Ravi Shankar dies at 92
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
Sometimes talk about things like serenity and presence is shallow, because the authentic experience of spiritual depth is rare... Even in a room with 2500 people you could feel Ravi in the room and know you were in the presence of greatness. I guess that's what happens after years of dedication and spiritual discipline.
I won't hope to be half the man Ravi was. I'll be lucky to have even a speck of that kind of mastery in my life. I regret not seeking him out while he was alive. It would have been incredible to hear his music live one more time and to give him a hug and thank him for his immense contribution to the world. I'm grateful that I was even in the same room as him once and I'm grateful to live in a world create beautiful music and beautiful lives.
Back here in India, such people are quite common[Not to say they are all over the place, but you just don't hear about many of them]. Most of them just don't come up because of lack of encouragement, and proper ways of monetizing their art.
Just to tell you. Back in the past when I was in school. We would practice for hours singing devotional songs in Carnatic music. There was once a inter school competition, where you could sing in any genre you want. Our opposition school was totally convinced our 'old music' didn't stand a chance. To add to our bad luck, they had a complete band that could play with piano, guitar and band. We had none of that. Despite that, our singing was so damn awesome- we didn't just win. But looked something like 100 times more awesome than they were. In fact when the results were announced the judges said, they hadn't heard anything like that before. Coming from average middle class background, I couldn't even convince my parents to come and watch how I sang. No photographs were taken, none of it was recorded. On top of it my parents thought singing was an utter waste of time, and If I get too much into it I wouldn't study well- And so won't be able to get a good job. I wasn't able to rekindle my passion for music until later after I started earning.
There isn't a shortage of how many such competitions I participated in.
You will not believe how much of such talent goes wasted here. And even talent that some how continues into a full practice never gets any attention. Artists often live in poverty, and perform for peanuts. What that basically means is even talented kids don't want to take it up as a full time profession.
So now you know that its not a very honorable way of making money in India.
1. There are dozens of famous and wealthy Indian classical musicians - Hariprasad Chaurasia, Zakir Hussain, Amjad Ali Khan, etc. There are hundreds if not thousands of lesser known musicians who make a living by teaching and performing in small venues.
2. Of course, many talented people are prevented by social custom or poverty from following their dream, but its simply not the case that there are hundreds of unrecognized geniuses walking around.
3. Ravi Shankar's success was not totally accidental - he didn't just "happen" to become popular. He was a great communicator, and he appropriately structured his music to be not too complex for beginners and westerners to understand. If you listed to his rivals like Ustad Vilayat Khan for example, they went the opposite way and added layers of complexity and did not achieve popularity among the masses.
But frankly this is survivor ship bias at its very best. Looking at it from my very own parents stand point. What are the odds that somebody like me was going to be the next Zakir Hussain[Who himself happens to be the son of a very famous Tabla player]?
So there you see the problem. If there isn't a way to make good money doing music. People are not going to be taking it up as a full time profession.
For someone who confuses Shiva (the destroyer) with Vishnu (the maintainer), one has to wonder how much truth there actually is in that article.
I for one am taking it with a grain of salt. Like most things in west that are about east, it is not the facts that are important, but how good they have dressed into what west expects them to be (as something originating from east).
I'll ask myself the same question. Is every nonsense comment going to make it to the top of a topic that people care from now on?
Music is a pretty popular topic among programmers. And many programmers/hackers are instrumentalists.
So it makes sense for them to discuss. Besides if somebody doesn't like it he can always chose to no up vote the story and not discuss. But if somebody else wants to, why should he have any problems at all?
There is still good content on Reddit if you find the good subs and learn to ignore and not perpetuate the overt sexism and racism that decorate that site like Christmas. (I think those are more to blame for killing Reddit. Internally, I'm calling it 4chanitis.)
I probably wouldn't be such a cry-baby asshole complainer about it.
Specifically:
"The hacker mind-set is not confined to this software-hacker culture. There are people who apply the hacker attitude to other things, like electronics or music — actually, you can find it at the highest levels of any science or art. Software hackers recognize these kindred spirits elsewhere and may call them ‘hackers’ too — and some claim that the hacker nature is really independent of the particular medium the hacker works in."
esr's definition of hacking doesn't really apply to what is considered on-topic for Hacker News. So, allow me to quote the Hacker News guidelines[1], specifically:
> If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
I happen to agree, and I think fighting for this piece to be applicable on Hacker News is a waste of time. The trolls slugging on diego for asking the question are worse, because they skipped the guidelines in two respects (the other imploring us to remain civil).
Don't worry, in 10 years you'll have forgotten all about this.
My all time favourite Ravi Shankar recording is "Raga Bhupal Todi - Tala Ardha Jaital" off of Ravi Shankar In San Francisco: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000TEPBFQ/ref=dm_mu_dp_trk...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1...
Here are some great clips of my Dad playing the Sitar for anyone who never saw him perform live.
He's 51 in the first clip and 92 in the second clip and an inspiration in both. I love you and miss you, Pops.