Indian Classical Music - Ragas - Music Therapy - Voice Production

 Indian traditional systems of health and healing include various musical treatment approaches. Few healing traditions are also integrated in modern music therapy practice in India.  All these approaches integrated with music not only prayer, but also yoga and meditation and guide the participant in the art of living. There are some rituals and traditional practices which are en-vogue even today reflecting strongly that music and sound are used to alter states of consciousness to reduce perception of pain. It is popular for the Hindu devotees to perform the troublesome acts in order to impress Gods in the festivals. For instance, Fire-walking. Fire-walking by thousands of Hindu devotees is an integral part of religious Hindu festivals. The devotees, fully pierced by silver pins on their body carrying heavy burdens, walk on coal fire. Although, it can be considered as a superstition in today's era, but the devotees performed this act to signify that the pins destroy all t...

Listening to Jazz Pianist Keith Jarrett' interview on npr news. He had been interviewed on the launch of his album of six standards called somewhere which was recorded in 2009 when he performed live in Switzerland along with the bassist Gary Peacock and the drummer Jack Dejohnette. After four long years of the live show they revisited the track and launched as an album. Reason being the terrible hall, ineffective in fact horrible sound arrangement and some other loads of unpleasant experiences, they kept on delaying. The three had a disastrous experience while performing live. They realized  that the hall was too congested that Keith's wife viewed the show standing behind the spotlight, whereas Gary was not happy with the sound. Ultimately they all were vexed with the situation, especially Gary being the most adamant and particular in having perfect circumstances, was in hell. Mostly, Jarrett says the hardest part was convincing Peacock that the recording was good. ...

I recently came to know about a pretty logical interpretation of ‘self-respect’ and ‘ego’ which I would like to share. Self respect and ego are the opposites. Self-respect means ‘my own respect’, whereas ego is ‘not respecting my own self’. Where there is ego, self respect cannot come into existence and vice-versa. We create feeling of ego when we lack self respect. When we are unable to love and respect our own self, we try to find the same in the outer world; and ego takes place when those external expectations or honor-seeking desires are unfulfilled by the external sources (people, situations etc.)…coz the world cannot go according to you. A self respecting person would never feel insulted or less honored when he does not achieve good amount of respect from the world. Anyways there is an ample of respect and love in his heart for himself that he does not need any external being to come and praise for him. His expectations from others are zero. On the contrary, his full fo...

In music, it is pretty essential to sing in a good, pure voice, which not only keep your vocal chords in a comfort zone, but also seem soft and sweet for the listeners. Music of every community or country has its own peculiar style and intonations, but probably, almost all the musical cultures believe in the pure and full-throat voice which leads to aesthetically sound music. I am trying to explain some some proper ways to improve the voice quality while singing, which has incredibly helped me a lot in  rigorous practices and vocal recitals as well. Five to ten minutes of breath exercises especially BHATSIKA (full deep breath), Anulom-vilom, Bhraamri.  During breath exercises, sit in a comfortable cross-legs posture with arms on knees. Start with deep-breathing exercise, i.e, inhale deeply holding breath for 5-7 seconds and exhale. Focus on breath. This is the best exercise for throat and stomach. It also results in the increase in concentration level. After doing this f...