Indian Hindustāni classical music singer Hirabai Badodekar.

And this series:
https://www.nts.live/shows/raga-vibrations

"Raga Vibrations" is a monthly selection of Indian music curated by Jefre Cantu-Ledesma & Greg Davis.

There are 44 2 hour episodes archived now, including three special episodes:
Sarangi special
Tribute to H. Sayeeduddin Dagar
Pandit Pran Nath Tribute