It all started with writer Gnani Sankaran asking me if I would address his weekend group. The only request was that I place the piano next to his well in the backyard. Soon after, I was placing the piano in unique settings — in a tent, on a cliff, on a boat and several other precarious positions. It soon became obvious to me that the location mattered little, as long as the music serves a purpose. That of bringing people together, a communion through sounds and silences, when words cease to provide meaning.
The experience of carting pianos across India with Sharik Hasan taught me something else. The idea that the two of us belonged to different religious affiliations, and were playing together to drive home various points including the obvious, and the ‘law-and-order’ objections we faced made me dive a lot deeper. It made me rediscover ways in which music finds a way to triumph over it all.
Devoted to trumpet
For instance, despite the strife faced by the local populace and the struggle to find normalcy, the Guca Music Festival in Serbia continues to happen, and people from all over the world flock there. Most interestingly, it is a festival devoted to the trumpet and its various playing styles. The irony that this instrument, associated most with declarations and victorious sounds, plays all over this little town in August every year (and has been the tradition since 1961) is noteworthy. Over half a million people attend every year. Miles Davis has played at the festival, among others.
Or the hectic underground sounds in neighbouring Bosnia, which has become a hotbed of tremendous cultural and artistic development, magically merging traditional Bosnian music with popular sounds and contemporised creations. In coming weeks, I shall explore some of these acts and look at how they are shaping European popular music.
A chance meeting with a Sri Lankan diplomat led me to discover the Oakdale Kigali Music School in Rwanda, and the stunning performance videos of the children learning the piano and guitar in one of the most sequestered and ravaged parts of the world. The Artist Mobility programme, run by the Music in Africa Foundation especially channels young African talent in some of the worst conflict-affected zones, and turns their energies towards peace, using music.
What struck me about many of these musical initiatives is how hard people fight to keep the art alive. And how much they are willing to sacrifice to sustain and nurture it, with virtually little or no resources. It is extremely easy to get comfortable. Do the painfully obvious, listen to the most accessible music, and think we've heard it all. A nudge from the right quarters sometimes broadens learning and perspective.
In Chennai, for instance, I am very used to even the most celebrated musicians ask ‘Neenga thaan andha pianist illa? Western music a? Beethoven theriyuma? Illa jazz-a (pronounced jawz)?’ in one breath, as though the worlds of 19th century classical music and the 20th century Deep South plantations somehow merged itself into this one behemoth called ‘Western Music’. It is the equivalent of merging Sudha Raghunathan with Susheela Raman and have Sharon Prabhakar's stylings as interludes in one sweep called ‘Indian music’.
The other objective, therefore, that this column will serve, hopefully, is teasing outthe different strands and strains of this strange world of Western music from across that part of the world.
For this week, I would exhort readers to listen to Ali Farka Toure, the legendary African guitarist and songwriter who passed away in 2006. And of course, listen to the children of the Oakdale Kigali Music School.
com/watch?v=qI_h49D1xo8 (Ali Farka Toure)
com/watch?v=GacbCltg2bM (OKMS Students)
The writer is a well-known pianist and founder of the Rhapsody music initiative for children that reaches over 60,000 children in South India.