Research
about an Indian music video. Put it in your blog with a description and a
little history / background about it.
Indian
music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieBNKL5xM7U
The above video features the music of Pandit Ravi Shankar, who has been described as the best known
contemporary Indian musician.
Ravi Shankar Biography(1920–2012)
Younger
Years
Born on 7 April 1920, in Varanasi, India,
Ravi Shankar came into the world as a Brahmin, the highest class of Indians
according to the caste system. Shankar lived in Varanasi until the age of 10,
when he accompanied his brother, Uday Shankar, to Paris.
Shankar absorbed the musical traditions of
the West and attended Parisian schools. This mixture of Indian and Western
influences would be apparent in his later compositions, and would help him cultivate
the respect and appreciation from Westerners that he sought for Indian music.
Early
Music Career
At a music conference in 1934, Shankar met
guru and multi-instrumentalist Allaudin Khan, who became his mentor and spiritual
and musical guide for many years. Shankar went to Maihar, India, to study sitar
under Khan in 1938. (The sitar is a guitar-like instrument with a long neck,
six melody strings, and 25 sympathetic strings that resonate as the melody
strings are played.) Just one year after he began studying under Khan, Shankar
began giving recitals.
Thereafter, he went to Mumbai, where he
worked for the Indian People's Theater Association, composing music for ballets
until 1946. He went on to become music director of the New Delhi radio station
All India Radio, a position he held until 1956.
Mainstream
Success and Later Career
In 1956, he debuted in the United States
and Western Europe. Also helping his star rise was the score he wrote for
famous Indian film director Satyajit Ray's The Apu Trilogy. The first of these films, Pather
Panchali, won the Grand Prix—now known as the Golden Palm or Palme d'Or—at
the Cannes Film Festival in 1955. The prize is been awarded to the best film of
the festival. Already an ambassador of Indian music to the Western world,
Shankar embraced this role even more fully in the 1960s.
From the 1970s
to the early 21st century, Shankar's fame, recognition and achievement
continued to grow steadily. In 1982, his score for Richard Attenborough's film Gandhi earned him an Oscar nomination.
Death
and Legacy
Shankar won many awards and honors
throughout his career, including 14 honorary degrees, two Grammy Awards, and a
membership to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
He died on 11 December 2012, in San Diego,
California, at the age of 92.
Known fondly today as the "godfather
of world music," Shankar is remembered for using his wealth of talent to
infuse Indian culture into the world's forever-growing music scene, and is
largely credited with building a large following for Eastern music in the West.
MY EXPERIENCE IN LISTENING TO AND WATCHING SHANKAR’S MUSIC VIDEO:
I felt like and imagined that I was in an actual
community in India, with the local people there welcoming me with Shankar’s
music. At first, my hearing sense adjusted to the sound of the sitar but after
some minutes, I already felt relaxed.
The music could pass for a lullaby or a religious
piece. That was why I also felt like I was in an Indian place with many children. My mom
studied Oriental literature (which included Indian) for her masteral studies in
UST. She said many aspects of Indian literature are connected with the
spiritual nature of the people of India. Maybe the same can be said for their
music, particularly this one by Shankar.
Source: http://www.biography.com/people/ravi-shankar-9480456#awesm=~oIKlyeFAY5lTpb
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