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| Fusion music Another renaissance? | ||
| Pawan Neupane | Viewed: 152 | |
Posted on: eKantipur.com on 2006-10-30
Think of Pandit Ravi Shankar and Ustad Zakir Hussain, and what naturally comes to mind is a world famous maestro sitarist and another classical tabala virtuoso respectively from India.
But despite being the greatest exponents of their respective art forms in Indian classical music, these two have also collaborated with several exponents of Western music and other Asian genres, which in turn helped them gain fame and popularity in the international music scenes as well.
Ravi Shankar collaborated with George Harrison of The Beatles, renowned violinist Yehudi Menuhin, flutist virtuoso Jean Pierre Rampal, shakuhachi master Hozan Yamamoto, koto player Muyumi Miyashita and classical composer Philip Glass, to name a notable few. He also performed at the historical Woodstock Festival in 1969 as well as the concert halls of Europe.
Zakir Hussain, too, has performed with scores of diverse musicians like George Harrison and The Beatles, Mickey Hart, Joe Henderson, Van Morrison and with John McLaughlin in his famous group, Shakti. He also performed with the New Orleans Symphony and the Hong Kong Symphony.
What the two created with those international performers was fusion music, especially a merger of Eastern and Western music, if we were to broadly define fusion music as a genre of sounds that combines two or more other genres.
Back home in Nepal too, fusion music seems to be catching up fast these days with artistes and groups like Anil Shahi, Shyam Nepali, Nawaraj Gurung, Trikaal and Sukarma collaborating with different foreign as well as local musicians to create new blends in tones. The latest example of fusion music was witnessed in the recently concluded Jazzmandu 2006 festival also.
So what do our artistes think about this particular genre of music, and what is it that attracts them to it?
For guitarist Anil Shahi, who has been doing fusion music with his group Maya Mantra, it is the liberty and free flow that fusion gives to a musician while creating music. "Unlike classical music, fusion music has no rules and no boundaries, and there are many possibilities and opportunities for improvisation," says Anil, "So we get to perform freely."
He has experimented with instruments like Indian sarangi, flute, tabala, African djimbe and Australian Aborigine didgeridoo and takes fusion as a combination of different types of music.
Sarangi player Shyam Nepali also has a similar view, though he thinks that fusion is generally associated with western music only while we in ourselves are very rich in Nepali instruments and can merge them to produce our own typical fusion music.
"I say let's do world music by syncing our instruments with those of different other countries," says the musician, who has performed fusion with piano, various Chinese instruments, Japanese instruments like shakuhachi and koto, Alpine instruments with a Swiss group, as well as with Italian musicians.
In the process of creating fusion music, he elaborates, "We work within a certain framework. Sometimes we self-compose the music while at times, we create separate pieces and then sync suitable melodies."
Kishor Gurung, Nepal's classical guitar virtuoso and the country's only ethnomusicologist, though has a different view about fusion music. He says, "Ravi Shankar did fusion music in the 1960s but it has a long history. Even the North Indian ragas could be called fusion, but it all depends on the type of mixing."
According to him, their album Sunsaan Raatma released around 1985 had probably Nepal's first fusion composition where he and his younger brother Sarad Gurung had collaborated with three foreign musicians on guitar, tabala, flute and saxophone.
Kishor, though, thinks that fusion music has not lasted long. He reasons, "I think Zakir Hussain's Shakti was the best group in fusion music, but McLaughlin had to do too many adjustments with the ragas. And I think that's the reason for its split also."
That said, these Nepali musicians are very encouraged by the feedback they have received for their compositions. Shyam says, "The response has been very good, and people say that we have done something new."
Anil also feels that fusion music has a bright prospect in Nepal. "I've been in this field for the last 12 years now, and now my profession itself has become to perform fusion music."
That may well sum up the prospects of fusion music and musicians in Nepal. But it would be even better if their compositions would be more in tune, cohesion, balance and of a higher quality in the days to come.
more will follow....