A transcendent musician who made the world both smaller and better, sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar has died at age 92. Writes the San Francisco Chronicle:
Labeled “the godfather of world music” by Beatle George Harrison, Shankar helped millions of Westerners — classical, jazz and rock lovers — discover the centuries-old traditions of Indian music. From Harrison to John Coltrane, from Yehudi Menuhin to Andre Previn, he bridged, sometimes unsteadily, the musical gap between East and West, between what Shankar noted as the classical East’s emphasis on melody and rhythm and the classical West’s foundation of “harmony, counterpoint, chords, modulation and other basics.”
As Mr. Shankar put it in 2009:
How does one put the spiritual significance of music on paper? Music transcends all languages and barriers and is the most beautiful communicative skill one can have. Music makes us all experience different emotions or the Navarasa as we call it. Different types of music, whether it is vocal or instrumental, Eastern or Western, Classical or Pop or folk from any part of the world can all be spiritual if it has the power to stir the soul of a person and transcend time for the moment. It makes one get goose-bumps in the body and mind and equates the highest mental orgasm and the release of grateful tears! (Much more about Ravi Shankar, his music and his legacy here , here, here, here, here, and here. )
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