Anoushka Shankar

Although I’ve listened to a lot of recorded Indian music over the years, except for the sitar players who sit in the window of the Indian restaurants on 6th Avenue, I have never seen an Indian music concert before this week when I went to see Anoushka Shankar perform at the Laguardia Performing Arts Center in Queens, NY.

Anoushka is the daughter of famed Sitar player Ravi Shankar, and began learning the complex instrument at age eight. By age fifteen she was recording with family friend George Harrison and made her solo debut as a recording artist soon after.

Her group consisted of a tabla player, a flutist, a trap drummer, an electric bass, a pianist, and another stringed instrument that I still haven’t figured out what it is. The show began with a couple pieces in the traditional Indian classical style.

As a musician, when I listen to music I am used to being able to understand the music structurally. With the Indian music, although I could understand the melodies and rhythms I couldn’t make any sense of the structures. To my ears it sounded as if it just flowed organically, but I believe there actually are complex structures guiding it that my ears could not recognize.

As the performance progressed Anoushka added more modern elements into the music. Bringing in the drum kit and the electric bass, and even some electronic sounds and rhythms provided by the pianist with a computer by her side.

One piece she explained was written with a Spanish composer and fused flamenco style piano with classical Indian music. Another crowd pleaser featured a technique called mouth percussion during which the percussionist and the flute player sang drum parts. It was very fast and very frenetic, and the complexity and energy made it very exciting to listen to.

For the final piece the musicians each took a solo section, a tradition that is very familiar to Western listeners. The musicians were all excellent, and Anoushka’s abilities were very impressive. The sitar is an instrument that is capable of making a wide variety of sounds simultaneously, and the speed and control with which she manipulated the unwieldy looking contraption was a bit dazzling. The only thing that seemed odd about the piece was that after each solo the music would come to a complete stop, and then the entire group would begin again in unison until the next solo began. In Western music the rhythm would always continue and the soloists would normally play their solos over top of the rhythm and the music would never come to a stop.

Between each song the musicians stopped to tune up their instruments. Before they began again Anoushka would pick up a small microphone and introduce the next song. Here demeanor was always gentle and always grateful for the audience’s approval.