Indian Classical Music Quotes

I was listening to a lot of bebop. And to Miles Davis. Everyone thinks I was just in the folk world in 1966, but in 1963 and 1964, I was absorbing enormous amounts of music, from baroque to jazz to blues to Indian music.

Many people, especially young people, have started listening to sitar since George Harrison, one of the Beatles, became my disciple.

I learned tabla for three years when in school, then started picking up the basics of the acoustic guitar when in college.

As a teen, I enjoyed Sufi music and ghazals the most. But as my career began, I drifted off to playback and other streams over the years.

'Maruvarthai' was an exciting song for me because it showcased my Carnatic roots.

I am very fond of ghazals. I like ghazals from Jagjit Singh and Sir Ghulam Ali.

My parents being Bengali, we always had music in our house. My nani was a trained classical singer, who taught my mum, who, in turn, was my first teacher. Later I would travel almost 70 kms to the nearest town, Kota, to learn music from my guru Mahesh Sharmaji, who was also the principal of the music college there.

'The Beatles' did whatever they wanted. They were a collection of influences adapted to songs they wanted to write. George Harrison was instrumental in bringing in Indian music. Paul McCartney was a huge Little Richard fan. John Lennon was into minimalist aggressive rock.

When I began competing with the other artists in New York, I discovered classical North Indian music.

A. R. Rahman is truly India's Mozart. His music is celebrated worldwide.

I grew up on Queen, ABBA and at the same time, Nityasree.

I don't listen to Bollywood music much. But yes, I listen to Indian music quite often, and other non- film music.

I'd love to do a musical on the lines of 'Salangai Oli,' 'Sankarabharanam' and 'Sindhu Bhairavi.'

I have a taste for ghazals and I like them.

When K. Vishwanath made the film 'Shankarabharanam,' he wanted to bring back Carnatic classical music to mainstream. It's popularity was waning in those days.

These three elements are called Qawwali, and they've got to be there.

I know Pandit Ravi Shankar was very upset with me, as I did not use his compositions in 'Gandhi.' I thought that the London Philharmonic Orchestra would prove more effective than his music. It was one of my biggest miscalculations.

My personal favourites include J. J. Cale, R. D. Burman, Mehdi Hassan, and Ghulam Ali.

I owe so much of my musical growth to my exploration and performance of Carnatic music.

You had to be there at the time to understand the wild creative energy of the Fab Four, and this contains forays into Indian music as well as classics such as 'When I'm Sixty-Four.'

As a disciple of my father's, I was certain I wanted to include one of his own raga creations on 'Home', as they are so beautiful; whilst many of his creations are part of the general classical repertoire for all musicians, many more are only played by those of us who learned from him, and therefore need to be played.

I want to bring Indian music to the mainstream.

Alchemy is one of the good quote-unquote south-Asian experiences in that it has a wide variety of classical to experimental music.

I've learnt music, since this is a part and parcel of growing up in a traditional Tamil Brahmin family. In fact, I've even given three exams in music when I was young.

I come from a small village and have had no formal training in music or any classes from the masters of Indian classical music.