His music carries listeners to a higher level of transcendental existence. Most of us mortals will never understand or have any conceptual framework in which to discuss his work at length in an pedantic Western musical discourse and for me that makes it all the more enchanting.
I met Ravi once in an airport lounge after one of his shows. I approached him delicately for his autograph and he kindly gave it to me along with his daughter Anoushka and ensemble band. It was in that chance encounter I realized that artistic greatness still has a human form bound by the ordinary of this world and that someone as extraordinary as him is still tasked with existence.
There are other sitar players in the world who have made recordings. I will work on adding some of their featurettes here as well but if one takes the time to explore all the works of Ravi you should have enough world class first rate sitar compositions to last several lifetimes of listening if you believe in reincarnation and encore performances.
Cycles of beats and morning, afternoon and evening ragas make sense from an eastern perspective in terms of resonating with the soul at various times through the day. Every Ravi Shankar fan must joke about cycles of beats and what time it is in India for the ragas. Failure to do so prohibits acknowledgment in the Ravi Shankar fan club I will start soon.
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