uh what I discovered was I mean it was beautiful to have the entire repertoire of the sitar which I I do love the North Indian sitar in particular uh open to me but uh Indian music in that respect is no more different from our music than Carlo galdo is different from Duke Ellington I mean you can understand both
And there may be many reasons. Even the sitar and the sarod was played very percussive if you listen to a recording 70 years old.
So when you're in a class of four or five you hear the other students, they inspire you. He's truly a sitar hero, he plays the distortion sitar .
the way as for that urban legend about Ravi Shankar no one who say sits through the tuning of a sitar at the beginning of a concert no matter how stoned they are in San Francisco could possibly mistake that for the music if you've ever seen a guitar or a violin tuned you know what
And you know, oh, this guy doesn't have a repertoire. I can play around with the sitar .
named pandin parate in in hiad and I've been playing the sitar for 40 years I mean I can actually get myself a free meal in an Indian restaurant by plucking the sitar for maybe half an hour they'll do that in the city where I live um and uh what I discovered was I mean it was beautiful to have the entire repertoire of the sitar which I I do love the North
While playing the sarod, I'm not pressing the string with my fingertips. While it's played with fingertips-- cello, sitar -- but if I play sarod with fingertips, it will sound like this.
So when you're in a class of four or five you hear the other students, they inspire you. male #2: Shankar Madadevan: You know a friend of mine is already a sitar hero in India
the of the audience for Ravi Shankar in San Francisco uh which um assembles for the concert uh Robbie Shan comes out and he starts to tune his sitar and he tunes and he worries about things and tunes and further tunes and uh when he's finally done tuning uh everybody
understandable uh you know and and what I did was then I started myself to study the sitar I studied the sitar with a man named pandin parate in in hiad and I've been playing the sitar for 40 years I mean I can actually get myself a free meal in an Indian restaurant by plucking the sitar for maybe half an hour they'll do that in the city where I live um and
We're both Pisces. So I wrote a song called "Pisces Brothers," because we were both really into the meditation, and we both really loved all things spiritual and Indian. And he took it to extremes, like he learned sitar from Ravi Shankar, and so on and so forth. So that was a life-changing experience which, because of the practice of that meditation, that's
And there may be many reasons. on flute, Sultan Khan on sarangi, Rais Khan on sitar .
But more curious question is, how has it helped you in the creation process? In the olden days, you probably sat with and sitar , and harmonium, and so on. Now they sit with computers, and mixers, and synthesizers.
concerns you name it it's all there of course it's peculiarly Indian but that doesn't mean that it's not understandable uh you know and and what I did was then I started myself to study the sitar I studied the sitar with a man named pandin parate in in hiad and I've been playing the sitar for 40 years I mean I can actually get myself a free
meal in an Indian restaurant by plucking the sitar for maybe half an hour they'll do that in the city where I live um and uh what I discovered was I mean it was beautiful to have the entire repertoire of the sitar which I I do love the North Indian sitar in particular uh open to me but uh Indian music in that respect is
So immediately, we are taking from human. So that human life, especially in these art forms, like playing a sitar or a tabla and playing it
And you know, oh, this guy doesn't have a repertoire. The keyboard is a amazing instrument that people can produce sound of flute, sound of drum, and sitar , and so many-- violins and cello.
And there may be many reasons. For instance, one of the pieces that I did before my symphony orchestra in London was with the sitar player, Niladri Kumar.
and all the while maintains his extensive solo creations on piano and organ. He grew up in Baltimore, studied at Juilliard, moved to Europe, where he trained with Nadia Boulanger and closely worked with sitar composer Ravi Shankar. When he returned to the States in the 60s, he formed the Philip Glass Ensemble and still performs with that group to date.
We're not going to retune. He did a big concert in Bombay and one in Delhi, and he had to prove to people he could still play the sitar .
I said, "Yeah, look it's gonna be great. It's May, it's gonna be beautiful. We're playing at this place called the Dal Lake." Anybody been to Srinagar out there? So let me describe this place to you. It's a beautiful lake surrounded by the Himalayan Mountains where legend has it that Ravi Shankar gave George Harrison his first sitar lesson. And that's where our stage was gonna be.
Well, they changed their mind. And so then in season two, it began to change right from the get go and we started adding in some Indian sitar and some tabla.