Is Music Universal

I recall having a long chat with one of my friends, a very smart guy and connoisseur of music about music being universal. The question was, can any music be universal music or is some music more universal than others. If all music is universal, how is it that we are all not equally appreciative […]

Are musicians born or made?

Are musicians born musicians, is music inherent in their DNA? or is it acquired along the way. In other words, is it nature or nurture that makes one a musician? Can someone who doesn’t have any music DNA in them (I can hear you devil’s advocates laughing out loud) become a great musician? When someone […]

Music is like Apple Inc

There are some similarities between Music and Apple Computer Inc. Everyone loves Music, seldom do we see someone not liking Music similar to very few (if any) not liking Apple’s products of art (iPhone, MacBook, iPad). 1. Only a few are ardent fans of Apple, just as only a few are passionate about Music 2. […]

An American Who Plays Veena

It’s inspiring and equally fascinating when someone born and brought up in the Western culture dedicates his/her life to Hindustani or Carnatic Music. A few among such noble beings that I am aware of are Warren Sanders, Jon Higgins and many student of Prof. Higgins at Wesleyan and at music departments at other colleges like […]

Tech my Music

If you have ever been in a position that I am in right now, you’d probably wish that technology could help you learn better, be a better musician, do gigs you dream of but would never get to, keep practice logs to inspire, organize your music and notes all in digital form, accessible from anywhere, […]

Raaga Saraswathi

Raaga Saraswathi is very beautiful, the scale for the raaga is S R2 M2 P D2 S S N1 D2 P M2 R2 S I learnt my first krithi in this raagam, the krithi is composed by Sri Purandhara Dasa called Charanamve Vani, here rendered by my guru Smt. Aparna Balaji. My simplified rendition of […]

Rock on 5

We all like to believe that we are rockstars 24×7 but in reality we are not. No one really cares about you, face it. No one really cares about you. People care about your ideas. You think 250,000 people showed up in Washington for Martin Luther King’s historic speech “I Have a Dream” because they […]

Raga flip-flop

Raga flip-flop: Kalyani is one of the classic raagas in the realm of carnatic music which provides greater scope for improvisation (aalapana). I feel that it’s jeeva swara lies in the trasition between G3 (andhara gaandhaaram) and M2 (prati madhyamam). Whenever I sing or listen to it, I get mesmerized greatly by the depth of […]

Ranjana(i)mala

I came across this song recently called Ranjani mridu Pankaja Lochani – a beautiful ranjani mala(ragamalika) composed by Thanjavur Sankara Iyer. This song is unique from a perspective that it contains wonderful ragas with “Ranjani” as their suffix. There are 4 ragas in this song. The pallavi portion is in Ranjani and the charanams 1,2 […]

Carry it forward

How many of us took to drawing when we were 3 years old? Probably most if not all of us, but how many of us draw today, may be a handful. How many of us could sing a rhyme or two when we were 3 years old? Probably most of us, how many of us […]