Article: With Open Ears, Indian Ragas and Western Melodies Merge
This piece comes from a performance project by Amit Chaudhuri called “This Is Not Fusion”. It showcases his journey of using the traditional raga and incorporating the Western influences he grew up with; in an interview he states that this project started with what he labeled as “mishearing” because he would almost feel as though he was hearing Western tunes within raga. Amit states that he does not view this as fusion because he isn’t taking a traditional piece and singing it in a Western style, but rather he is improvising on the raga itself; he is emphasizing those elements that are shared between the raga and Western sounds. Amit explains that a raga is not a tune, but compares it almost to a language. There are different ragas that are intended to be played at certain times of the day; before recordings existed, ragas were more ephemeral because they were intended for specific occasions. For example, you wouldn’t sing the morning raga Bhairav in the evening. Now with recordings they can be listened to at any time, but that isn’t necessarily the case when listening to a live performance.
Norwegian Wood is an improvisation on the raga, Bageshri; this raga is intended to be played in the late night and it depicts the emotions of a woman waiting be to be reunited with her lover. I picked this piece because I was initially intrigued by the thought of a raga being melded with Western music because they just seem so vastly different to me; however, after listening to the piece, something about it drew me to it. Even though I don’t understand the language, I was still able to feel the emotions that it was putting forth. If you’re interested in reading the article associated with this piece I’ve linked it along with the video. Thank you!
Provide Feedback