mindmelting

1 word to describe Ravi Shankar. UF invited him here somehow to play, and with student tickets being $10, who could resist seeing such an important figure in music? Not I, said the dog. For those of you who don't know (he was before our time), Ravi Shankar is a sitar player who has made a huge impact in musical history. He is associated with George Harrison of The Beatles, who learned sitar from him and helped introduce him to Western music. He's got crazy music cred for introducing the sitar to the West, and also for composing the soundtrack to Gandhi. Oh and he's the father of Nora Jones and Anoushka Shankar. He's won all sorts of musical awards and national honors for his ambassadorial work, such as the Bharat Ratna (Jewel of India). So yeah, he's pretty famous.

At the concert I was seated pretty much in the back, due to my student ticket. Actually scratch that, all the way in the back of the orchestra section. I was against the wall. And to my left was a huge setup of computers and stuff for the sound and lighting. Not that that was bad. I got a pretty clear, if small, view of the stage; I'm not complaining. Ravi Shankar, his daughter Anoushka, and Tanmoy Bose were the most important figures at the concert. Anoushka also plays the sitar, while Tanmoy Bose plays the tabla, which is a small drum set sort of thing. There were also 2 tanpuras to provide drone in the background. Anyways Ravi is now 88 years old or something, so he's pretty fucking old. When he walks in he gets a standing ovation already.

I admit, I vastly underestimated Ravi's ability due to his age, especially since the concert started off with a slow raga. He looked old, but still in good health. He didn't play any of the really virtuoso stuff that I had seen in a video in the first piece (which still came out to like 25 minutes...), and it seemed like Anoushka played much stronger than him. The first half of the program (2 pieces, about an hour long) was pretty trippy. From just the mood and tone of the music I could imagine all sorts of scenery. And since ragas don't exactly resemble modern music, the transitions from the slow beginning to fast ending was very gradual. It was a long journey to be taken, instead of multiple steps. The sitar has very spacey, drawn out chords with vibrato all over the place, thus the notes would almost visibly trail out into the atmosphere. The tabla doesn't come in until the pace picks up, so for about 5-15 minutes (I completely lost track of time during the concert) the sitars would just create crazy paths and layers. With the tabla included structure was added, and usually it became faster and with increased beats. At this point it seemed that Anoushka had the virtuosity that Ravi used to have, while Ravi focused on more emotional sounds.

During the intermission all I could think of was how crazy Ravi and Co. was, and how crazy a "Sitar Hero" game would be, with a sitar remote with like 12 million buttons and tablas, which require fucking intense rhythm to be able to play. Also I thought of how funny it would be if Anoushka suddenly pulled her sitar vertical to activate star power. At this point my thoughts were still more or less coherent, and I could sit there and soak in the epic-ness of what I had heard.

The second half promised to be more lively, as Ravi bantered a bit with the audience and promised a "tabla solo" which I was crazy looking forward to, since Tanmoy Bose was already insane just laying down beats for Ravi and Anoushka. Little did I know that the second half was just 1 piece, about an hour long. I've only heard 2 pieces that long ever, this and a Tchaikovsky piece that was played by 3 Russian musicians, Piano Trio in A minor, op. 50 "In Memory of a Great Artist". Both of them were the pinnacle of epic. The piece started slowly, which wasn't a bad thing. After a while (no sense of time, remember?), it escalated slowly and only then did Ravi and Anoushka's sitar skills really come out. It turns out that Ravi Shankar still has enough sitar skills to put every guitar shredder to shame. And Anoushka? omfg. As Wilson said, "The student has surpassed the master". Anoushka learned sitar solely from Ravi, so it makes sense that she's even better than he was.

At this point I was just sitting, not thinking, letting the music take control of my being. I could definitely hear more Western elements in the last piece, and Ravi and Anoushka often traded melodies back and forth. I remember that they were all happy and seemed to be having fun, which is what I think music should be. It should truly be from the heart and done with great joy. Eventually it reached a point when both sitars were going crazy and the tabla was laying down some sick beats in the back. And then the tabla solo comes up. the sitars went to playing a simple chord progression, while Tanmoy Bose increased his efforts about tenfold. At that point I don't think time existed. I cannot say with any clarity how long that solo was, it was just a blur of hands and fingers hitting drum heads. At one time when he was sustaining gawd knows how many beats per minute, someone decides to shout "YEAH", and everyone just goes nuts. Ravi holds up his hand, the crowd quites, and Tanmoy continues. About then was the point of about complete mindmelting. As he ends the solo by somehow hitting a low droning note, the crowd erupts again. They actually stop playing so he can acknowledge the applause. I can only imagine how much my hands would hurt if I had tried playing that. Then they go right back to the piece. Which by this time is not really registering anything except "epic" in my mind. At the very end Ravi gets another standing ovation, this time for much longer, and we stumble for the exits.

So yeah, probably the second greatest concert I've ever been to, first being Stars because I've got more of an emotional connection with them. Ravi's skills outstrip those of Stars, but his style is not my style, and his time is not my time.

I'll blog about the stuff I've been listening to later, since this is a pretty epic post about a pretty epic concert already.