Journey into Hindustani Music

Terms:  Guru -Master that represents all of the divine. Vinaya - Humility. Complete surrender of one's self. Hindu's vanity and pretention worn away. Sadhana - Practice &  discipline Shishya - Student of guru Namaskar - Greeting with palm to forehead Patanam - respectful greeting where one touches a person's feet. Then one touches their own eyes and                         forehead with the hand's held palm to palm.   Rishi - Saint Sage   Paltas - Short melodic performance within a scale and tabla framework in different tempi.    Bandishes - Other fixed compositions a student learns. Includes songs of different styles sung to meaningful                texts. Can be slow or fast.   Gats - Instrumental pieces   Tans - Melodic phrases in a variety of Melodic motions and tempi. Guru "Pani Piye Chanka, Guru Banaye...

  My Mother always educated my sister and I about music and different historical events. I first got intrigued by watching the  Woodstock  documentary. I watched Pandit Ravi Shankar play with his tabla player and was wanting to play. The issue was, I could never find a teacher or a sitar to play after I saw that.  As a teen I forgot all about it until I saw a sitar being played again in the film  Mughal-E-Azzam during the scene "Mohe Panghat Pe Nand Lal". The girls in that scene played by fountains and I thought wow sitars are cool. The issue remained the same where to buy and how to learn. I then went to a piano store and asked the owner and seller. He didn't really know what it was much, I stopped it right there and focused on my Mother's piano she wanted. I left that dream behind until this year. Since we are in a pandemic, I have decided to take up some stuff I always wanted to learn and do. I am taking...

 This blog will be about my journey into Hindustani music. I will be posting interesting things I am learning while reading and getting taught by gurus. Also there will be terms explained. I hope all will enjoy.