Ragas Quotes

I'm interested in Qawwali and the blues.

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

I have an understanding of Queen and the way Freddie Mercury did his harmonies. I know what tablas sound like, because my father played a lot of Ustad Ali Akbar Khan.

Growing up, any time I would sit down with my grandfather to learn or talk about Carnatic music, he would bring up G. N. Balasubramaniam. Listening to the recordings he would play me, I was dazzled by GNB's voice and how he was able to execute ideas that I could barely wrap my head around.

The strangest part of Indian music is its lack of chords: There's no such thing as major or minor, and it's unusual to hear more than two different pitches at the same time.

I think sometimes when you speak about something like 'Indian classical music' and 'ragas,' and all of that's new to people, it can be quite intimidating, in the same way that I have sometimes found opera and Wagner intimidating - one doesn't know where to begin sometimes.

Indian music is brilliant and for me, anyway, (this is only personal) it's got everything in it. I still like electronics and all sorts of music if it's good but Indian music is just... an untouchable you can't say what it is, because it just is.

Though music transcends language, culture and time, and though notes are the same, Indian music is unique because it is evolved, sophisticated and melodies are defined.

I listen to Ustad Vilayat Khan's 'Raga Khamaj' and 'Raga Jaijaiwanti' virtually every morning, a lot of Abdullah Ibrahim, Michael Kiwanuka, Savages, and contemporary Ugandan pop.

Indian classical music is charming and currently there are a wide range of musicians who bring great classical tunes to the Bollywood industry.

In the U.K., classical music is composed by individuals and written down. Indian music is based on certain sequences called ragas. When I perform live, 95% of the music is improvised: it never sounds the same twice.

The inner core of my being is Carnatic music.

The musical instuments may be western but my voice never wavers away from my own ragas. it is good to make experiments and I do a lot of them but my thoughts always round the centre and that centre is the tradition of my elders and it is classical music...

From when I first started listening to music, M. S. Subbulakshmi has been one of my biggest influences. She poured her heart and life into everything she sang.